Pretending to be a princess is fun, but it is definitely not a career.

I had many reasons for writing memoir but among them was the hope that every Latino child and adult would find something familiar in it.

When you come from a background like mine, where you're entering worlds that are so different than your own, you have to be afraid.

The truth is that since childhood I had cultivated an existential independence. It came from perceiving the adults around me as unreliable, and without it I felt I wouldn't have survived. I cared deeply for everyone in my family, but in the end I depended on myself.

I do know one thing about me: I don't measure myself by others' expectations or let others define my worth.

The schools that suffer are the schools in, in poor neighborhoods. They are the neighborhoods with the greatest need, with the parents struggling to work and to make ends meet. They don't have enough resources to give, they don't have enough resources to pay more, and these are the neighborhoods that go first.

Oh my God, I don't think you can say anyone looks forward to controversy.