While a grad student in the English department at Cal State L.A., Viramontes was told by a professor that she did not belong there because she was writing about Latino issues. Also, while attending a graduate program in creative writing at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) in the early 1980s, “a professor told me not to write about Chicanos, but to write about people.” She left the program, but returned to complete her MFA a decade later. In 1977, her short story "Requiem for the Poor" was awarded a prize from "Statement Magazine". In 1979, she won a literary prize from the Spanish department at UC Irvine for her short story "Birthday." She returned to the fine arts program at UCI in 1990 and graduated with a Masters of Fine Arts in 1994.