One trait that most people associate with children is innocence. Stress and problems bounce off of children because they are too young to worry about issues that affect more than the little world that they are absorbed in. One of those problems is racial prejudice. When people are children, they believe there are no boundaries until specified. Most children do not think that there are rules about which races they can and cannot interact with.
Children have minds that are the truest and closest to pure that humans can get.
Therefore, they do not believe in the racial boundaries that exist in their society. That corruption usually takes effect after many years of exposure. The actions of Sylvia, a girl in elementary school, show the reader that there is an order to society even among the minorities. This order is enforced by Sylvia and is beginning at an early age. While Sylvia is of the more dominant race in her neighborhood, Elena is not.