Diane Guerrero on her "Very Personal" Memoir

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Diane Guerrero on "Superior Donuts", Family and her "Very Personal" Memoir
by THR Staff
April 30, 2018


Actress Diane Guerrero has made a name for herself thanks to television roles in "Orange is the New Black", "Jane the Virgin" and now CBS' "Superior Donuts", but as she details in her memoir In the Country We Love: My Family Divided, she shines a light on the struggles of immigration in the United States.

Guerrero sat down with The Hollywood Reporter In Studio to discuss how her memoir came to be and where she plans to take her story next.





In her book, Guerrero writes that at the age of 14, her parents were detained and deported while she was at school. Since she was born in the U.S., she was able to remain in the country to continue her education. She says now that she was initially hesitant to put her story into book form.

“I think it was more I was still sort of ashamed of sharing that much information about myself but also, mostly because my family,” she said. “But I spoke to my mother. She said basically a memoir is from your point of view, from your experience, so I think that kind of eased me a little because I knew that if I didn’t get everything right, it’s fine. It’s my book.”





She tells THR that she feels lucky that her story has inspired so many other children who are going through a similar situation.

“It’s just kind of giving you an example of what family separation looks like and hopefully it’ll give some people an idea of what the immigration system looks like, which in my opinion, is broken,” she said.





Guerrero’s story found its way onto her show "Superior Donuts" when her character’s brother was being chased by immigration, which turned into an opportunity to open up the conversation of immigration even more.

“It was a very personal episode and I’m really proud of it,” she said. “I’m really glad that CBS took the initiative to talk about a sensitive subject as immigration because it’s not easy to talk about.”





Next, the actress plans to continue to spread her story across more mediums.

“Right now I’m just working on seeing how I can take my story and make it into a film,” she said. “I’m still very passionate about this story. It’s very relevant in my mind right now so I think I’m going to keep working on that.”

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ne...memoir-1106975

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Superior Donuts' deportation-themed episode was informed by Diane Guerrero's real-life experience
Guerrero, whose 2016 memoir describes how her parents were deported back to Colombia when she was 14, says of helping put tonight's "The ICEMen Cometh" episode together: "It was very difficult, especially for me. I mean, how do you find the humor in this? They take someone who’s been here their entire lives and send them to somewhere they don’t know. It’s a 22-minute show, so it’s very difficult to have the kind of nuance you need to talk about a topic as sensitive as immigration and deportation. But you try! We certainly did. Where there’s sorrow and conflict, you can find laughter and humor. That’s what we tried to do while tackling a difficult subject. That’s what we do on every show."