What's in a Name?

Edna Espinoza

Edna Espinoza- Salvadorian-American ancestry; Edna Espinoza is Mia Vasquez-Rivera's childhood best friend back in Ft. Hood, TX, who has a tendency to anger her teachers by pointing out their inaccuracies in front of the class. She is a unique individual who is often described as funny, playful, understanding, protective, courageous, and smart, with an extensive knowledge of unusual facts. She is a big fan of the Guinness Book of World Records and enjoys researching other little factoids that can be found on the internet. She was originally born in Boise, Idaho to a father who owned a juice company before enlisting in the army to make ends meet. Edna is known for being very creative and has an aptitude for the sciences, while showing a similar talent for analytical writing and debating. She was nevertheless held back in kindergarten because she was not emotionally ready at the time, making her slightly older than most of her classmates. Sensible, honest, and opinionated, she is generally a straight A student and first bonded with Mia when she helped her understand fractions while she was struggling with her schoolwork. She is a bright girl who is known to befriend people easily, connecting rather quickly with Mia when she was struggling to fit in back in Texas upon first moving to town in the third grade. Even though she is not very openly expressive to most people, Edna is friendly, empathetic, supportive, and encouraging to others during tough times and will defend her friends against those who would do them harm. She is a very passionate and eager person who genuinely enjoys school and learning harder subjects that the rest of her peers don't like. She is also highly interested in space, especially rocket science and medicine due to her great-grandfather's history of having polio. 

She entered her school's science fair a few times when she was elementary school, having once placed second for her carrot puller invention named F. R. A. N. K. Although she is unpopular and somewhat geeky in appearance, Edna was well-liked by her peers and often looked upon by others for advice or guidance, serving as the "fixer" among her friend group. She was seen as being "cool" in an offbeat way and always had a relatively relaxed demeanor when facing certain problems and new situations. By comparison to Mia, she would get along with most of the people she encountered and was known to be open and adaptable. She tends to be called upon a lot when her friends have technical difficulties but is also great fun to hang out with and helps out at her uncle's ice cream shop during the weekends. Edna is described as the type of nerd who will correct your fandom lore to your face, causing her to be regarded as "the kid who is always ruining the show" by her classmates. She was frequently seen eating lunch with Mia at school, as well as walking home with her since they lived in the same neighborhood. She is usually the one who is unaffected by the scams, cults, and mass influences that she has been subjected to and has a knack for seeing through falsely glorified practices and celebrities. She also has an amazing memory for the fiction she is consumed by and will recite miscellaneous facts with the accuracy of a wiki article. Despite being typically cheerful and good-natured, Edna knows when to draw the line, as shown after her classmate insulted and discarded her ideas for a school project. She finds it hard to pick sides when people close to her are in a fight and is constantly caught between two people that hate each other. She is an amiable person who is shown to be caring and compassionate, always being loyal to Mia and putting her friends' needs before her own. 

She will grow slightly hesitant if her initial impression of a person is too poor however, as her opinion of them will become a bitter one if it continues to persist. Edna's biggest weakness that proved to be her constant undoing is her inability to see the world from the point of others, instead trying to make others see her point of view. A notable instance of this was when she expressed jealousy of Mia's budding friendship with Hannah Quigley upon her moving to New York, feeling neglected and ignored by her childhood best friend. Mia conversely reacted in a similar way upon finding out Edna had become closer with their former classmate Riley Reynolds, a freckled girl with long reddish-brown hair that is sometimes styled in a half-up ponytail and falls in an untamable mass of frizzy, gingery curls. She is more inclined to do all her learning on her own and not make herself vulnerable to doing so in front of other people. Even so, Edna is not always above displaying her anger or holding a grudge, often finding it difficult to quickly make amends when she and Mia have a misunderstanding or a falling out. Despite being quite mild-mannered, she sometimes imagines vengeance when she feels defeated as well, as shown when she is defeated in a science fair by her classmate Daphne Zapata. If she is around someone who continues to bully everyone and make threats, she will reach a breaking point and won't afraid of shutting them down or making them look like a fool. While she can initially have difficulty apologizing and owning up to her actions, she will eventually rectify her mistakes however and is often willing to help anyone in need. Edna sometimes tries too hard to do good in the world and holds on to the belief that people can act heroically in the smallest ways.