When young Gloria Velasquez, daughter of migrant farmworkers, moved with her family from Colorado to Texas and back again, she often wondered whether she would ever graduate from high school. Through determination and hard work, she did, graduating from Roosevelt High School in Johnstown, Colorado. Undaunted by the poverty of her early life, Velasquez later attended the University of Northern Colorado and earned a Ph.D. from Stanford University. She's now a professor in the Modern Languages and Literatures Department of California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California.

By May 2001, when the Texas House of Representatvies recognized Dr. Gloria Velasquez for her involvement in Voces Latinas: Hispanic Reading Series for Young Adults; she had come a long way from the cotton and beet fields where she and her family once toiled. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, including a Chicano Literary Prize, the University of North Colorado's hall of Fame, Who's Who among Hispanic Americans, and others, Velasquez continues to be an activist, a poet, and a humanitarian. Her culture is an essential part of her writing. She emphasizes, "Without my culture, I have no identity, no soul, no face. Nada."

Velasquez adds, "I've always been a writer. My aunts say as a little girl I was always writing poetry, but I always date it back to my first guitar that my parents brought me from Juarez, Mexico. I was a young girl, seven to nine years old, and I started writing songs, taught myself to play an instrument. Later in high school, I authored my own high school newspaper, which featured my friends, since we weren't involved in the local high school newspaper, and I would write satirical poems, etc. for it."

Velasquez takes pride in her mixed Dine (Navajo) and Mexican American background. "It is very beautiful to be bilingual. I never learned my third language, Dine. My grandfather spoke it a little when I was a young girl. Being a bilingual is having a dual identity. This is what I tell my university students. I feel blessed to be able to create either entirely in Spanish, entirely in Engish, or naturally bilingually, as I do with some poems like Educate or America. I is a natural part of my soul."

Roosevelt High, the only Latina-authored book series featuring multicultural teens, began in 1994 with the publication of Juanita Fights the School Boards. The story focuses on prejudice and discrimination in a California school district where Juanita Chavez, daughter of Mexican American farmworkers, is expelled from school after getting in a fight. The series features a multicultural group of friends and Dr. Sandra Martinez, a Latina counselor and advocate for minority students.

A specific social issue is addressed in each novel of the series. Maya's Divided World (1995) concerns the problems of Maya Gonzales, the only child of wealthy, well-educated Mexican-American parents, after her parents' divorce. Volume three of the series, Tommy Stands Alone (1995), is the first young adult novel about homosexuality by a Latino author. Book four is Rina's Family Secret (1998), in which a Puerto Rican teen struggles to cope with a home situation where her stepfather physically abuses her mother. Ankiza (200o), the series' fifth novel, deals with the reactions of schoolmates and friends to the fact that Ankiza (who's African American) and Hunter Bianchi (who's Italian American) are dating.

It's possible to discern influences of the author's life in the Roosevelt High series. She might be Juanita, daughter of farmworkers in a school insensitive to minority student issues, in Juanita Fights the School Board. Certainly there are striking similarities between Dr. Sandra Martinez, and educated professional woman of color, and the author. The main character in Tommy Stands Alone echoes the real-life experiences of the author's cousin.

Although Velasquez's novel deal with serious societal issues, they're realistic without being depressing or hopeless. They offer teens of all ethnic groups the opportunity to read about the lives of others and to develop empathy and understanding, qualities that often seem lacking in society today.

For readers who are looking forward to the next Roosevelt High book, the author says, "Currently I am finishing book six of the RHS series, one that I have had planned for years. It is on teen pregnancy, an issue I care about. As I tour on and off the Rez [reservation], there are more and more teen moms present. They always want to know my message, and they are excited to know that they can succeed as my character does in book six."

Along with Gary Soto, Diane Gonzales Bertrand, and Ofelia Dumas Lachtman, Velassquez has been a trailblazer in writing original fiction about latinos for teen readers.

She's also the author of a book of poetry, I used to Be a Superwoman, and a CD of poetry and music, Superwoman Chicana. A second poetry book, Xicana on the run, will be published in 2003. Independent filmmaker Lourdes Ortega currently is working on a documentary of Velasquez's life. Within her writer's portfolio of prospective publications she has a Christmas novel for young readers, a children's book (Dogtown), and plans for several more Roosevelt High novels. In the gradually expanding field of Latino-authored literature for children and young adults, the dynamic Dr. Velasquez continues to teach, write, and inspire by providing role models, both fictional and real.