Article Title
Camino a las Estrellas
Abstract
A teenage girl wearing a giant coat waddles onto an empty football field during the New Mexican summer. Her pockets are bulging with rocks and weights. She begins her work out. The director told Sylvia Acevedo she wasn’t strong enough to carry a full set of drums for the upcoming marching band season, but she was going to prove him wrong. Camino a las Estrellas is an autobiographical account beginning with Sylvia's childhood in Las Cruces, New Mexico. She spends the early years of her life speaking Spanish and participating in Mexican traditions among people who look and sound like her. However, after her toddler sister's scarring bout with meningitis, Sylvia's mother insists they relocate to predominantly English-speaking part of town complete with a mortgage, paved streets, and a middle-class school. Eventually, she earns an advanced degree, begins a career in engineering, and achieves the presidency of Girl Scouts of America.