Fresh Air - Best Of: Dwayne Johnson / Comic Cristela Alonzo

Episode Date: October 11, 2025

WWE superstar Dwayne Johnson plays MMA fighter Mark Kerr in Benny Safdie's The Smashing Machine. "The Rock" spoke with Terry Gross about the role, his many injuries, and his wrestling personas.For the first seven years of her life, Cristela Alonzo lived in an abandoned diner in a south Texas border town. She spoke with Terry Gross about the culture shock of having money after growing up so poor and the recent ICE raids in L.A. Her new Netflix stand-up special is called Upper Classy.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from CBS. Survivor 49 is here, plus a new season of On Fire with Jeff Probst, the official Survivor podcast. It's the only podcast that gives you inside access to Survivor. New episodes are available every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts. From W.HY.Y in Philadelphia, I'm Terry Gross with Fresh Air Weekend. Today, Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock. At one time, he thought of leaving wrestling for mixed martial arts. He decided against it, but in the new movie, The Smashing Machine, he plays a pioneer of MMA.

Wrestling may be choreographed, but... In professional wrestling, it is always and only real blood, and that's the truth. Also, comic and actor Christella Alonzo, she grew up poor in a Texas border town. Until she was seven, her family squatted in an abandoned diner, until she was 10. her mother, a Mexican immigrant, was undocumented. 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.

Alonzo has a new Netflix comedy special. This message comes from Rinse, who knows that mastering the perfect house party table spread takes time. But so does laundry. So Rinse takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door, expertly clean. And you can take the time once spent sorting and waiting, folding, and queuing to finally pursue your real passion, rolling delicate roses of capicola alongside meandering ribbons of Amon Serrano, transforming a humble plank of weathered barnwood into a show-stopping charcuttery spread. Rinse, it's time to be great. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Dignity Memorial. When you think about the people you love, it's not the big things. you miss the most. It's the details. What memories will your loved ones cherish when you're gone? At Dignity Memorial, the details aren't just little things, they're everything. They help families

create meaningful celebrations of life with professionalism and compassion. To find a provider near you, visit DignityMemorial.com. Our common nature is a musical journey with Yo-Yo Ma and me, Anna Gonzalez, through this complicated country. We go into caves, onto boats, and up mountain trails, to meet people, hear their stories, and of course, play some music, all to reconnect to nature. Listen to Our Common Nature from WNYC, wherever you get podcasts. This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Terry Gross. My guest, Dwayne Johnson, is a wrestling star, known in the ring as The Rock. He's won eight WWE championships, and he's a movie star. His new movie, which he produced and stars in, is a perfect fit.

in which he gets to use his muscles, his fighting ability, and to show what a good and nuanced actor he can be, for anyone who may have doubted it. It's called The Smashing Machine, and it's based on the story of Mark Kerr, one of the American pioneers of mixed martial arts and of the UFC, the ultimate fighting championship. The movie is about the high of having tens of thousands of fans

cheering for you, the thrill of winning, and the physical pain after some fights when muscles are torn or bones are broken, and your face is smashed. Emily Blunt plays Kerr's girlfriend in a very combustible relationship, which strains under the pressures and pain of Kerr's career. Kerr is portrayed by Johnson as incredibly powerful and vulnerable, the paradox that I'd imagine characterizes many professional fighters.

Johnson plays both extremes very convincingly. He optioned the movie and brought on Benny Safdi to direct it, and Safdi's solo directing debut without his brother. Josh. The movie is based in part on a documentary about Mark Kerr, and many of the scenes closely follow the documentary, reproducing fights and statements made by Kerr. Dwayne Johnson's father was a pro wrestler, one of the first black stars whose ring name was Rocky Johnson. Dwayne Johnson's maternal grandfather was a Samoan pro wrestler, and his grandmother was one of the first Samoan pro wrestling promoters. Johnson's TV series Young Rock was based on his childhood and his

family. He also starred in the HBO series, Ballers. Johnson made his movie debut in the 2001 film The Mummy Returns. He starred in the spinoff, The Scorpion King, and went on to star in two Jumanji films, Fast and Furious sequels, the Disney animated film, Moana and its sequel, and Black Adam. He's hosted Saturday Night Live five times. Dwayne Johnson, welcome to fresh air. I really like this movie a lot. Thank you, Terry. Good to talk with you. I read that you considered becoming a mixed martial arts fighter, but you didn't. Why did you consider it and why did you not do it yourself? First of all, I realized I don't like getting punched in the face, so I prefer not to as these guys do. But in 1997, I was wrestling for the WWE. And my career

at that time wasn't going as planned. And it was actually going backwards, and I wasn't making much progress. And I wound up getting hurt. I tore a ligament in my knee. And so I went home. And when I was sitting at home, that's when I really started to question whether or not I was on the right path of being a professional wrestler. And the reason why I considered MMA at that time was because guys like Mark Kerr, who I met and a lot of his MMA fighting buddies at that time from Mark Coleman, Kevin Randleman, Don Frye. These are all guys who ultimately went on to become legends and godfathers of the world of MMA. And those guys were making a lot more money and they were wrestling out of Japan. And at that time, I was wrestling approximately

235 to 250 nights a year. So I was never home and I was wrestling every single night in a different city. And so the wear and tear of my body was already beginning to set in, and it was just year one for me. So at that time, I began to consider a career in MMA thinking, I know they're making triple the money that I'm making, and they're only fighting maybe five to eight times a year. So I did consider it, and it was the summer of 1997. And as I was rehabbing my knee, I got a call from the WWE, who said that we're going to bring you back at the end of the summer, but there's going to be one difference. And I said, what's that?

And they said, we're going to make you a heel. And so in wrestling... A villain. A villain. Yeah, exactly. And that's at Parlance. It's baby face is a good guy. Heel is a villain.

And they said, we're going to make you a heel when you come back. I said, great. I just want any kind of change. And I went back as a villain. and probably about three months later, the rest was history, and I took on the persona of The Rock. Can you describe the difference between your baby-faced persona and your persona as The Rock?

So my original name when I went in to WWE was Rocky My Via. And I hated that name because it was when I got into wrestling, as you said in my introduction, my grandfather was a pro wrestler, my dad was a pro wrestler, My grandmother was one of the first female promoters in pro wrestling. So I came from a long lineage. And while very proud of my family's history in pro wrestling, I also wanted to make it on my own. And I wanted to carve my own path.

And so they came up, WWE, came up with this name, Rocky My Via, a combination of my dad's name, Rocky Johnson, and my grandfather's name, High Chief Peter Maivia. So it was showing respect to my family lineage and all part of the good guy baby face persona. And I remember having a conversation with Vince McMahon, who was the owner at that time of WWE. And he said, when you go out every night, I want you to smile. I said, can I ask you why? He goes, I want to make sure that the crowd thinks and knows that you're grateful to be here and you're grateful for the opportunity. So I always want you smiling.

I want you to be the quintessential baby face. And I remember at that time, Terry, thinking, well, I feel like there might be other ways for me to show how grateful I am, but also this is a performance. And even before I went out with my big smiles as requested from WWE, it just didn't feel right to me. So I made my debut. and my very first match in WWE,

which was actually my very first match ever, and it was in Madison Square Garden. And I went out, and they had my match, and I wind up winning the whole thing, which was a pretty incredible night. And the smiles were consistent. Every night I would smile, but then what happened quite quickly

is the fans picked up on that, and it wasn't good because they felt and it was true that I wasn't being just real and authentic and they began to turn on me.

When you won that first match did you know you were going to win was a choreograph for you to win? Oh yeah, so that's the world of pro wrestling is you know

and we're well aware of who's going to win that night and who's not. That's why I'm always careful to say not to say how many people

I actually beat because it's actually I didn't you know and they allowed it to happen So everybody supports everybody. But yes, I did know that. Okay, so compare the baby face to The Rock.

Mm-hmm. So now when I get the call from WWE and says, hey, after your injury, when you heal up at the end of the summer, we're going to bring you back as a heel. And then that night I got on the microphone, and I said, Rocky My Via is a lot of things because they were chanting Rocky sucks, which was a lot of fun in that world.

When you have 20,000 people, Well, here's the thing. In that world, when you're a good guy and they're chanting, Rocky sucks, that's a death sentence. Now, when you're a bad guy and you say, hey, I may be a lot of things, but sucks isn't one of them. Then I said something that really lit the crowd and they just booed even more, but it was different back then because then I became a heel that night. and within three months I became the hottest heel in the company and the ascension happened pretty quick

but you know what Terry it was that moment was so defining for me because it really allowed me to step into my power and what I mean by that is just being real and authentic and even in this crazy world of pro wrestling every time I grabbed the microphone and I said something or every action that I did

came from a very, very real place. And it was like instantaneously, the crowd knew it. And they said, oh, this guy's holding up a mirror. That's who he is. And we love it. And then the rock was born. So there's a scene in the new movie, the smashing machine, where we see that Mark Kerr is known for the body takedown

by grabbing his opponent by the legs, by the back of his legs, and pulling up his legs so that the opponent is flat on his back while Kerr stands over him and smashes his face till it's all bloodied and, you know, the match has to end. There was a similar scene in your wrestling career. This was, I think, WrestleMania 14 against Ken Shamrock. And Shamrock knocks you out, gets you in an ankle hold. The announcers are speculating that he's broken your ankle.

You're bleeding from the mouth. I can't tell if the blood is real. Your head is hanging over the edge of the ring. and you're taken away on a stretcher. And Shamrock has won. The referee reverses his decision and declares you the winner because Shamrock refused to break the ankle hold. He gets into a rage.

It literally throws the ref out of his way, runs over to the stretcher as you're being wheeled out of the arena, and starts attacking you. So how much of that is staged and how much of that was real? Were you really hurt? Was that real blood? In professional wrestling, it is always an only real blood, and that's the truth. That night was WrestleMania, and I knew what the finish of the match was going to be.

I knew that he was not going to break the ankle lock, and the referee was going to reverse the decision. We knew that. We talked backstage. We rehearsed for hours and hours and hours. And prior to us getting to WrestleMania, myself and Ken Shamrock, we were already wrestling each other every night on the road. So by the time we got to WrestleMania, we had our chemistry, we had our alchemy, and we had a really, really great match that night. So the reason why I was bleeding from the mouth is because he suplexed me. And this is where a lot of times in wrestling, you can train, you can have your techniques, you can do your best to protect your guy, your dance partner, as we call it.

but sometimes just things hurt and you land in a way that hurts so he suplexed me and I landed in a way that really for the moment damaged my lungs and blood vessels and that's why I was spitting up blood so that was part of the match that we didn't plan but just happens

so I was on the stretcher which I knew the emblem was going to come and take me out it was all part of the finish so I did know everything that was going to happen that night but I did not know that I was going to start bleeding from my lungs. Oh, that sounds horrible. Did Shamrock know you were bleeding for real

and that you were seriously injured? He did. He asked me, there's ways that wrestlers can talk in the ring. And he says, hey, are you okay? And I said, I feel like I'm okay. At least I could breathe. Let's get through the match. And so we finished the match.

And I think, you know, looking back, it was one of those, that's happened to me a few times and it's happened to a lot of wrestlers too as well. If you're falling from six, eight, ten feet, and you land in a certain way, it's just the nature of the landing sometimes. My guest is Dwayne Johnson. He produced and stars in the new film The Smashing Machine. We'll hear more of our conversation after a break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air Weekend. This message comes from the 10% Happier Podcast. Dan Harris talks to scientists, meditation gurus, and even the Beastie Boys, to explore ways to stress less, focus more.

more, and master happiness. It's self-help for smart people. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life. Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors. On our new show, Sources and Methods. NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people, helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.

Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. So let's talk about your family. You're from a wrestling family. Your father was Rocky Johnson, one of the first black wrestlers, and he's in the WWE World of Fame. Your maternal grandfather was High Chief Peter Mayavia, who was a very well known in Samoa, professional wrestler. And your grandmother, his wife, took over the Polynesian Pacific Pro Wrestling organization after your grandfather. father died. And how did wrestling change between your grandfather, your father, and your era? Good question. It became global. And it became publicly traded. And it evolved from wrestling in very, very small venues to stadiums throughout our country and around the world. And I was lucky in a way, Terry, than that, my era, when I came into pro wrestling in the 90s, that was like the last man standing in terms of small promotions. So when I first got into pro wrestling, I didn't immediately go to the WWE because I wasn't ready and I was still green and I needed experience. So fortunately, there was a wrestling company called the USWA.

And that wrestling company was based out of Nashville and based out of Memphis. And I lived in Memphis, and that's where I started. And the reason why I said I was really lucky in that, because it allowed me to cut my teeth every night in I would wrestle in flea markets and barns and used car dealerships where people would come to buy a used car and there would be a ring in the parking lot. And you would see wrestlers. and I had a, my guarantee for wrestling a match every day was 40 bucks. That was my guarantee. So we're making no money and really starving, but you just love to do it. So wrestling had changed and evolved from my grandfather to my dad to me and the WWE,

but I was really lucky that before I got to the WWE, I was still able to learn that way and learn on the road. You were in the ring together with your father. There's a lot of highlights of your fights on YouTube And in one of them You're just fighting alone And I'm trying to remember who your opponent is But anyways, he's got you down

And you look like you're in pain And then your father kind of rushes into the ring He's wearing like a sports jacket And he rips off the sports jacket And he kind of rescues you And then like the sultan comes in With a flag on a pole And he takes the pole and he starts beating your father on the back.

And every time the pole connects to your father's back, the sultan like stomps his foot to make it sound as if the pole is making that kind of noise, smashing against your father's back. And it's kind of funny. That must have been a fun experience for you. It was awesome. That was what you're referring to. That was WrestleMania. And that was my very first WrestleMania match, WrestleMania 13 in Chicago. that was when I was a good guy, the baby face, the rookie.

And I was intercontinental champion for WWE at that time. And the bad guys were beating me up. And then my dad comes in and he helps make the save. And in wrestling parlance, it's called cleaning house. So the baby faces, the good guys start cleaning house, meaning they're just beating up the bad guys and throwing them out of the ring. And ultimately, the good guys, the baby face, are left standing in the ring and that's like a nice father and son moment that was it was really

cool i wasn't at that time again i was kind of struggling with that because i i felt like wait i still want to try and create my own path and i remember thinking if my dad comes out and he's involved it's not aligned with what i want to do and trying to make my own path here and but i still i said okay let's do it And we did it, and it was a nice moment. But, you know, I realized what actually it meant for him, which that was a highlight for him. And he has said that that was the highlight of his entire career, which meant a lot to me because my dad, he did Trailblaze, and he and his tag team partner, Tony Atlas, they became the first black tag team champions of WWE.

And even in the world of WWE that's fictionalized and, you know, rehearsed and you know who's going to win and you know who's going to lose. And when somebody becomes champion, the decision is made from an office that this man or this woman is going to become champion. But why this was so significant in terms of, I think, culture and black culture and them becoming the first black tag team champions is because it signified that they really were trailblazing at that time. And in the early 80s, there was still a lot of racism that was present. And especially in these small arenas and these small towns around the country where the audience was predominantly white, they cheered these guys. And that's why Vince, at that time, Vince McMahon, yeah. Yeah, he's like, you know what? You guys need to become champions because you guys are changing the behavior of people.

And that's what one of the qualities of trailblazing is when you're able to change the behavior. of somebody and that's what they did. So the reason why I share that was because that, to me, that was my dad's greatest accomplishment, which was him becoming first black tag team champions, but my dad always referenced that moment

when he and I were in the ring together at WrestleMania as his greatest achievement. So I'm glad it happened for him. Because even despite our complicated relationship, I think it's just the love of a son that you'll always be just that. You'll be

the son of your dad and you always want to make your dad happy you know despite all the stuff you go through complicated guy complicated relationship so before we run out of time i'm going to transition from fighting to singing i like your voice um i've only heard you sing twice i heard the eric clapton song that you sang and played in the ring to vicky guerrero and then of course course in Moana, you sing in that too. Did you think of yourself ever as a singer before like singing on film for the animated film? I grew up singing and in our family. I'm half black and half Samoan and in my culture, especially on the Polynesian side, singing and dancing was ever present in our household with my dad as well.

And so we grew up that way. And my mom, who will listen to this and is going to love this entire interview, she still carries a ukulele with her everywhere she goes, Terry. Everywhere. Everywhere she goes. She's known. Oh, here comes a ukulele lady. And then she'll remind everybody, no, I'm the rock's mom.

And she'll sing. So we grew up singing. And I grew up singing Sam Cook and Elvis. And Hawaiian artist and Hawaiian songs and Polynesian songs. And in our household, it was like, we'd sing Don Ho, Tiny Bottle, Tiny Bubble, right? You hear him sing and, like, kind of crooning his way through our household. So if this was in 1960s, you would be recording an album. Clint Eastwood recorded an album.

George Mahars recorded an album. I mean, lots of TV and movie stars, whether they could sing or not, recorded albums. Are you going to record an album? I'm not making you an offer. It's not my place to do that. If we were in the 60s right now, that means Sam Cook would be alive. And me and Sam Cook, it would be like, oh, you're the apple of my eye, my cherry pie, my coconut ice cream.

All right, that's all I got. Thank you for that. It's been such a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much. Congratulations on the new movie. I think it really takes your acting career to a new level. Really appreciate it. It's really good talking to you. Dwayne Johnson stars in the new movie The Smashing Machine,

based on the life of former M.MA champion Mark Kerr. Here's Johnson singing the Lynn Manuel Miranda song, You're Welcome, from the Disney animated film Moana. Okay, okay. I see what's happening, yeah. You're face to face with greatness and it's strange. You don't even know how you feel It's adorable

Well it's nice to see that humans never change Open your eyes, let's begin Yes, it's really me It's my way, breathe it in I know it's a lot The hair, the bod When you're staring at it's every god What can I say except

You're welcome For the tides, the sun, the sky Hey, it's okay, it's okay, you're welcome. I'm just an ordinary Denny guy. Hey, what has... If you're not familiar with the comedy of my next guest, Christella Alonzo, I think the best way of introducing her is with a clip. But first, I should set it up.

Cristella is Mexican-American, the daughter of Mexican immigrants. Her mother was living in Texas, undocumented, and pregnant with Christella, her fourth child, when she left her abusive husband. She raised her four children on her. own. Gristella grew up in a Texas border town. This clip, like much of Christella's comedy, is autobiographical. My family, we're from South Texas, you know? We're from Mexico. And that's South Texas. It's South Texas. It's kind of 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. 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. We had to share a bathroom and a birth certificate. That was from Christella Alonzo's first Netflix comedy special from 2017 called Lower Classy. It was followed by her 2022 special, Middle Classy, her new one.

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, Christella, her mother and three siblings were squatters in an abandoned diner in Texas with a toilet on the outside. Cristella 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, Christella 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, Cristella, ran for one season on ABC. Cristella Alanza, welcome to fresh air. It is a pleasure to have you on the show. It is so good to be.

be here. And I love hearing you sum up my life because I think that sometimes we forget 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. Oh, good. Can we talk about what the clip was about, what was that half of your family was undocumented? Can we talk about that without worrying about your family being deported now? Yes, we can. They're all citizens. now, so that's very exciting. How old were you when your mother became a citizen? 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. How did you do that? 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. 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. How worried were you at the time? 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 me being a child. trying to protect my mother. And I had forgotten the feelings until I saw what was happening now, and it brought it all back. What has it been like for you recently in L.A.? And what was it like for you when the National Guard troops and Marines were just showing up in L.A.? 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? 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. 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. 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. My guest is comic and actress Christella Alonzo. Her new

Netflix comedy special is called Upper Classy. We'll hear more of our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air Weekend. 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? Yes. So my mom grew up in a little village in a little ranchito in Mexico called El Sancarron. Back then, it was like at 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. Do you mean literally kidnap? 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, the church doesn't approve of that.

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. So this was at the point where they're already in the U.S. They had been coming back and forth from the U.S. 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 that 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.

So your family was so poor, and your mother was, you know, supporting the family, you know, four children on her own. What kind of job did she have? She was trying to do any kind of, like, 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 ships. So she worked double ships for a year. and she would make about $150 a week. Oh. That was her pay?

I would support five people on that. You don't. 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 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 extension. Can I just explain again that you were. The family was squatting. The family was squatting in an abandoned diner. 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 this 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 this space heater. That sounds really dangerous. 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 a 10-gallon pickle-tie. 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 wash tub. 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 fill the cup with water and then pour it on our bodies and that's how we showered in the winter. Were you known as the family that lives in the abandoned diner? 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. 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.

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 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. What kind of questions? They wanted to know how I was smart. How could that be possible? Yeah. People thought I was lying about how poor I grew up because I spoke so well. Let me stop you for a second. Is that because you watch so much TV when you're a kid?

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? 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, 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. 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.

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 going to meet them and they were going to fall in love with me, right? No joke, you guys. This was the fantasy.

Fourth grade. I was going to be the maid on their tour bus. And I was going to clean things so good that they were going to fall in love with me. Like in my head, I thought they were going to get on the tour bus and they were going to 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 back and I was thinking, why the fuck I have made 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? But as a Mexican, I want to clean that shit, too. You know what I mean? So that's my guest, Chris Stella Alonzo from her first comedy special, Lower Classy.

Her new comedy special on Netflix is called Upper Classy. So that's really, really funny. really, really revealing clip. But you did have a dream, like a real dream. Your dream was to be in theater. I did. How did you discover it? I was in choir in junior high. The school got the choir program defunded. So I had to switch. I wanted to do something in the arts still. So eighth grade, I switched over to theater. I had this like really basic acting class. my teacher, Mr. Honel, had this exercise. It's very chorus line.

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 and 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. Honel, 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 this. He's like, you have to do this. I need you to do this. Yes, it was.

I mean, you're 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. He thinks that you should be doing more theater as a result. And we're still friends. Wow. He actually, he went to the taping of my first special. You are lucky. Yeah.

I am very grateful the teachers, my drama teachers, I am very grateful. for. I am, I still, I'm still friends with them. I've always said it's like without Mr. Honel. I don't know what I would have done. So did you want to be in music theater? 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 learned their dances. Then when I got to high school and I 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 Broadway. So eventually you started doing comedy shows. You did college

tours doing comedy at colleges around the country. And you eventually had enough money that you could buy things. Yes. You were amazed you were able to be able to see like doctors. I had no idea how doctors worked. I really didn't. I had no idea. I told this great story that you go to a gynecologist and you have no idea what part of your body she's about to examine. I had no idea. Embarrassed. And let me tell you, it's, I grew up in the kind of family where it's not the kind of conversation 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 OBGYNs. 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 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 auto pay. 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. Yeah. Well, Christella, it's really been a pleasure talking with you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me.

I really enjoyed it. Christella Alonzo'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. Fresh Air Weekend is produced by Teresa Madden. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger.

Interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Sherrock, Amriable Donato, Lauren Crenzel, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yucundi, and Abouman, and John Sheehan. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.