Following his wife's death, Phillips's father, wanting a change of scenery, relocated the family to Buffalo, New York, where they lived for nine months while he worked as a bartender. They subsequently returned to California, settling in Pasadena. In June 1951, two days after Phillips's seventh birthday, the family relocated again to Mexico City, Mexico, where her father had enrolled to study sociology on the GI Bill at Mexico City College. Phillips spent the following six years in Mexico, where she attended public schools and became fluent in Spanish. Throughout her childhood, Spanish remained Phillips's primary written language, though she later learned to write in English. She resided with her father and sister in the Roma Sur district of Cuauhtémoc. Phillips recalled that hers and her sister's experiences living in a different culture "helped us get over my mother's death, and instead of grieving, we became very strong, independent, and free."