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" \n How did you preserve her voice? Jenni left so many things set, in her manuscript she even put chapter titles and what song she wanted. I&amp;#039;m hoping one day we can share the manuscript, but eventually you&amp;#039;ll see she had notes everywhere. She left it almost completely done because she was always writing, it was easy to know how she felt; we included that and put it in her own words. You only had to do a bit of punctuation, but the very end is what I helped complete. I asked myself how do you end her story, its almost like it has no end, Jenni used to say the same thing. Thank God she left everything ready so we just had to put it together and make it pretty. You knew Jenni had some cojones, but how hard was it to read about the ugliest moments in her life? What was the hardest time for her? As her little sister and confidant we told each other almost everything. In the book how she described the rape and the aftermath, and that&amp;#039;s how I knew how hard it was. She never let us be depressed, but she was and she didn&amp;#039;t let us see it. But even then I love how she overcame it and found a source to help her daughter and me. It was heartbreaking for her sister and her daughter to go through that. In 2007, Jenni&amp;#039;s ex-husband, Trino, was convicted and jailed for repeatedly abusing you and her daughter, Chiquis. How did you both get over this tragedy? We talked about everything, I told her when I was 16 and she completely believed me, and now I know it was because she could relate. We never talked about details I never asked her how she felt. I didn&amp;#039;t want her to feel guilty about choosing this man and bringing him into our family. When she passed I had no regrets, we told each other we loved each other every single day. Lord I wish I had been able to tell her don&amp;#039;t feel guilty. I wish I would&amp;#039;ve asked her but I never had the courage. In January her assistant gave me the book. The first chapters were the sexual abuse and I finally knew how she felt. It hurt her that my childhood was robbed. Even though she&amp;#039;s with the Lord I feel peace now. She&amp;#039;s in heaven, but I feel it&amp;#039;s settled. It was a healing process for me to read them so openly it healed me and made me feel closer to her. I can go back and remind myself she&amp;#039;s okay, and I&amp;#039;m okay and we have no regrets. How do you think Jenni was able to keep going through all of the tribulations? My sister is an amazing woman, she would never allow herself to stay down. No matter what she was going through she would cry, she was a woman, but she found a way to see the positive. When she was pregnant, she threw a joke in there &amp;quot;Could it be the holy spirit?&amp;quot; It could be painful and traumatic, but she tried to make herself laugh and gave herself words of encouragement. She always spoke positively. If she was bankrupt, she would talk about driving a Phantom, people thought she was crazy but it was her giving herself positive reinforcement. You&amp;#039;re too fat, you have 5 kids, people don&amp;#039;t like your music, even if it was just her supporting herself she did. Philippians 4:13 is her favorite bible verse. She repeated it to herself all the time, &amp;quot;I can do all things through Christ.&amp;quot; She really believed in herself, fake it &amp;#039;til you make it, she sometimes had to but she decided never to stay down. She wouldn&amp;#039;t allow us to stay down. She would make the choice to be happy, to be successful. As a child someone told her dream big because you can achieve anything. I guess it stuck. How fundamental would you say growing up in the LBC was for you and your sister? I think it made her part of who she is. It was a low-income city for the most part. Jenni would call it &amp;quot;Gangsteriffic.&amp;quot; Had she grown up in Encino, it would have been different: She would have had less drive and less love for the community. It helped her say &amp;quot;I need to do something better, get educated and work hard.&amp;quot; She never forgot where we lived. Helping each other in the community, whether it was with groceries or rent, that spirit made her who she was. Who did Jenni look up to growing up? Artistically, all the rancheras. She loves Vicente Fernandez. He invited her to sing on stage with him\u2014it was a small triumph for her. The rancheras are all we heard\u2014Beatriz Andrade, Lupita D&amp;#039;Alessio, she&amp;#039;s raw and strong worded. She was in love with Ricky Mel\u00E9ndez, and Ricky Martin from Menudo. When she met him and performed with him, I asked &amp;quot;So did you kiss him?&amp;quot; It was that normal for us. She also looked up to Oprah and modeled herself as an entrepreneur and community organizer after her. Jenni would love to be on Oprah&amp;#039;s book list for one day for Oprah to say this woman was amazing. What was Jenni like as a businesswoman? Jenni was a businesswoman first before she was an artist or anything else. She just wanted to get her children ahead. She worked in swap meets since she was 12. It was key for her to become a singer but to support her family, if she didn&amp;#039;t see money she wouldn&amp;#039;t have done it. Being a teen mom is tough and extremely common in our community. How do you think Jenni was able to be a wife, businesswoman and such an amazing mom?  I think if she hadn&amp;#039;t been a single mom and had those kids she loves so passionately, she&amp;#039;d be different. They drove her to try harder, dream bigger and be more successful. She gave them as much time as she could. She wasn&amp;#039;t only a mom, she was a father who supported them financially and she embraced both roles with pride (and she expected Father&amp;#039;s Day gifts too). She spoke very openly with her children about sex, drugs, school and dreams. How has the Mexican community changed from when Jenni started, in terms of accepting such a strong woman? I love to say my sister changed the game. She could be that woman that sang corridos, and we embrace them we say go for it girls! She was one of the first to sing English songs with banda. People thought she was messing it all up and now you see others doing it. Now we see the industry embracing the not-so-perfect woman, and she can have an opinion. She can sing other than gushy love songs, she can sing about being a mom and different experiences. She changed regional Mexican music and I love that. Any woman now can get up and sing, and my sister paved the way. How do you feel about your relationship toward the end of her life, especially considering what you went through together? I&amp;#039;m at peace. The last time I spoke to her my battery was dying. It was Saturday around 5pm and we were joking about how she was going on a date. &amp;quot;What&amp;#039;s the point of dating if you won&amp;#039;t let me bone?&amp;quot; Chay said. In those bbm&amp;#039;s we said I love you and I love you more. She was so open. In the end, I know we&amp;#039;re both at peace. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/interviews/a4532/rosie-rivera-interview/>