Being Latin parents makes us extremely expressive with our affections.

My mom was definitely very strict with me.

You don't have to give up who you are to be successful just because you're different.

I'm very comfortable in my own skin now. I started just being myself more and more. For women, this happens as you get older. I loved my 40s - I thought they were fantastic. And I'm loving my 50s. I'm going to love everything because you're either older or dead!

Sometimes my mother had difficulty communicating with me about certain topics.

Well first of all, I'm a singer. I sing since I talk. So the great ballad singers, the people that sang with so much feeling, jazz, blues, all those singers, they were songs that I listened to, records that my mom played for me, and then later I bought.

I hold 'Mi Tierra,' my first Spanish-language album, very close to me because that was all done in my native tongue and won me my first Grammy.