Sylvia Lizárraga's abiding concern with sociopolitical issues and the struggle for social change has been her major preoccupation as a creative writer, essayist, and teacher. Born in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Mexico, Lizárraga is the daughter of Pedro M. and Carmen Sarmiento. A successful blacksmith in Mazatlán, Pedro Sarmiento believed in the value of education and secured math and English tutors for his children. According to Lizárraga in an unpublished 1986 interview, the strong emphasis on education in her early childhood encouraged her to begin high school at the age of thirty-two.

In 1940, at the age of fifteen, Sylvia Sarmiento married Roberto Lizárraga, and their first two children, Alba and Bobby, were born before their move to San Diego, California, in 1946. Their two younger children, Marta and Esteban, were born in California. In 1957, when their youngest child started kindergarten...