Nélida Cuiñas Piñon was born in May 3, 1934 in the middle class Vila Isabel area of Rio de Janeiro to Olivia Carmen Cuíñas Piñón, a homemaker and Lino Piñón Muíños, a merchant. Her mother was the child of Galician immigrants, her father a first generation Galician immigrant. She studied at Santo Amaro School as a kid (which had its library renamed after her in 2011), a catholic school runned by