Isabel Quintero


Isabel Quintero is a Mexican-American writer of young adult literature, poetry and fiction.

Early life

She was born in the Inland Empire of Southern California. Quintero grew up in the city of Corona. An elderly couple, Victor and Lucia Mejia, helped raise Isabel and her younger brother, and they became their grandparents. Quintero attended California State University in San Bernardino where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in English, and later a Master of Arts in English Composition

Career

She taught English at San Bernardino Valley College and Mt. San Jacinto College. Quintero also is a freelance writer for the Arts Council of San Bernardino and an active member of PoetrIE, an organization working to bring literary arts to Inland Empire communities. She wrote a young adult fiction novel Gabi, A Girl in Pieces, and two books for younger children, Ugly Cat and Pablo and Ugly Cat and Pablo and the Missing Brother. She has also written a graphic novel, Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide

Works

Quintero has published several books.

Books

A few key themes arise throughout Quintero's writing. In all but one of her published works, the protagonists are women. Quintero unwraps sexism and prejudice through both young and adult characters, in both adolescent and middle-aged periods of life. Gabi is coming of age, whereas Martha concludes in her coffin. The male characters often demand submission, as in Moanin' the Blues, and in Stories Our Mother Told Us and Mi Tía La Bruja, an element of magical realism dances around witchcraft.
Another key theme is racial inequality, especially that of the Mexican American community in Southern California and the southwest region of the United States. Quintero writes about the immigrant experience, often through the eyes of a first-generation character. She highlights the struggles of a working-class family and the socioeconomic status that binds the Mexican American community. In a 2017 interview Quintero stated, "Whenever I drive on 91 going toward Orange County, and I see the homes on the hills, I think about how much my dad worked in homes we could never afford...That is a strange paradox in which to exist." In the same interview, Quintero declared, "My writing is my activism."