Elaine Del Valle first garnered critical acclaim with her autobiographical, Off-Broadway stage play, Brownsville Bred for which she won the 2011 HOLA award for excellence in playwriting, and was named Trendsetter at the Multi-Cultural Media Forum. The play chronicles Elaine’s true Nuyorican (New York-Puerto Rican) coming-of-age amidst the deteriorating backdrop of 1980’s Brownsville Brooklyn. Brownsville Bred was subsequently published as a YA novel and became a Publisher’s Weekly BookLife Prize Quarter-finalist before being named “Most Inspirational Young Adult” book by the ILBA (International Latino Book Awards) 2020. Elaine’s book is a part of American-Latino Cultural studies in schools and universities.