ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a life narrative of the immigration experience of an adolescent who was forced to leave the comfort of her home town, acculturate, and adjust to a new world where she was faced with difficulties and losses. With vivid illustrations, she takes the reader step by step through her experience of oppression and sustained losses and successes after being transplanted to the East Bronx in New York City at the age of sixteen. She transformed her difficulties into gains applicable not only to her personal life as daughter, spouse, mother, and friend but, just as important, to her professional life as a Latina Psychologist, serving as a role model to other Latinas as well as functioning as a psychotherapist, supervisor, researcher, and author. She takes the reader through the complexity of losing and finding one’s voice from the point of view of language, culture, and feminism, including vivid illustrations of how these concepts have been applied throughout her career as a practicing psychologist and to the empowerment of other Latinas. This experience has also propelled her to be a constant vigilant in her profession, making sure that there is a valid scientific understanding of the relevance of culture and gender, specifically as it relates to Latina Psychology.
