Comic Cristela Alonzo grew up in fear of border patrol. ICE has 'brought it all back'

Comic Cristela Alonzo grew up in fear of border patrol. ICE has 'brought it all back'

Terry Gross

September 29, 2025 / 10:42 am

For the first seven years of her life, comic Cristela Alonzo lived with her family in an abandoned diner in a south Texas border town. Alonzo's mother, a Mexican immigrant, had left an abusive marriage and was supporting herself and her four kids by making $150 a week working in a Mexican restaurant.

Living in the diner, the family's electricity came from an extension cord that Alonzo's mother stretched to the building from the house next door. In the winter, she used a space heater to cook and to warm up water for bathing.

"[My mother] used to have a 10-gallon pickle tub from work that she would fill up with water," Alonzo says. "We would get a little cup