A current Senior Arts and Culture Reporter at WBUR and Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, Cristela Guerra previously served as a reporter for the Boston Globe and the News-Press. The daughter of a pediatrician and a nurse, Cristela was born in Panama City and joined her parents in Anaheim, CA, Queen, NY, and Fort Lauderdale, FL. She is a 2003 graduate of Saint Thomas Aquinas High School and a 2007 graduate of Florida International University. Cristela moved to Lynn in 2018, where she currently lives. She resides in the building formerly housing Fran’s Place, where she produced a WBUR radio story in 2019. Her interview discusses diaspora issues, her attachment to her grandmother’s home in Panama, and her parents’ negotiation with American culture. She talks about her struggle to come out to her evangelical parents and find her voice as a spiritual queer person. She expresses sympathy for people bullied as “queer” and explains how others have chosen to take ownership of the term.