SOURCE: Portillo Trambley, Estela and Faye Nell Vowell. “A MELUS Interview: Estela Portillo-Trambley.” MELUS 9, no. 4 (winter II 1982): 59-66.

In the following interview, Portillo Trambley discusses the portrayal of women in Chicano literature, influences on her work, and her love of writing.

[Vowell]: Could we begin by talking about how you decided to become a writer?

[Portillo-Trambley]: I really didn't think about it seriously until after I married and had children and found out I had to do something besides raise children and teach school. The first bilingual theater here in El Paso was started back in 1968. A group of four people from the university and about three other people who were interested in writing were doing translations of American plays. Or we would take some old Spanish play and try to put it on, because we called ourselves bilingual. But during one of these very desperate, frustrating periods...