Silko grew up on the Laguna Reservation in New Mexico and is a Pueblo Indian of mixed ancestry-Cherokee, German. Northern Plains Indian, English. Mexican, and Pueblo. She reflects her diverse' heritage in her writing (from the biographical notes for Laguna Woman):

"I suppose at the core of my writing is the attempt to identify what it is to be a half-breed, or mixed blooded person; what it is to grow up neither white nor fully traditional Indian. It is for this reason that I hesitate to say that I am representative of Indian poets or Indian people. I am only one human being, one Laguna woman."

She was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in March of 1948. Her father, Lee H. Marmon, helped at his parents' grocery store and was a photographer for the U.S. Army. Her mother, Virginia, also worked. Left with her two sisters...