Pam Muñoz Ryan

Biography

Pam Muñoz Ryan (born 1951 in Bakersfield, California) is the granddaughter of Esperanza Ortega, the real woman on whom this novel is based. Her grandmother emigrated from Aguascalientes, Mexico, as a young girl and worked in the San Joaquin Valley labor camps. Ryan grew up hearing Esperanza's story and transformed it into a novel after decades of the family oral tradition. She did not know Esperanza directly but interviewed family members who did. Ryan is of Mexican, Basque, Italian, and Spanish descent and grew up near the fields her grandmother once harvested.

Pam Muñoz Ryan at a glance