Margarita Cota-Cárdenas has made a notable contribution to Chicano letters as a poet and novelist. Although she dealt with personal concerns in her early work, she later focused on feminist themes and social issues, approaching these with bittersweet humor at times, but always with sensitivity and compassion.

Cota-Cárdenas was born on 10 November 1941 in Heber, California, in the Imperial Valley. Her father, Jesús Cota, from Sonora, Mexico, and her mother, Margarita Cárdenas de Cota, from New Mexico, had been migrant workers until they established permanent residence in California, where they worked as contractors. The oldest of eight children, Cota-Cárdenas spent her formative years in a bilingual, bicultural environment in the Imperial Valley, and it was this environment that provided the setting and stimulus for much of her work.

She became interested in writing at an early age and was...