Anyone who says the artists and writers they study don’t influence them, directly or unconsciously, isn’t being honest. - Ana Castillo

I'm fairly certain that if you study any poet of any given time, any sex, any class background, the question of searching for identity is there. It's inherent. It is a process of self-understanding, of going through life. Take Pablo Neruda, ambassador for his country, writing poetry reflecting the issues of his life. What I'm saying is that the difference between me and Neruda is that I'm not a man from a middle-class elitist background. My government is not sending me as ambassador so I can go and write poetry in some other place. What is different with women of color is that they are the very last permitted a voice. What we are hearing now is this very unique, silenced, previously censored voice.

Destiny is not a metaphysical confrontation with one's self, rather, society has knit its pattern so tight that a confrontation with it is inevitable. (p59)

The early feminista understood the erroneous conceptions of the white woman's movement that equated sexism to racism because she was experiencing its compounding effects in her daily life.