"On the strength of what happened with This Bridge Called My Back, I was suddenly credentialed. Suddenly I had the authority to speak about my own life and get paid a lot of money by a university to do so. Because that book had broken into — had been picked up by women’s studies all over the country and was being taught. As a high school dropout I suddenly was an authority, I was an expert, and I was getting called up and asked to come speak about being both Jewish and Puerto Rican, about being an immigrant, about the particular position that I held. And it was a very odd experience to go from complete outsider to academia to being brought in as a lecturer and being paid hundreds of dollars."