In the realm of coming-of-age books, the stories can range from those about well-known and well-off white Anglo-Saxon and Germanic men, which was how the genre began a few hundred years ago, to those on the margins--the people you wouldn't expect to hear from, the poor, the women, those traditionally pushed to the sides and unheard. This book is about one of those just-beginning traditions: Latinas. Mostly, they are from the New York area, but there are others from other parts of the U.S. yet still in the Latina tradition: that is, of Hispanic origins, having moved or been moved to the U.S., dealing with the traditions already set for them as women in the Hispanic tradition, yet brushing up against a new world of English-speaking people and traditions, trying to transfer their traditional rural stories to the new world of huge urban cities. So the Latina coming-of-age tradition is much more complicated than the Anglo-Saxon and Germanic, involving as it does language, resettlement, alliance with two countries instead of one, and at least two traditions.