This TED Talk features writer Gabby Rivera recorded live at Ted Salon Radical Craft 2018.

At no point did I think superheroes would become such a huge part of my life.

As a kid, I looked at them and I saw everything I wasn't.

They had big muscles, supermodel good looks, and phenomenal cosmic powers.

And me?

I kind of looked like this, except shorter and with frisier hair.

And I never felt powerful.

I was always just one big ball of nervous, soft energy,

and superheroes, much like the bullies at school,

didn't seem to have a lot of room for that, for me.

So I stayed away.

And besides, who needs superheroes when you're surrounded by Puerto Rican women from the Bronx?

My tias were cops and paramedics.

My abuelas were seamstresses and sold jewelry up the street.

And my mom got her master's degree in education

and taught kindergarten in New York City public schools

for over 30 years.

So my superheroes were sitting around the dinner table with me.

And I don't know how much time you've spent

with Puerto Rican women from the Bronx,

but we're also some of the world's greatest storytellers.

And I'd sit there at my grandmother's dining room table, and I'd listen to the women in my family

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