Maria Ruiz (portrayed by Jessica Pimentel) is an inmate at Litchfield Penitentiary who has a one-year-old daughter, Pepa, who is raised by her boyfriend, Yadriel. She began working in the kitchen as soon as Gloria Mendoza was appointed head chef. She had six years remaining of her sentence as of the start of season 1. This sentence reaches six years once again in season 4 when she takes the fall for Piper‘s Felonious Spunk operation.
As a young girl, Maria’s father was the head of a Dominican drug cartel, who spewed Dominican pride and spat at Mexicans. In light of her father’s strong pride, she began to hate her heritage and rebel against her father.
One night, she spotted a young man, Yadriel (who would later become her fiancee and the father of her child), running from the cops and ditching his stash in the bushes. Running down to grab it and tossing it up into her house, she was caught and excessively patted down by the cops. However, she escaped unscathed. She later brought the brick to Yadriel’s gym where he boxed, thus starting their relationship. Maria shared her dreams of becoming a Dental Hygenist (“I could help people smile, you know?”). Even then he didn’t speak much, but he always dreamed of opening convenience stores at gas stations. Their relationship eventually evolved to the point where she was torn between loyalty to her father and to Yadriel, a decision that was easily made for Maria. When her father kicks her out for dating him, a Mexican, she willingly leaves, pointing out that he and her father make their living the same way, and never regrets her decision.
Maria was pregnant and gave birth to her daughter in season one; we saw her taken away to the hospital to give birth in chains, and then return depressed. The child was immediately taken from her and she immediately returned to her place behind bars, leaving her exhausted fiancee to raise their daughter. In season one, she mentions how her cousin molests family members, but other than that, we do not know much about Maria’s life on the outside.
We know that her family is having money trouble. As if matters aren’t already bad enough, Maria is placed on Natalie Figueroa’s revenge list of transfers to a prison down south with Piper, which nearly almost destroys her and her fiancee. Knowing she will not be able to see her daughter, she begins telling her fiancee what to do so that their child doesn’t begin school already behind in learning. She has been reading studies that show that talking to the baby will help with her learning. Later visits reveal that her fiancee began talking to the baby, as she begged him to.
When Piper approaches Maria during the winter storm to acknowledge that they will be transferred together, Maria tells her that they “don’t know each other” and that they don’t have to pretend to be friends, even though they are both being transferred. When John Bennett delivers the news that Maria will not be transferred, for Caputo cancelled that order, she is more than elated at the news.
Despite the upturn of events toward the end of season two, Maria becomes jaded about her friendships within Litchfield. She becomes even more despondent when Yadriel tells her that he is going to stop bringing the baby for visitation because he doesn’t want her growing up thinking that this is “normal.” After a long while of moping and self-hatred, she realizes that she needs her baby more than her baby needs her.
She finally works up the courage to go and help Daya with her labor pains, despite the fact that this interaction could potentially send her into a downward spiral; however, when her friend talks about how irresponsible it would be to keep her own child, Maria gets offended and abandons her because she chose to keep her own child.
In season 4, Maria Ruiz steps up to the plate once she realizes that the women in prison racially break down into her favor, making the Latinas the most powerful group in prison. She grows closer to Flores, who seems to be both the wildcard and the backbone of Maria’s group.
Looking to make some money, she approaches Piper about employment in her business; however, when she humiliates her in front of her girls for uncovering her operation, she decides to start her own to screw her over. She soon finds out that her operation is more difficult than it looks, but she refuses to get into drugs to prevent herself from getting into trouble.
Despite her greatest efforts to operate legally, Piper feels threatened by her and sends the C.O.s in her direction. After being “caught” with a stash of underwear in her bunk that Piper and her crew planted there, she gets an additional three years added to her sentence, which sets off Maria and compels her to declare that she’s going to “bury” Piper. She and her women recruit a recently-outed Hapakuka to get Piper into an isolated room, so they can brand her with the swastika–the symbol of the group that allowed her to screw over Maria so awfully.
Aggravated by her foreseeable future, she ditches the panty business and begins selling drugs to make more money, feeling as though playing by the rules has screwed her over already.
Literary Litchfield 