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.

I got a message from one of my friends in Puerto Rico, who said, 'Sonia, there's nobody working in Puerto Rico - they're all glued to the television'. And I got a similar message from a friend in Spain.

I am a product of affirmative action. I am the perfect affirmative action baby. I am Puerto Rican, born and raised in the south Bronx. My test scores were not comparable to my colleagues at Princeton and Yale. Not so far off so that I wasn't able to succeed at those institutions.

The idea of a commonwealth relationship is alien to most people but I think that's true generally.

There are cultural biases built into testing, and that was one of the motivations for the concept of affirmative action - to try to balance out those effects.

You can't dream unless you know what the possibilities are.

When you marry young, you run the risk that you'll grow in different directions.