Esmeralda Santiago's childhood in Puerto Rico exerts a profound influence on her writing. The eldest of eleven children, Santiago was born in Puerto Rico in 1948. At the age of thirteen Santiago, her mother, and her siblings moved to Brooklyn, leaving her father on the island. Soon, Santiago began to experience a lifelong conflict between her Puerto Rican background and her newer identity with mainstream American culture. This identity conflict forms the basis for a large portion of her work, much of which is autobiographical in nature.

Although she knew little English at the time of her relocation to Brooklyn, Santiago had mastered the language well enough to enter the highly selective High School of the Performing Arts in Manhattan only two years after her arrival on the mainland.

After attending community colleges sporadically over a period of eight years, she won a full scholarship...