User:Nimodo1

Annette Sandoval's writing is tightly bound to her experiences as a Mexican-American. The youngest of five children, Annette began life in the barrio neighborhoods of Santa Ana, California. She was named after a Mouseketeer—her mother wanted one of her children to have an "American" name.

Her parents were both born in the Mexican state of Jalisco. Her father, Manuel, worked in the orange groves in Southern California and later as a janitor in a convent, where he was sponsored for green card status. After securing work and papers, he sent for his fifteen-year-old bride, Felicitas.

Annette attended college at California State Fullerton, moving to San Francisco at the age of twenty-one. For the next decade, she used San Francisco as a base while she backpacked around the world, touringnearly every continent on her own.