Comic Cristela Alonzo

Summary

Fresh Air – Comic Cristela Alonzo

Date: September 29, 2025
Host: Terry Gross
Guest: Cristela Alonzo, Comedian, Actress, Writer

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Episode Overview

This episode of Fresh Air features an in-depth conversation with Cristela Alonzo, the trailblazing Mexican-American comedian whose life journey from extreme poverty to Netflix specials informs her candid and often hilarious standup. Terry Gross explores Alonzo’s upbringing in south Texas, her family’s immigration status, the challenges she overcame, and how those experiences shaped not only her comedy but also her activism.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Cristela’s Upbringing and Mixed-Status Family

• Immigrant Roots & Childhood:
  Cristela is the youngest of four, raised by her Mexican immigrant mother in a Texas border town. Her family lived for years as squatters in an abandoned diner, sometimes lacking electricity, water, and basic comforts.
  • “For the first seven years of her life, Cristela, her mother, and three siblings were squatters in an abandoned diner in Texas with a toilet on the outside.” (01:31)
• Mixed Status:
  Half of her family was undocumented. Childhood was marked with anxiety over potential deportation.
  • “We had to share a bathroom and a birth certificate. It sucks.” (Cristela, 00:49)
  • “You always wanted to make sure that you did your job well enough to where you were hoping that your mother wouldn’t be taken away from you.” (Cristela, 04:09)
• Strategies for Safety:
  As a child, she and her siblings would make a scene in restaurants so their mother, undocumented at the time, could leave and avoid border patrol agents.
  • “My mom would have us... pretend that we're throwing a tantrum so she has to take us out of the building immediately to protect her.” (Cristela, 03:31)

2. Crossing the Border in the 1980s

• The Reality of Border Life:
  Crossing the border required a birth certificate, not a passport, but entailed intimidating questioning by border patrol, which Cristela likens to an interrogation even children had to endure.
  • “They ask you for your name, they ask you how old you are, and then they kind of go off of your answers...” (Cristela, 05:58)

3. Family, Culture, and Catholicism

• Mother’s Story:
  Cristela’s mother fled an abusive marriage, an act of defiance in their small, conservative village. Divorce was unthinkable due to strict Catholic beliefs, yet her mother left to protect herself and her kids.
  • “She became the first woman in her family to leave her husband. You never left your husband. You didn't divorce...” (Cristela, 09:06)
• Resilience and Compassion:
  Despite hardship and limited education, her mother instilled strong values of hope, love, and inclusivity—a compassionate brand of Catholicism.
  • “It was about hope, love and compassion. And that’s what she taught me... She was very liberal, but she had no idea she was liberal.” (Cristela, 12:08)
• Gender Roles & Strict Parenting:
  Her mother was fiercely protective, especially with Cristela as a daughter, keeping her close and enforcing strict rules.
  • “I was very Rapunzel. I was a brown Rapunzel.” (Cristela, 13:27)

4. Growing Up Poor: Daily Survival

• Economic Hardship:
  The family survived on Cristela’s mom’s kitchen and cleaning wages—sometimes just $150 per week for the entire family.
  • “How do you support five people on that? You don’t.” (Cristela, 14:45)
• Improvisation and Shame:
  Using neighbors’ electricity by extension cord, cooking on unsafe heaters, and bathing in homemade tubs were the norm—details Cristela now weaves into comedy.
  • “She would have the space heater and put the heat facing up. And that's how she would cook food on the space heater.” (Cristela, 15:11)

5. Comedy as Survival and Representation

• Making Pain Funny:
  Cristela found catharsis in shining a comedic light on the hardships and taboos of her upbringing, using humor as both escape and education.
  • “Now you’ve found a way on stage to make that funny and... to make it very public.” (Terry, 16:48)
  • “I kind of wanted to show people that the narrative that is presented about someone like me or my family wasn’t true for everybody.” (Cristela, 17:08)
• Breaking Stereotypes:
  Encountering disbelief that a Mexican-American woman from poverty could be eloquent and well-read; reveals how TV and libraries fostered her English skills.
  • “People thought I was lying about how poor I grew up because I spoke so well.” (Cristela, 18:32)
  • “That’s how I learned English. I started imitating what I heard on TV.” (Cristela, 18:56)

6. Inspiration from Television

• Role Models:
  Shows like Mary Tyler Moore and Murphy Brown offered templates of independence and ambition, filling gaps her mother couldn’t due to her own upbringing.
  • “TV really allowed me to learn things that my mom couldn’t.” (Cristela, 25:42)
• Dreams and Realism:
  Her mother discouraged big dreams—“dreams are for people with money”—but Cristela persisted, though her childhood fantasies were colored by her reality.
  • “Even in my fantasy, I can’t give Latinos better jobs.” (Cristela, 27:15)

7. Entrance into Theater and Comedy

• Teacher’s Influence:
  A drama teacher recognized her talent after a deadpan take on an acting exercise and moved her into an advanced theater program.
  • “‘Why aren’t you doing it?’ and I’m like, ‘I am. I’m a vacuum cleaner and I’m broken.’” (Cristela, 28:47)
• Transition to Standup:
  Attempts at Broadway were stymied by typecasting (“as a Latina, I could do West Side Story and Chorus Line”) and size bias in Hollywood. Standup provided a path to voice her own stories.
  • “I started watching comics and I was like, you know what? This is kind of like theater... I can write what I talk about. This is amazing. I’m gonna do standup.” (Cristela, 32:01)

8. Family Obligations and Personal Liberation

• Caregiver Identity:
  Becoming her mother’s caregiver, then helping her sister raise three kids, put Cristela’s own dreams on hold, a dynamic she explores in her specials.
  • “Once you raise a child one time, you never want to do it again. They’re terrible.” (Cristela, 36:12)
• Freedom After Loss:
  Her mother’s passing, though painful, freed Cristela to finally fully pursue her ambitions.
  • “I feel that my mom dying was so liberating... When she passed away, I thought, wow, I can finally chase my dream.” (Cristela, 36:45)

9. Financial Independence and Health

• New Realities:
  Professional success allowed her first experiences with financial security—doctor’s appointments, autopay bills, and buying a new car became revelations.
  • “I had no idea how doctors worked. I really didn’t. I had no idea.” (Cristela, 37:48)
• Taboos and Medical Literacy:
  Growing up, health conversations—especially women’s health—were deeply taboo in her family.

10. Activism and Role Models

• Dolores Huerta’s Influence:
  Meeting the United Farm Workers co-founder was a turning point; Huerta encouraged Cristela to use her public platform for advocacy.
  • “She says, I want you to use your power for good, and I want you to continue my work when I’m no longer here.” (Cristela, 43:07)
• From Personal to Community Care:
  Alonzo sees her activism as an extension of her family caregiving:
  • “For me, you tell me...I need to help someone, and I am going to show up. It is my nature. It is in my DNA.” (Cristela, 44:11)
• Comedy in Activism:
  Tailors her act for different audiences, using humor to make tough realities more accessible.
  • “I almost believe that I trick people into learning about my community.” (Cristela, 45:51)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On childhood fear and responsibility:

  “You always wanted to make sure that you did your job well enough to where you were hoping that your mother wouldn’t be taken away from you.”
  (Cristela, 04:09)

• On representation and breaking cycles:

  “Even in my fantasy, I can’t give Latinos better jobs. And then I started thinking about it, and you know why? ...They came here and had those jobs to get a better life so that their kids didn’t have to do those jobs.”
  (Cristela, 27:15)

• On why she does comedy about trauma:

  “I realize that people need to know that despite how I grew up, that I was able to go to school, I was able to be a great student. I kind of wanted to show people that the narrative that is presented about someone like me... wasn’t true for everybody.”
  (Cristela, 17:08)

• On generational change:

  “In a weird way, TV really allowed me to learn things that my mom couldn’t.”
  (Cristela, 25:51)

• On the impossible question about children:

  “People always ask me, when are you gonna have kids? I’m like, dude, I’m 46. At this point, if I get pregnant, that’s the second coming of Jesus.”
  (Cristela, 35:17)

• On moving from personal to community activism:

  “My default...I am a caregiver. My entire life has been caregiving. So for me, you tell me that I need to help someone, and I am going to show up.”
  (Cristela, 44:11)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Cristela’s early life/undocumented family stories: 00:49 – 04:50
• Mother’s escape from arranged marriage & abuse: 07:26 – 10:55
• Living as squatters; extreme poverty: 14:08 – 16:34
• Making hardship funny; TV and learning English: 16:48 – 20:21
• Influence of Mary Tyler Moore/Murphy Brown: 24:19 – 25:51
• “Lower Classy” fantasy/New Kids on the Block bit: 26:08 – 28:23
• Discovery of theater and journey to comedy: 28:47 – 33:26
• Caregiving for family, ‘Upper Classy’ on raising kids: 35:17 – 36:35
• Activism post-2016, Dolores Huerta’s mentorship: 41:11 – 45:51

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Tone and Atmosphere

Terry Gross approaches the conversation with characteristic empathy and curiosity, prompting Cristela Alonzo to move fluidly between humor, vulnerability, and incisive social critique. Cristela’s storytelling is heartfelt and honest, often punctuated by self-deprecation and laughter, even when addressing trauma and adversity. The overarching tone is one of resilience, candor, and hope.

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Summary

Cristela Alonzo’s appearance on Fresh Air is a testament to comedy’s power to illuminate, heal, and inspire. By turning the lens on her own extraordinary journey—from squatting in an abandoned Texas diner as a child of undocumented immigrants to breaking ground as a Latina in network television—she exposes the complex intersection of class, race, family, and ambition in America. Her advocacy and activism, mentored by icons like Dolores Huerta, combine with her standup to offer both representation and empowerment for marginalized communities. Most of all, Cristela’s humility, gratitude, and deep love for her family anchor a conversation that is as moving as it is funny.

Transcript

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[Terry Gross]

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. If you're not familiar with the comedy of my guest Christella Alonso, I think the best way of introducing her is with a clip. But first, I should set it up. Cristela is Mexican American, the daughter of Mexican immigrants. Her mother was living in Texas, undocumented and pregnant with Cristela, her fourth child, when she left her abusive husband and raised her four children on her own. Cristela grew up in a Texas border town. This clip, like much of Cristella's comedy, is autobiographical.

[Cristela Alonso]

My family, we're from South Texas. You know, we're from Mexico, and, um, that's South Texas. It's South Texas. It's kind of South Texas. It's like South Texas. I grew up in a mixed status family. If you guys don't know what that is, that means that half of us were documented, half of us were undocumented, and we're not telling you which one's which. Guess what? We all look alike. We didn't have a lot of money growing up. You know, we had to share a bathroom and a birth certificate. It sucks.

[Terry Gross]

That was from Cristella Alonso's first Netflix comedy special from 2017 called Lower Classy. It was followed by her 2022 special, Middle Classy. Her new one, Upper Classy, is now streaming on Netflix. You can tell from the titles that class and money have been defining issues in her life because she grew up in extreme poverty. For the first seven years of her life, Cristela, her mother, and three siblings were squatters in an abandoned diner in Texas with a toilet on the outside. Cristela managed to get into a theater program in high school, win theater awards, study theater in college, but had to put her own dreams and ambitions on hold and quit college twice to care for her mother and help her sister raise her children. Eventually, Cristela broke through by performing across the country on college campuses. In 2014, she became the first Latina to create, write, and star in a network TV show. Her semi autobiographical sitcom, Cristela, ran for one season on abc. Cristela Alonso, welcome to FRESH air. It is a pleasure to have you on the show.

[Cristela Alonso]

It is so good to be here. And I love hearing you sum up my life, because I think that sometimes we forget the. The things that we have gone through in our own lives. So to hear it from someone else is kind of a really wonderful reminder.

[Terry Gross]

Oh, good. Can we talk about. What the clip was about was that half of your family was undocumented. Can we talk about that without worrying about your family being deported now?

[Cristela Alonso]

Yes, we can. They're all citizens now, so that's very exciting.

[Terry Gross]

How old were you when your mother became a citizen?

[Cristela Alonso]

Well, actually, she ended up getting her resident alien card. That's the highest she got. I was about 10 years old when she got her card. So for the first 10 years, it was a lot of us trying to protect her when we were in public.

[Terry Gross]

How would you do that?

[Cristela Alonso]

Well, you know, in the border town that I grew up in, in McAllen, Texas, it's a border town, so you had border patrol agents out in public, you know, just kind of living amongst you because they were working near the border. So if we went out to eat and there was one of them there, my mom would have us, you know, either try to make some noise, pretend that we're throwing a tantrum so that she has to take us out of the building immediately to protect her, and we would have to play along because we wanted to make sure that she was safe.

[Terry Gross]

How worried were you at the time?

[Cristela Alonso]

I was terrified. You always wanted to make sure that you did your job well enough to where you were hoping that your mother wouldn't be taken away from you. And I was an American citizen, and it's weird to have that much power as a little kid and that much stress. And I think that's why, with what is happening now, living in Los Angeles and seeing the ICE raids, it reminds me of. Of me being a child trying to protect my mother. And I had forgotten the feelings until I saw what was happening now. And it. It brought it all back.

[Terry Gross]

What has it been like for you recently in la, and what was it like for you when the National Guard troops and Marines were just showing up in la?

[Cristela Alonso]

It was kind of unbelievable. You ask yourself, you live in the United States, and you live in Los Angeles, one of the biggest cities in the country, and it's happening here. So there was a moment of disbelief. And then once you realize that it was happening, I personally started remembering the immigration sweeps that happened in the 80s in my hometown, where a lot of times you would not see your friends anymore because their parents had been deported. Their immigration raid came and, like, just deported people at a factory, at a company, what have you.

[Terry Gross]

You grew up in a border town on the American side of The Texas border. And the town was just about all Mexican and Mexican American. And you used to cross over the border a lot to visit family on the other side in Mexico. What was crossing the border like then? This was in the 1980s, during the Reagan administration.

[Cristela Alonso]

Yes. Back then, you didn't need a passport, you needed a birth certificate. Passports kind of became a required thing. Later on, when I became kind of, I want to say, around a preteen teenager, you could just pass back and forth as long as you had the birth certificate. A lot of times when you're a child, you're crossing the border and the border patrol agents want to ask you all of these questions to make sure that you are who you are, that you're not someone from Mexico that they're trying to bring in, you know, quote unquote, illegally. So they ask you for your name, they ask you how old you are, and then they kind of go off of your answers and decide, what more am I going to ask her? So as a little kid, it's what's your favorite school subject? Who's the name of your favorite teacher? What's the name of your elementary school? And it's all of these questions. And I remember going through the border one time with a cousin of mine who's older than me, and he was a little bit on the spectrum and had trouble answering a couple of questions, and they detained him, and we were held over for a long time. And that is something really heavy to deal with. But at the same time, it became kind of your normal thing, your normal way of life, that you were so used to it that again, you didn't realize how big it was until later, until you got older.

[Terry Gross]

Your mother raised you, your sister and two brothers, that's four kids, on her own. And she was on her own because she left her abusive husband. Would you describe how she ended up being married to him against her will?

[Cristela Alonso]

Yes. So my mom grew up in a little village in a little ranchito in Mexico called El San Carron. Back then, it was like in the middle of nowhere. And my mom grew up very Catholic. And it was this thing where her parents were very strict, her mother was very strict, and people couldn't date. You actually had a lot of arranged marriages, a lot of times where girls would be engaged to older men, you know, because the men had all the power. And the men, if there wasn't an arranged marriage, the men had all the power where they could kidnap the women and take them from their house.

[Terry Gross]

Do you mean literally kidnap?

[Cristela Alonso]

Yes. So the Women, once they were taken from their home, they were basically this man's property. And that's how my mom and my dad ended up together. And it was this culture, this environment where the women were submissive to the men. You know, my mom and my dad got married through the church, so they couldn't divorce. You know, my mom left my dad, but they never divorced because they were Catholic. That was how much my mom couldn't do it. So she stayed married to him. But after they got married, because he was a man, he would drink a lot, be very physically abusive to her, had another family. That's the thing that made my mom leave my dad when she discovered, well.

[Terry Gross]

The church doesn't approve of that.

[Cristela Alonso]

Absolutely, you know, Absolutely. So it was this thing where, you know, she became the first woman in her family to leave her husband. You never left your husband. You didn't divorce, you didn't separate. You stuck through and you dealt with it. And she decided to leave him with. I mean, this woman had, like a second grade education, couldn't speak the language here, and she decided that that was better than staying married to my dad.

[Terry Gross]

So they were. And this was at the point where they're already in the US they had.

[Cristela Alonso]

Been coming back and forth from the US And Mexico. So they would come here and then they'd go back to Mexico. They were trying to establish a life here, but then they would go back for a couple years. It's one of those. It's really off and on. That's the thing that I think is one of those perspectives in immigration that we don't talk about enough, is immigrants come to this country mostly out of a need. It's in search of this opportunity that they don't have at home. But if my parents could have made it happen, if they could have had a decent life, they would have stayed in their home, they would have stayed in Mexico. But they decided ultimately the United States was a better opportunity for their children. And, you know, when my mom left my dad, because she was such a Catholic woman, she told my dad that his punishment for being such a terrible person is to have no contact with his children ever again. And he was never going to be allowed to ever meet me. And I never met my father my entire life. There were times where he tried to reach out, and my mom never let him because she didn't want me sullied by having known him.

[Terry Gross]

I'm thinking of how brave your mother must have been to be in the U.S. undocumented, pregnant with you, three other children. She had and like leave your husband, have no real income. She ended up working at restaurants, but, you know, they were not exactly high paying jobs. She didn't have a home. Was she very brave in other ways too?

[Cristela Alonso]

Yes. And I think that, you know, I think that's something that I really try to make a point in talking about a lot on stage as well, is that in my experience, the immigrants that I grew up with and knew were so brave and they never understood that they were brave. They never gave themselves credit for doing everything that they did. And with my mom, she was such a religious woman. She just loved Catholicism so much. But the way that she had accepted religion, the way that she accepted Catholicism and taught us to do it, to believe in it, was to have faith and that everyone was worthy of being a person that had respect and was treated well. When I was a kid, our neighbor was. We had a gay neighbor that lived right next to us and another neighbor that was gay that lived catty corner to us. And she always made it abundantly clear that we were always supposed to treat everybody. The lesson was, if you're gay, it doesn't matter. You're a person, you deserve to be loved and supported. And it was from the Catholicism. And it's interesting to me because the way that we talk about religion right now in this country is. It's not, it's not the way that I learned it. It's about hope, love and compassion. And that's what she taught me. And it was part of her strength. In a weird way. She was very liberal, but she had no idea she was liberal.

[Terry Gross]

She wasn't so liberal with you though. She was very strict with me.

[Cristela Alonso]

No, she wasn't. She was very strict with me.

[Terry Gross]

She didn't want you to go outside.

[Cristela Alonso]

No. Yeah, she was very strict with me. And I think a lot of it had to be because she was a single mother and she was doing it all on her own. And I think that by keeping me inside, she thought that was the safest way to protect me. She didn't want me dating.

[Terry Gross]

She wouldn't be there to protect you because she had to work.

[Cristela Alonso]

Exactly. I was a latchkey kid. You know, I started being left alone by, you know, right after we moved from the diner. So, you know, 8 years old, because my brothers were. They started working to help support the family, you know, so I would stay by myself. And yeah, I was very Rapunzel. I was a brown Rapunzel, you know, so. But it was that thing where I didn't know better. I Didn't know what I was missing out on because as children, you think everybody lives like that.

[Terry Gross]

So your family was so poor and your mother was supporting the family through four children on her own. What kind of job did she have?

[Cristela Alonso]

She was trying to do any kind of physical labor that she could do. She would clean houses. She started washing dishes at a restaurant, at a Mexican restaurant, and then she eventually became a cook at another restaurant, at a Mexican restaurant. So she started working nights, the dinner shift, and then she realized that she needed more money, so she started working double shifts. So she worked double shifts for years, and she would make about $150 a week was her pay.

[Terry Gross]

How do you support five people on that?

[Cristela Alonso]

You don't. It. It was really hard. The way to survive is a lot of rice and beans. You ate the same thing over and over again. A lot of times where we didn't have any utilities, any. Any electricity, you kind of made do with that. A lot of times we didn't have hot water. First of all, in the diner, we had this.

[Terry Gross]

Explain again that you were squatting. The family was squatting in an abandoned diner.

[Cristela Alonso]

Yeah, we were squatting in this abandoned diner on the main street of my little hometown, San Juan, Texas. It's Nebraska Street. And this little diner, we had neighbors. There was a little house next to this diner, and my mom used to use an extension cord. They would let her use an extension cord for a fee. Like she would pay the neighbors a little bit to borrow some electricity. And in the winter, she would have the space heater. And this is before the space heaters had safety features that would turn off the heater when they tipped over. So my mom would have the space heater and put the heat facing up. And that's how she would cook food on the space heater.

[Terry Gross]

That sounds really dangerous.

[Cristela Alonso]

It is. But, you know, being hungry is even worse. You know, in the winter when it was cold, she used to have this like. Like a 10 gallon pickle tub from work that she would fill up with water and she would warm it up. And that's how we used to shower. We used to stand in the middle of this washtub. She'd fill up this big bucket of water, warm water that she warmed up in the space heater. We would get a little cup and we would. We would fill the cup with water and then pour it on our bodies. And that's how we showered in the winter.

[Terry Gross]

Were you known as the family that lives in the abandoned diner?

[Cristela Alonso]

No, we were very private. We didn't really Have a lot of friends outside of our family. We were very insulated, and I never told anybody where I lived.

[Terry Gross]

It must be so interesting to be on stage doing comedy about all these horrible things from your childhood that you could have been in legal jeopardy for, that a lot of your family could have been deported for. And now you've found a way on stage to make that funny and of course, to make it very public.

[Cristela Alonso]

I think it's so necessary to talk about it, though, because I realize that people need to know that despite how I grew up, that I was able to go to school, I was able to be a great student. I kind of wanted to show people that the narrative that is presented about someone like me or like my family wasn't true for everybody. A lot of times, if you're not familiar with the Latino community or namely, like Mexican Americans or anything. When I moved to college, I went to College in St. Louis for a year when I first moved. And I. It was the first time that I realized I was a minority. And it. It wasn't until I moved away from my Mexican little border town that I realized that people were going to treat me the way that they thought I should be treated based on their assumptions on who I am. Meaning that if they were unfamiliar with me, they would ask me a lot of tropey, stereotypical, offensive questions that I would have to answer because they wanted to get to know me.

[Terry Gross]

What kind of questions?

[Cristela Alonso]

They wanted to know how I was smart.

[Terry Gross]

How could that be possible?

[Cristela Alonso]

Yeah. People thought I was lying about how poor I grew up because I spoke so well.

[Terry Gross]

Let me stop you for a second. Is that because you watched so much TV when you were a kid? You were. You had to stay home. TV was your friend. Music was your friend. You learned a lot about America from tv. Is that where you learned, like, this perfect English, no accent kind of sound?

[Cristela Alonso]

Yes. My mom had this rule. My mom was a Spanish speaker, never spoke English. She had a rule at home. We couldn't speak English at home, we had to speak Spanish so that she knew she could understand everything that was being said in the house. Having said that, when I was a kid, I loved TV so much, I started imitating what I heard on tv. The voices, the accents, everything. That's how I learned English. But when I was a kid, I loved shows like Murphy Brown. I don't know why. And I think the closest thing that I could understand is my mom used to make me translate the news to her as a little kid. So when I was a little kid, I'm translating all of these big things, these big ideas to my mom. So I think that when I watched Murphy Brown, I recognized some of the names from the news, and it made me feel smart. It's like this kind of comedy. The words, the vocabulary. I was a big word nerd. I did all the spelling bees, you know, I did the scripts, spelling bee, like the regional when I was in fifth grade. I love vocabulary and I just liked learning. I was a big public library person. I would go to the library. That's how I spent my summer vacations when I was a kid. I would go to the public library and read because it was free.

[Terry Gross]

So let me reintroduce you. If you're just joining us, my guest is comic and actress Cristella Alonso. Her new Netflix comedy special is called Upper Classy. We'll talk more after a break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH air.

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[Cristela Alonso]

Hi, this is Molly Sivi Nesburg, digital producer at Fresh air.

[Terry Gross]

And this is Terry Gross, host of the show.

[Cristela Alonso]

One of the things I do is.

[Terry Gross]

Write the weekly newsletter, and I'm a newsletter fan. I read it every Saturday after breakfast. The newsletter includes all the week shows, staff recommendations and Molly picks, timely highlights from the archive. It's a fun read.

[Cristela Alonso]

It's a also the only place where we tell you what's coming up next week.

[Terry Gross]

An exclusive, so [e-mail] fresh air and look for an email from Molly every Saturday morning. Your mother taught you that when you're poor, as you were, there's no time for pleasure and there's no time to relax. And she felt that you were just like relaxing while she was around, she would give you projects to do. So what were, what were your responsibilities at home when you were growing up?

[Cristela Alonso]

When I was home, I was the person, oddly enough, that I used to put all the furniture together, like I would do. Do it yourself projects. When I was in high school, I wallpapered our house while other people were going to prom, going to school dances, all the paperwork. You know, my mom, there were four kids, and my sister eloped when she was 18. I was about 8. Right when we left the diner, she eloped. And she was the one that did all the paperwork. So when she left, I had to do all the paperwork. I would pay the bills with my mom. My mom didn't have a bank account. She did everything, cash. So all the utilities, you know, the, the phone, the water, electricity, we would go. We would have to go to the post office. I, a little kid, would have to order money orders for the amount that we were going to pay. And then depending on the utility, we would have to walk because we didn't have a car. We didn't drive, my mom didn't drive. So we would have to walk to the location where we could drop off the bills for the electricity, water, everything. So I was really into. I was really helping my mom with, like, budget household things my entire life.

[Terry Gross]

You know, we were talking about TV before and how you learned so much about America. You learned to speak with an American accent from television. And you loved Murphy Brown and you were wondering, like, why did you love it so much? So it was either in one of your specials or in your memoir that you mentioned that you love the Mary Tyler Moore show because Mary Tyler Moore was this, like, independent woman.

[Cristela Alonso]

Yes.

[Terry Gross]

And she didn't have children, she didn't have a husband, but she had a really interesting life. And that affirmed the kind of life you wanted to have. You wanted to be independent, you wanted to have a job, you wanted to have an interesting life, a more worldly life, and maybe Murphy Brown, maybe that was the same kind of thing.

[Cristela Alonso]

Oh, absolutely. You know, when the Mary Tyler Moore Show, I was obsessed with, and to me, television from the 70s, it was revolutionary because it really allowed, especially if you were familiar with Mary Tyler Moore after, like, the Dick Van Dyke Show. What an evolution from Dick Van Dyke to the Mary Tyler Moore Show. I mean, the evolution of a woman, you know, being able to just, you know, she's the single woman, she's working in an office. It showed such a change. And. And I've always felt that in my family, we're a Little behind as coming from a Mexican family. We're a little behind on social standards, social cues, where, you know, I want to say that women got the right to vote here in, like, 1920, and I want to say that in Mexico, they got the right to vote around 1950, 1954. So there's like, a 30 year gap between American women getting the right to vote and Mexican women getting the right to vote.

[Terry Gross]

That's really great.

[Cristela Alonso]

Especially. Yeah. So in a weird way, TV really allowed me to learn things that my mom couldn't.

[Terry Gross]

So your mother told you that dreams were for people with money, and you didn't have any. So I want to play another clip of your comedy, and this is about your dreams and your fantasies, and it's from your first Netflix comedy special called Lower Classy.

[Cristela Alonso]

When I was in fourth grade, I realized I was poor because I was a really big fan of New Kids on the Block. Loved them, Right. I couldn't afford to see them in concert, right. So I had this fantasy when I was a kid, you know, that I was gonna meet them and they were gonna fall in love with me.

[Terry Gross]

Right?

[Cristela Alonso]

No joke, you guys. This was the fantasy. Fourth grade, I was gonna be the maid on their tour bus, and I was gonna clean things so good that they were gonna fall in love with me. Like, in my head, I thought they were gonna get on the tour bus, and they were gonna be like, oh, my God, who made that bed right there? You know what I mean? Oh, my God, this tour bus is so clean. Who made that bed right there? Who made that bed right there? Who made that bed right there? You know, like, yes, yes. And then I would say, I made that bed, and they would be like, we love you now. And I'm like, ah, that was it. That was in fourth grade. Then 20 years later, I thought about that story I looked at back, and I was thinking, why the I a maid in my own fantasy? Like, even in my fantasy, I can't give Latinos better jobs. And then I started thinking about it, and you know why? It's because a lot of the women I knew, that's what they did for a living. They cooked at restaurants, they cleaned houses. They came here and had those jobs to get a better life so that their kids didn't have to do those jobs. And when I understood that, I realized that as a woman, I wanted to break that glass ceiling, you know? Yeah. But as a Mexican, I want to clean that too. You know what I mean?

[Terry Gross]

So that's my guest, Cristela Alonso from Her first comedy special, Lower Classy. Her new comedy special on Netflix is called Upper Classy. So that's a really, really funny and really, really revealing clip. But you did have a dream, Like, a real dream. Your dream was to be in theater.

[Cristela Alonso]

I did.

[Terry Gross]

How did you discover it?

[Cristela Alonso]

I was in choir in junior high. The school got the choir program defunded, so I had to switch. I wanted to do something Art in the arts still. So eighth grade, I switched over to theater. I had this, like, really basic acting class. My teacher, Mr. Honnell, had this exercise. It's very Chorus Line. You know, he's like, I want everybody to pick an appliance and that they're going to act out. They're going to pretend to be. And then when I say, go, you're going to act out that appliance. Make the noise of it, blah, blah, blah. And he said that, and I didn't do anything because I thought it was so ridiculous. And then he came over to me and he's like, why aren't you doing it? And I'm like, I am. I'm a vacuum cleaner and I'm broken. And literally the next day, I get called in to the office, the principal's office, and the principal tells me that my drama teacher, Mr. Honnell, has changed my schedule to put me into this advanced theater class. I had no idea what that was. Got so upset, went to him, went to his room, got so upset because my best friend and I were going to have different lunch periods. And that made me furious. He was like, you need to do. You need to do this. He's like, you have to do this. I need you to do this. Yes.

[Terry Gross]

It was basically doing nothing. You were refusing to do his assignment, and you found out a great cover story for that, a great disguise for that, that you should be doing more theater as a result.

[Cristela Alonso]

And we're still friends.

[Terry Gross]

Wow.

[Cristela Alonso]

He actually. He went to the taping of my first special.

[Terry Gross]

You are lucky.

[Cristela Alonso]

Yeah. I am very grateful. The teachers, my drama teachers, I am very grateful for. I'm still friends with them. I've always said it's like, without Mr. Honnell, I don't know what I would have done.

[Terry Gross]

So did you want to be in music theater?

[Cristela Alonso]

Yes. Oh, my God, yes. I wanted it so much. Couldn't afford dance classes, couldn't afford singing lessons. So I took it upon myself to just record movies that I could get off the TV on my vcr. I'd learn their dances. Then when I got to high school and started, you know, auditioning for college. They were like, oh, you can sing. And I was like, I can. I had no idea. And yes, I wanted to be on.

[Terry Gross]

Broadway, but you ended up in stand up comedy. How did that happen?

[Cristela Alonso]

Well, you know, I wanted to do Broadway, and then a voice teacher when I was 18 years old told me that as a Latina, I could do west side Story and Chorus Line. And then I was kind of done. And it was weird because at that moment, I felt like somebody had said that my dream was limited and I had no chance to do it. And I ended up doing some kind of theater, but I couldn't get auditions and I stopped doing theater. And then I decided to move to LA to try to be in TV and film. Then when I moved to la, they were like, well, you have a crooked tooth and you're plus size, so I don't know how that's gonna work for you. I'm like, wow, this is really great. You know, like, oh, sold. You know? So it became this thing. I was working as an assistant at a travel boutique. My mom ended up getting sick. My brother told me that she was on her deathbed and I had to come home. Quit my job, went to Texas to see her. My mom got better, I showed up and she got better. And she asked me to stay with her and be her caregiver until she passed away. And I decided to do that because I had been taught that my job was to take care of my family my entire life. When my mom passed away, I was stuck in Dallas. We had moved to Dallas because we moved in with my sister, which is where the premise of my sitcom came. It came from that time of my life where I was taking care of my mom and helping my sister raise her kids. My mom died, I was stuck, and I needed a job. And I responded to this help wanted ad that needed office help. And it was at the comedy club in Dallas, the Improv. And I became the office manager. And I started watching comics and I was like, you know what? This is kind of like theater. It's like you're on stage, and then I'm like, wait, I can write what I talk about. This is amazing. I'm gonna do standup. Stand up is like theater. And I was completely depressed. I was grieving my mom's loss, and I went up on stage and started talking about my family. And that's how it happened.

[Terry Gross]

Let me just take a break and reintroduce you here. If you're just joining us, my guest is comic and actress Christella Alonso. Her new Netflix comedy special is called Upper Classy. It's a follow up to her two previous specials, Lower Classy and Middle Classy. We'll be right back. This is FRESH air.

[Cristela Alonso]

On the plus side, you get sponsor free listening to over 25 NPR podcasts. On the minus side, you get fewer chances to tap Fast Forward on your podcast player. On the plus side, you get to support something you care about. On the minus side, you like challenges and think this makes it too easy. So why don't you join us on the plus side of things with NPR? Learn more and sign up at plus.NPR.org the Trump administration has moved fast to change U.S. policy, but much of the.

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Business likes a stable environment, so uncertainty does cause a little bit of pain.

[Cristela Alonso]

On the Sunday Story from Up a road trip across the country to hear how Trump's policies are impacting everyday Americans.

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Listen now to the Sunday story on.

[Cristela Alonso]

The up first podcast from NPR. On NPR's wild card podcast, actor Matthew McConaughey says it's important not to over commit creatively.

[Terry Gross]

What can happen and where ambition is led me astray is you end up with a bunch of fricking campfires and no bonfires.

[Cristela Alonso]

Listen or watch that wild card conversation on YouTube, the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Terry Gross]

So I want to play another clip and this relates to how you put your dream on hold to move back with your family and then after your mother died, to help your sister raise her kids. So I want to play a clip from your new comedy special, Upper Classy. And you're talking about not being married and not having children.

[Cristela Alonso]

I'm 46 years old. I'm not married. I don't have kids. People always ask me, when are you gonna have kids? I'm like, dude, I'm 46 at this point. If I get pregnant, that's the second coming of Jesus. Like, oh my God. I always tell people, you should never ask people when they're gonna have kids. It's none of your business. Because some people don't want kids. And that should be a good enough reason they don't want them. Then there's other people that want them and can't have them. Why you bringing it up? And then there's people like me that we don't talk about enough. I already raised children. I helped my sister raise her three kids. Like three kids from like babies to adults. And let me tell you, Emmanuel, once you raise a child one time, you never want to do it again. They're terrible. They don't tell you that they're terrible. I feel bad for parents. God, you get tricked because when people say they want kids, they usually mean, I want a baby. No one ever says, aye, I want a 17 year old.

[Terry Gross]

That's really funny. How were you able to exit that life and return to the life you were trying desperately to build for yourself?

[Cristela Alonso]

It sounds terrible to say this, but I feel that my mom dying was so liberating to me because my mom had chosen me to be her caregiver. When I was a little kid, she told me that when she got older, I was going to be the one to take care of her. And I took that on because she had done so much for me. She sacrificed so much for my family. How could I not do what she wanted me to do? So when she passed away, I thought, wow, I can finally. I can finally chase my dream. If I don't do it now, I'm never gonna do it. And that's what I decided to do.

[Terry Gross]

So eventually you started doing comedy shows. You.

[Cristela Alonso]

Yes.

[Terry Gross]

Did college tours, doing comedy at colleges around the country, and you eventually had enough money that you could buy things.

[Cristela Alonso]

Yes.

[Terry Gross]

You were amazed you were able to see, like, doctors.

[Cristela Alonso]

I had no idea how doctors worked. I really didn't. I had no idea.

[Terry Gross]

It's a great story that you go to a gynecologist and you have no idea what part of your body she's about to examine.

[Cristela Alonso]

I had no idea.

[Terry Gross]

Embarrassed.

[Cristela Alonso]

And let me tell you, I grew up in the kind of family where it's not the kind of conversation you have with. I had with my sister. My sister and I wouldn't talk about that. We were raised so conservative that we never talked about, like, OB GYNs. She had three children. It's like I almost didn't know how she had them. Like, you know what I mean? It was like. It's like that thing where we just didn't talk about it. Medical attention is such a luxury to so many people. I had to learn how to work with it, how to deal with it. I say it in the, in the last special. Like, I didn't know what a checkup was. Like, why would you go to a doctor when you're not sick? Like, people just go. It was such a foreign concept. But, yeah, you know, I started having money where I could put my bills on autopay. I could go to the doctor. I could buy a car. I bought a new car, like, 10 years ago. How. How was I able to do all of this stuff? I was always so grateful for the most basic things that I couldn't afford when I was a kid. I still go through that.

[Terry Gross]

Yeah. If you're just joining us, my guest is comic and actress Christella Alonso. Her new Netflix comedy special is called Upper Classy. It's a follow up to her two previous specials, Lower Classy and Middle Classy. But we'll be right back.

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[Terry Gross]

So there was a period, and I think this was after your first Netflix special, and it was around the time that Trump was serving the first year of his first term, that you were very depressed during that period and you gave up comedy for a while and became more of an activist working with immigrants or people who wanted to become citizens but were undocumented. What led you to do that? And I also just wonder, like, how you were changed or affected by the experience.

[Cristela Alonso]

In 2015, I was doing a show. I was doing a standup show in Bakersfield, California. And I was doing a meet and greet after the show. And I see this little old woman walking by. And I tell my best friend Steve, who opens for me on the road, I'm like, I think that's Dolores Huerta. And he was like, who? And I was like, hold on. And I yell Dolores to see if she turns around. And she does. And I was like, I will be right back. I have to go meet this woman.

[Terry Gross]

She co founded the United Farm Workers.

[Cristela Alonso]

Yes, she Started the United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez. She's, you know, civil rights icon with the farm workers movement. I actually knew of her from one of the summers that I went to the public library. They didn't teach about her in my school. I learned it on my own. And she had gone to see my show. Her daughter took her, and I couldn't believe that she was there. And we just became friendly. And then I want to say, I started meeting people from the sitcom. People asked me, well, do you want to be in this campaign about immigrants? Do you want to talk about immigrant reform? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Absolutely. Yes. Let's talk about this. I ended up getting invited to the White House to basically host this little gathering about dapa, which was the daca, sister program for the parents that were undocumented, and it no longer exists. But I went, was this the Obama White House? Yes, the Obama. Oh, yes, it was the Obama White House. It was the Obama White House. And I met Dolores at the White House, and we bumped into each other, and she says, I want you to use your power for good, and I want you to continue my work when I'm no longer here. And I'm thinking, well, that's kind of a big ask. And at that point, she and I had already talked a bit, but having the White House as a backdrop of that moment made me realize that it's what I wanted to do. And she and I became friends. She became my mentor, and she started teaching me about the power of your voice and how it was so important to use your power for change.

[Terry Gross]

It sounds like she became kind of like a maternal figure for, like a mother figure in a mentor kind of way, and said, you have to do this for me in the way your mother used to say that. But they gave you opposite messages. Like, your mother said, you have to stay home and help your family. And I guess it's a similar message. Huerta's telling you, you have to use your voice and stand up to protect people. And it's your larger family. Do you know what I mean? It's family in the larger sense that they're in the position you were in, and now it's your turn to help them. It's not your blood family, but it's your larger social family.

[Cristela Alonso]

And that's actually how I took it. Exactly how you said it. That is how I took it. Because my default. I am a caregiver. My entire life has been caregiving. So for me, you tell me that you. That I need to help someone, and I am going to show up. It is my nature. It is in my DNA. It's my default. So the moment she and I became close and I, you know, I became friends with her kids, and I started just seeing her more. And during election year for, you know, we would. We would go and do voter registration, voter outreach. We would go to these house meetings out in the middle of the fields with, like, farm workers. Like, I was so into trying to have that message that she has, which is coming into your power and using it for change.

[Terry Gross]

Where did you think you were most helpful? Like, what did you feel you could do that would be of most use to the people who you wanted to help?

[Cristela Alonso]

You know, I think that one of the biggest things for me is really actually putting a face to a community that is kind of invisible at times. I think that by being specific about my life and talking about it in standup, it allows others to know that a lot more people have things in common than they are different. I think that the way that I was most helpful is to. Is to help give a narrative that doesn't sound preachy. I almost believe that I trick people into learning about my community.

[Terry Gross]

Do you do different comedy in a more activist setting than you do, say, for a Netflix special?

[Cristela Alonso]

Yes, because it depends on the topic that I'm doing, where I'm going. You know, I'm diabetic. I'm type 2 diabetic. So there's certain events that I talk about health, and I do a whole thing about being diabetic. Right. That's the beginning of this big thing where you talk about how important it is to eat better, to take care of yourself, to go to the doctor. You know, I talk about how, especially in. With a lot of Latinos, a lot of Mexican Americans that I grew up with, they find out they're diabetic, and it's almost like a fun fact about them. They don't do anything about it. You know, they're just like, oh, it turns out I'm diabetic. It's like, what are you doing? Oh, plus, nothing. You know, you're just like. It's so weird. You're supposed to try. You're supposed to try to fix it, you know?

[Terry Gross]

Well, Cristella, it's really been a pleasure talking with you. Thank you so much.

[Cristela Alonso]

Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it.

[Terry Gross]

Cristela Alonso's new Netflix comedy special is called Upper Classy. It's a follow up to her first two Netflix specials, Lower Classy. And middle classy. Tomorrow on FRESH Air, our guest will be Grammy winning music producer Mark Ronson, who's written a new memoir called Night how to be a DJ in 90s New York City. It's a love letter to late Night New York City, recounting how his early DJ days shaped him as the producer behind hits for Amy Winehouse, Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga and more. I hope you'll join us to keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews. Follow us on Instagram prfreshair. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Annmarie Bodonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Sivi Nesper. Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Groves.

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