To read in-depth information about Diane Guerrero, please pick up her books In The Country We Love and My Family Divided, available everywhere books are sold. (“In The Country We Love” Official Book Website and “My Family Divided” Official Book Website)

Background and Education

Diane Guerrero’s Instagram bio states she is a “Intersectional Mujerista.” Diane states, “Intersectional mujerista means, to me, that I’m here to learn, to grow.” This is a fitting description since Diane is not just an actress, she is an activist, author, and philanthropist; working to advance social justice for all individuals.

Diane Guerrero was born in Passaic, New Jersey on July 21, 1986, and was raised in Boston, Massachusetts. As the only member of her immediate family with United States citizenship, she remained in the U.S. at the age of 14 when her parents and older brother were deported back to Colombia after unsuccessfully pursuing legal citizenship. She was able to remain in the U.S. and continue her education, depending on the kindness of family friends who took her in and helped her build a life and a successful acting career for herself, without the support system of her family. She has written about her family in the Los Angeles Times (2014), and in her books In the Country We Love (2016) and My Family Divided (2018).

In 2015, she was named a White House Ambassador for Citizenship and Naturalization, working with the Obama administration. Diane also volunteers with the non-profit Immigrant Legal Resource Center, as well as with Mi Familia Vota, an organization that promotes civic involvement. She uses her voice and name-recogition to promote immigration reform in the United States, so other children do not have to face an upbringing without their families like she had to endure. On May 24, 2018, she was recognized at the Phillip Burton Immigration & Civil Rights Awards for the work she continues to do.

Diane attended Boston Arts Academy, a performing arts high school, where she was in the music department. She is a graduate of Regis College, and returned to her alma mater in 2018 to give the commencement address, including the following opening statement:

“It does not do any good to remain silent, whether we are talking about ourselves, our immediate community, our community as Americans, or as the Class of 2018. We all want a better world, and that means fighting through the discomfort, fighting through the taboos, fighting through the vulnerability and shame, being OK with not having the answers.”

At the 2018 commencement event, Diane Guerrero received an honorary doctorate of laws from Regis College. She reflected on the honor,

“This degree is a total game-changer and a very special honor.”

Diane currently resides in both New York City and Los Angeles with her dog, Penny Toochi.

Career

In 2010, at the age of 24, Diane decided to pursue a career in acting and moved to New York City shortly after. She was cast in various short films (Detour, Ashley/Amber), independent features (Nations Young Blood, Open Vacancy, Festival), and music videos until her big break in 2012, when she landed the role of Maritza Ramos on the (soon-to-be) hit Netflix series Orange Is the New Black. OITNB ran for seven seasons, and Diane was a recurring castmember for five seasons. During her tenure on the show, Diane Guerrero received three consecutive Screen Actors Guild Awards for “Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series” in 2015, 2016, and 2017. The characters portrayed by Diane and her co-star, Jackie Cruz, were instant fan favorites and even had a nickname “Flaritza,” to represent the friendship pairing between Marisol “Flaca” Gonzales and Maritza Ramos.

Concurrent with her role on OITNB, Diane Guerrero landed the role of Lina Santillan in 2014 on the hit CW series Jane the Virgin. Due to conflicting filming locations – OITNB filmed in New York while Jane the Virgin filmed in Los Angeles – Lina only appears in 24 episodes during the series’ five seasons. Diane began booking more roles in feature films as well, including a starring roles in the 2014 independent film Emoticon ; ) and the 2016 movie Happy Yummy Chicken, as well as supporting roles in big-budget films such as My Man Is a Loser and Killerman.

In 2017, Diane Guerrero joined the second season of the comedy series Superior Donuts as Sofia. Her character was a young Colombian-American gentrifier who parks her food truck in front of the titular donut shop serving healthy, socially conscious breakfast foods. Her time on Superior Donuts lasted for 21 episodes before it was canceled in May 2018 by the production company. Shortly after the cancellation, Diane landed the role of Crazy Jane on the highly-anticipated live-action series for the DC Universe comic Doom Patrol.

Doom Patrol follows the unlikely heroes of the eponymous team who all received their powers through tragic circumstances and are generally shunned by society. Most members of the team were treated by the Chief, a medical doctor who gave them residence in his mansion to help protect them from the outside world. Diane Guerrero is the leading actor in the series (number 1 on the call sheet) and portrays Jane, who is the dominant identity of Kay Challis, a young woman with dissociative identity disorder who developed 64 distinct identities from childhood trauma and received powers for each identity following an experiment she was involuntarily subjected to. Inside Kay’s subconsciousness, Guerrero also plays Driver 8 and Karen on the series. Other actors portray the other personalities in the series. The series has 24 total episodes spanning two seasons and is currently set to release season 3 sometime in late 2021.

Diane Guerrero was the host of the Hello Sunshine podcast, How It Is for two seasons, starting in 2018. The podcast series aimed to have women tell their own stories, in their own words, and share the truths that were learned and lived through. In the spring of 2021, Diane Guerrero launched a podcast series called Yeah No, I’m Not OK, to help expand the conversation about mental health. Every week, issues that youth face all over the world (addiction, depression, anxiety, suicide, radical self-love, and more) are explored through conversations with friends, colleagues, activists, artists, and health care professionals; all people who have gone through something life-changing and are now healing from it.