Comedian Cristela Alonzo says she didn’t grow up with much. Her mom raised four kids on her own in an abandoned diner with no running power or water in South Texas. Things are different for Cristela these days. “I have the kind of money where I can go into a Target and go on my own Pretty Woman shopping spree,” she tells me.

Cristela became the first Latina to develop, write, produce and star in her own network TV show. The self-titled sitcom, Cristela, premiered in 2014, but only lasted one season due to disappointing ratings. Still, for Cristela, failure isn’t enough of a reason to stop. “The worst that can happen to me is I end up being as poor as I started, and I know what it’s like to live life that poor,” she explains.

Cristela spent a lot of time in front of the TV as a kid while her mom worked double shifts at restaurants to pay the bills. Cristela’s mom moved the family into the abandoned diner when she discovered her husband was having an affair, leaving him behind in Mexico. “She was trying to survive and trying to get us to survive,” she says of her mother. “She had no community. She had nothing, and you can tell how hard it was on her.”

In high school, Cristela struggled between obligations to her family and her own professional aspirations. She enjoyed theater and acting, which eventually drew her towards Los Angeles. After a series of fits and starts, she ended up back in Texas when she found out her mom was gravely ill. “In my family, the parents pick the kid that will take care of them when they’re older, and my mom picked me,” she remembers. “It’s kind of winning a really resentful lottery.”

Even though her show was cancelled in 2015, Cristela’s stories about family and money are still a big part of her comedy—especially in her latest comedy special, Lower Classy. “I like talking about where I came from to show people why I am the way I am now,” she says. “The poverty I grew up with made me want to work really hard to not ever be that poor again.”