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My father made me take three years of Latin in high school.

Sometimes, growing up, I tried to be very Latina; I would change my voice... experiment with my hair a lot, trying to figure out who I was in a primarily white school.

My education started with Latin taught at home by a governess, I can't imagine why, and for some reason I attended the Infants Department of the Oxford High School for Girls before moving to the Dragon School at the dangerous age of 8 or so.

My mom brought me up by herself, so I was a latchkey kid. I would walk myself back from school and spent a lot of time at home alone, watching TV. There weren't a lot of Latinas - or any women of color. And the ones I saw were usually presented as stereotypes or treated like jokes.

I definitely have some stereotypical qualities of being a Latina. I talk with my hands, which means I knock stuff over all the time.

Of course, I grew up hearing Latin music but, to be honest, aside from my personal circumstances, like most kids I wanted to rebel against what I considered to be such old fashioned fare.

I'm the kid that tried to take Latin in school because I felt if I could understand the root of everything, then I could understand why it worked. That was what took me into engineering. And the reason I stayed is, engineering teaches you to solve problems. It teaches you to think.

Somebody told me once I wasn't Latin enough, and that made me laugh.

I'm Latin, for crying out loud - I can't hold anything back!

My mother had been a Latin teacher, and she was always very fascinated with words. She and I shared books and responded to them.