[3] Her maternal grandmother, Gabriela Menendez Henriquez (Mama Beila), a schoolteacher, who encouraged her to read Dominican poetry and books, was a stabilizing and influential figure in her childhood.

[1][4][5] Attending night school at Queens College, City University of New York, Cocco graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish and English literature in 1975.

[2][4] She had two more sons, Nunzio Andrew and James Louis,[4][6] and began working on her doctorate at CUNY Graduate Center, completing her Ph.D. in Spanish language in 1984.

[1] Her career at York College advanced and she became a professor of Spanish, chair of the Department of Foreign Languages, and in 1994 was promoted to president of the Dominican Studies Association.

[1] She is recognized internationally as a pioneering scholar, who has built a reputation for her studies of Dominican women and has received numerous awards and honors for her scholarship.