Tamara Yajia’s memoir recounts a chaotic upbringing between the U.S. and Argentina

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4.2 • 671 Ratings

🗓️ 8 September 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

Tamara Yajia’s memoir Cry for Me, Argentina describes a chaotic upbringing between Argentine and American cultures. A big focus of the memoir is her “insane” family, who exposed Yajia to a high level of sexual openness, including group excursions to Buenos Aires’ red-light district. In today’s episode, the writer speaks with NPR’s Ailsa Chang about her mixed experience as a childhood performer, a formative moment involving Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” and the way humor has “kept [her] alive.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. For me, today's interview was a lesson in
0:08.2	the grass looking greener on the other side. By which I mean, I grew up in a pretty sheltered
0:13.3	household where nobody dared talk about SEX. The topic was completely avoided until a quick
0:19.9	and awkward conversation the day my parents dropped me off at college.
0:23.5	But for writer and comedian Tamara Yehia, growing up was completely different.
0:28.1	Sex was discussed so openly and so often that, well, she wrote a whole memoir and part about how it kind of messed her up.
0:36.9	It's titled, Cry for Me,
0:38.4	Argentina, My Life as a Failed Child Star. And she talked to NPR's Elsa Chang about how she's just
0:44.2	now, as an adult, beginning to process how those experiences shaped her, but also how
0:50.1	laughing about the whole thing saved her life. That's ahead. In the U.S., national security news
0:57.3	can feel far away from daily life. Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors
1:03.7	on our new show, Sources and Methods. NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of
1:08.7	real people helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
1:13.9	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:19.1	The way comedian and TV writer Tamara Yehia tells her life story, it was a chaotic mess from the very start, surrounded by a family who acted, to use her word,
1:29.5	insane, stuck between two cultures as she bounced back and forth between Argentina and America,
1:35.5	robbed of the chance to become an Argentine child star precisely because her parents couldn't stay
1:41.1	planted. But you can hear her laughing out loud as she recounts these
1:46.4	brutal years in her new memoir called Cry for Me, Argentina, my life as a failed child star.
1:53.8	Tamara Yahia joins us now. Welcome. Hi, Elsa. Hi. I made it through. You did.
2:07.8	So you tell in this book how you figured out at this very early age how much you wanted to be on stage.
2:10.8	And there is this key moment that I want to talk to you about.
	...

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