By age 15 she had learned enough English to be accepted by the Performing Arts High School; spent eight years studying at community colleges while working full time until she was accepted by Harvard with a full scholarship; 1976, graduated magna cum laude; also has MFA in fiction writing from Sarah Lawrence College.  She spent eight years studying part-time at community colleges while working full-time, until she was accepted as a transfer student to Harvard University with a full scholarship. Upon graduating magna cum laude in 1976, she and Frank Cantor, her husband, founded Cantomedia, a film and production company that has won numerous awards for excellence in documentary filmmaking. She has done extensive work for victims of domestic violence, including helping found a Youth Service Center and a shelter for battered women in Massachusetts. Her first book, a memoir of her childhood entitled When I Was Puerto Rican appeared in 1993 to great critical acclaim. 

Founded, with her husband, a film and production company that has made award-winning documentaries; helped found a shelter for battered women

"When I Was Puerto Rican," a memoir, was published in both English and Spanish in 1993; her first novel, "America's Dream," appeared in May; has written many magazine and newspaper essays about Puerto Rican culture

Santiago’s memoir of her Puerto Rican childhood culminates in her move to New York, where she gained an education, but lost the sense of belonging--within a family, within a culture--so strong in her childhood. Staying for the most part within the point of view of the child Esmeralda in the earlier sections of the memoir, Santiago communicates the textures of life (how to eat a guava, the ceremony for ushering a dead baby s soul to heaven) in Puerto Rico most vividly, while at the same time dealing concretely with family relationships and conflicts. Her journey to a new country, like that of many Puerto Ricans touched on in her book, recapitulates the assimilation experience of many American immigrant groups that came earlier, but with a critical difference: for Santiago’s compatriots, assimilation is not so obtainable.