Cristela Alonzo

Alonzo was born in San Juan, Texas, the youngest of four children of mother Natalia Gonzalez, who worked double shifts at a Mexican restaurant for about 20 years, and father Adalberto Alonzo, who is Mexican. When Alonzo\'s mother was pregnant with Alonzo, Alonzo\'s mother left her abusive husband and raised the children alone. Alonzo has said that she never met her father, who died in 2009. Alonzo grew up in San Juan, Texas.\n', ' She has three siblings, older sister Julisa Maria Alonzo and older brothers Eloy Eduardo Alonzo and Ruben G Alonzo. Alonzo\'s mother came from the small village of El Zancarron in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. Throughout her childhood, on her mother\'s weekly day off, Alonzo spent time with her paternal grandmother in Reynosa, Mexico, just across the border.\n', ' For the first eight years of Alonzo’s life, the family squatted in an abandoned diner, and were homeless and destitute, even with her mother working double shifts as a waitress. She often went hungry, and had problems with skin pigment due to a lack of nutrition. Alonzo said her mother often used humor to offset the abject poverty. Alonzo learned English from watching TV as her family spoke only Spanish at home; her mother never learned to speak English. Television was a way for the family to stay inside, avoiding the violence from drug trafficking in their neighborhood. Alonzo would translate American shows into Spanish and act them out for her mother. Alonzo and her mother were inseparable. Alonzo and her mother shared a bed until Alonzo turned 18.\n', '