You seem to be insinuating that perhaps Mr. Ramos didn't in fact face discrimination in his upbringing.  Do you think the community of Sterling and other rural communities are particularly friendly to LBGT folks?

As far as the words you have taken offense to?  I'd let that go. People understand Latino and machismo.  These aren't ambiguous words.  Probably why they are "convenient."  Which come to think of it...what exactly is the issue there?  You believe authors should write with inconvenient words that don't make sense or are so archaic the readers have to look them up?  I'm not going to ask her what Latino or machismo mean because I know what they mean. As I suspect you do too.