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I grew up in a small town in Puerto Rico and in a Detroit ghetto. My father was a steelworker and my mother a seamstress. I did not have models of Latino teachers or academics during my elementary school experience in Detroit; I met the first Puerto Rican teachers when we went back to the island during my junior high school years, but that was after going through the Spaniards and Costa Rican priests and nuns of the first school I attended. Coming to an Ivy League institution as a faculty member from that background was significant enough. I must admit, I was in a place beyond my childhood dreams. There was a point in my life as a graduate where I imagined staying in academia, but as a friend later put it," the big deal" was being granted tenure at an Ivy League institution. I never doubted my intelligence or my ability, I just did not know much about this world nor did I know what to do about tenure. It seemed an overwhelming task at first, but then things became clearer. I am satisfied with the outcome, but to others I wish a smoother road. As I think about what really seems most important in retrospect, I realize it is not the" club membership" so much as what is learned on the way there. I will not indulge in a life history because that is not my purpose here. Suffice it to say that not only was I a female from a working-class family and of Puerto Rican background, but I was also a single parent of one growing female child. Given my circumstances, every choice I made, professional, political, and otherwise, was deeply personal. I came to understand that I had to make choices about what I wanted, what I was willing to sacrifice, and what was worth the …