Who is Pilar Puente from Dreaming in Cuban and what is their importance?

Growing up in New York City, Pilar Puente feels neither American nor Cuban. She is born in Cuba, but leaves against her will with her mother at the age of two. Pilar has the same gifts as her grandmother, Celia, and can hear others' thoughts, see the future and visions of the dead. In this way, Pilar can recall everything that happens to her from the time she is born, including the idea that she was a cursed child that terrorized her nannies from her crib. After seeing her father, Rufino, with another woman other than her mother, Pilar decides to run away to Miami so that she can fly to Cuba. She spends all her money to get a bus ticket to Miami, but rather than sneak into her cousin's house, one of her aunts finds her and they call Lourdes to come pick her up, thwarting her dreams of Cuba.