With eyes shining as bright as the metallic toes of her hardshell Adidas, Cristela alonzo bounds into Guelaguetza, a cherished Oaxacan restaurant in Los Angeles’ Koreatown.
“I always wanted to find places that reminded me of home,” the comedian and actor, originally from the Texas borderlands, says of her affinity for the family-run restaurant.
The smell of fresh mole,the restaurant’s specialty,lingers in the air. Each table is topped with brightly colored yellow and red fabric – not unlike that of the Mexican-inspired American flag alonzo drapes around her shoulders at the end of her most recent Netflix special,”Upper Classy.”
“I had to make sure I drank some water – room temperature – because I hate ICE,” she opens the hour, taped in June on No Kings Day, a day of nationwide protests against President Trump’s authoritarian actions.The audience in Dallas – the city where the comedian began her stand-up career and later set her self-titled network sitcom – hoots and hollers in response.
“Upper Classy,” which premieres Tuesday on Netflix, is the last of a trilogy of specials about Alonzo’s experience growing up in abject poverty, a subject matter that will feel familiar for longtime fans. The first two specials are aptly named “Lower Classy” and “Middle Classy” – and to demonstrate that she’s really made it to “Upper Classy,” she ditches her casual jeans and t-shirt for a sparkly black jumpsuit.
But where, in 2017’s “Lower Classy,” alonzo jokes about immigrants digging tunnels to evade Trump’s promised wall, in this project, she acknowledges the collective scars of the pandemic, especially for mixed-status families such as hers, who she says were taught to work hard in their pursuit of the American Dream but not to live hard.
“When you grow up in poverty, you grow up in survival mode,” she says in one of several direct exhortations to the audience. “Your problem isn’t that you don’t work enough; your problem is that you work too much.”
Then, as if flipping a switch, she dives into a hilarious story about how she is fighting back by forcing her adult siblings to go on annual family vacations. She’s the family matriarch, she explains, not because she’s the eldest, but because she makes the most money.
Cristela Alonzo Found ‘Luxury’ in Rice and Beans, and a New Comedy Special
“What do you think making it means?” As I can tell you that, for my family, what making it means is very simple: We have money to pay the bills. But they’re like, “No, more, more.” Well, I don’t know the more. I’m still here.
So I started thinking, what if I actually in a weird way document the ascension of me coming into my life. “Lower Classy” really was: This is my bio; this is how my mom was; this is how my family was; this is how I’m doing.
I shot the first special in August of 2016; then the election happened and I was so depressed because I had assumed that people were better than what they turned out to be. I actually didn’t know what I was going to do, and I decided to take a break from stand-up and everything as I couldn’t mentally handle it. I didn’t feel like being funny; I didn’t feel like being anything.
A couple of years later during the pandemic, it was the first hard time where I didn’t feel like I struggled and it was because of the rice and beans theory. It was the fact that I knew how to survive a hard time that I knew I was going to be okay; I knew I had money for rice and beans. it was the moment that I realized I was a lot better than I was in 2016 when I shot the special.
I started to take stock of where I was.I found out I was diabetic – [that] changed my life. I realized that I had to eat better, I had to take care of myself, and I connected being able to take care of yourself with luxury.
Cristela Alonzo’s ‘Upper Classy’ is Her Most Personal and Political Special Yet
For Cristela Alonzo, the path to her latest comedy special, “Upper Classy,” began with a simple realization: health insurance. “Because my family was not taught to take care of themselves, going to the doctor was such a luxury. In this country, it’s such a luxury to be able to get insurance to go to the doctor,” she explains.
This sparked a list of differences in her life, leading to a deeper exploration of wealth and class. “I started making a list of things that were different for me, and I wrote ‘health insurance,’ and that’s when I realized I didn’t know how health insurance worked. That’s kind of how ‘Middle Classy’ started. the joke is that what you think is wealthy isn’t about wealth. You’re not rich, but you are rich to yourself. It’s trivializing what you think money and class is, which led to this one, ‘Upper Classy.’ It kind of has a play in two ways: Look at how rich I am – you didn’t think I was going to be that rich as of the story that I share – but also look at the person my family made me to be.”
The special culminates in a striking visual: a glamorous outfit. Alonzo admits it was a struggle. “Let me tell you,that was so hard for me. It was awkward; I fought it so much. When we were gonna do this special, I had an idea for an outfit, and my friend [and director of the special] Page [Hurwitz] was like, ‘Get the hell out of here; there’s no way you’re wearing that.’ And I’m like, ‘What do you mean?’ she’s like, ‘This is ‘Upper Classy.’ Cristela, go classy.'”
After months of searching, the final look came from a surprising source. “Cut to april, I still hadn’t picked an outfit. We look for options and we can’t find anything and then I think I have this jumpsuit in my closet. It’s still in the box and I’m like, let me try it on.I send a picture to my friends,and they’re like,’We need to see it in person; come down to the office.’ I went in and they’re like, ‘That’s it.’ It was very ’80s makeover.”
“Upper Classy” represents a notable step in vulnerability for Alonzo, building on themes explored in her previous specials. “In the time that we live in,I felt like we had to because,stating it one time,you realise that people don’t really get what you mean. That’s why you revisit the themes.It’s not about repeating because you don’t have anything else to say, it’s about….”
## Cristela Alonzo on Family, Caregiving and Finally Living Her Life