"Although I knew about Frida Kahlo back in Mexico, she really wasn’t that famous back home. But in the US she was a superhero. Everyone used her as a symbol for many different things. And I started realizing that I wasn’t sure that the sense some people have about Frida in the U.S. was the one I had from her. I wanted to learn more about Frida Kahlo through my own perspective. So I had this idea for a while about creating a book about her. I also wanted to because she was a woman who, in the creation of her own identity, from how she dressed to what she did to her political activities—all of those things, were part of her own pride in who she was. And it was through creating this identity that she also was creating art. It wasn’t only because of her painting [that I was inspired]. She was very proud of her Mexican heritage, and she showed it in the way she dressed and all sorts of things. I had just come to the United States, a place where I didn’t know how I felt about my identity as a Mexican woman, and it was her pride that had an impact on me and made me realize that I had things to be proud of too."