Orange is the New Black star Diane Guerrero opened up about losing her parents, who were deported to Colombia, on CNN Monday on November 17.
Guerrero, 28, who plays a character named Maritza Ramos on the Netflix-produced hit, lost her parents at 14, and pushed on with the kindness of basic strangers to succeed.
Recalling her confusion on the day her parents disappeared, Guerrero commented, “I was always scared that my parents were going to be gone. They would remind me every day. I knew my dad had like this whole system. ‘Here’s where I hide this in case anything happens. And, you know, don’t be scared and know that you’re going to be okay and that we love you very much and that we wish that this situation was different for us, but this is our reality.’ So, yes, that day I had this feeling.”
Guerrero added that she’d called her parents “a million times” the day they were put into separate custody. The ingenue reminisced, “I got home and their cars were there and dinner was started and the lights were on. But I couldn’t find them. So, yes, it was really hard. That was really hard. And then the neighbors came in and…. They were just like, ‘I’m so sorry but your parents were taken away.'”
Guerrero recalls going into survival mode after realizing she was alone. The actress commented, “I remember I hid under the bed because I was afraid that somebody was going to come for me. I don’t know who that someone was, but I was just so scared. You know, it’s like, what do you – what do you do? And then I’m so scared for them, like what they’re going through, you know. My parents are going to jail, and for what? You know, I didn’t consider them criminals.”
Guerrero still sees here parents annually, when she visits Colombia. “It’s tough, you know,” the starlet said, adding that, “we’ve been separated for so long. I feel like sometimes we don’t know each other and that’s difficult because I’ve grown up without them and there’s things about them that are new that I don’t recognize and it just – it hurts.”
Orange is the New Black has been renewed for a third season, and on July 10, 2014, the series garnered 12 Primetime Emmy Award nominations