Ivans character trait and one quote from the book that supports that

Ivan Castillo is Isabel’s best friend and next door neighbor. Ivan symbolizes how refugees have to depend on each other to survive, but also the arbitrariness of the journey and death. Isabel is the only main character without a sibling for most of the novel, and Ivan takes the place of her closest friend and person that she survives for, who forces her to grow up. Ivan has “curly dark hair” and always wears his Industriales hat. He is a baseball player and “he was good enough that it wasn’t a crazy dream” (9). Ivan is the reason that Isabel is able to get to Miami, as it is his family that builds a boat out of scratch. But Isabel finds the gasoline by trading in her trumpet that gets them into the ocean. This exchange shows how often refugees have to depend on each other to escape and survive.