Judith Ortiz Cofer was born on February 24, 1952, in Hormigueros, Puerto Rico, to J. M. and Fanny Ortiz. Her family immigrated to the United States in 1956 when her father joined the U.S. Navy. The family made several trips back to Puerto Rico from their home in Paterson, New Jersey. In an interview for Melus she describes her experience in both cultures:

I write in English, yet I write obsessively about my
Puerto Rican experience. . .That is how my psyche
works. I am a composite of two worlds. . .I lived
with. . .conflictive expectations: the pressures from
my father to become very well versed in the English
language and the Anglo customs, and from my mother
not to forget where we came from. That is something
that I deal with in my work all the time.

Ortiz Cofer received a B.A. from Augusta College in 1974, an M...