When I was a child, poverty was a common suffering for everybody around me. A common suffering is a richness in itself. - Estela Portillo-Trambley

Deep in my psyche, I am no different than any American—I have a greater command of their language than they do. I am a composite of all of the heroines in the books I’ve read—legendary, mythological, fictional ones. I wonder if I am real? I want to be!

I was not really of the barrio, but the barrio was an important part of my life. Spanish was my first language; English was the language of my reading world. This was the world I lived in—an idealistic world, and unreal world that filled my senses with hopes, with joy and identification…

I’ve always been at the peripheries of the Chicano Movement because the Chicano world does not consider me Chicana enough. They, however, respect me as a writer…