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.

You make your life choices understanding that you might and do have to work harder to prove yourself.

In every position that I've been in, there have been naysayers who don't believe I'm qualified or who don't believe I can do the work. And I feel a special responsibility to prove them wrong.

People who live in difficult circumstances need to know that happy endings are possible. Page 1.

I had many reasons for writing this book but among them was the hope that every Latino child and adult would find something familiar in it. And my hope is that when they finish reading the book, that they will come away with a renewed sense of pride in our culture and in who we are. We get a lot of strength from that [culture and identity] and we should be proud of 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.

We apply law to facts. We don't apply feelings to facts.