He grew up in poverty. Portillo’s parents were immigrants — his dad from Mexico, his mom from Greece — who hadn’t graduated from grammar school. Living in the Mother Frances Cabrini public housing complex, on the site of what would become Cabrini-Green, his family was so cash-strapped that his mom once stole a pair of shoes from the nearby Montgomery Ward department store for one of her children. When he was about 5 years old, and the family was low on funds, his parents sold his tricycle.