Asked to write about how I became interested in social justice research, I realized that the question had two parts for me: how I got interested in social justice and how I got interested in research. To answer these questions, I found myself thinking back to my early adolescence, and to my mother. I remember a day when I was about 12 and saw a TV news report on poverty and hunger in some 49 underdeveloped" part of the world. When it was over, I flung myself across my mother's bed, crying. My mother came into the room and asked me why I was crying. I said something like "Mommy, it just isn't fair that so many people are suffering and starving, while others are rich." She comforted me by saying that we should try to do whatever we can to make the world a better place, even if we can't cure every world problem.