Zibby chats with Argentine-American writer, comedian, and ex-child star Tamara Yajia about her wildly unhinged, hilarious, and vulnerable debut memoir, CRY FOR ME, ARGENTINA: My Life as a Failed Child Star. They dive into Tamara’s raw, no-holds-barred memoir chronicling her tumultuous upbringing between Argentina and the U.S., her chaotic family dynamics, her early brushes with fame, and the emotional toll of codependency and abuse. She also reflects on her childhood, chosen family, shocking moments of isolation, therapy, how writing this book helped her process lifelong trauma, and even her surreal summer hanging out with Brad Pitt!

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Tamara. Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked with Zibby to talk about Cry For Me, Argentina, My Life As A Failed Child Star. 

Tamara: Thank you so much. I'm such a fan. I'm so excited to be here. 

Zibby: Oh, that's so sweet. Well, I'm a fan too at this book. Oh my gosh. I read every page. I could not put it down.

I was like, at times, pretty horrified and yet kept going but ultimately it's such a great coming of age story and very funny taboo. 

Tamara: Thank you. It's a lot. I know. And I'm like, if I could go back and tone it down, would I, but then I wouldn't be honest. 'cause that's how it went down. 

Zibby: You would not tone it down you that you'd be a different person.

Tamara: That's the thing. It's so funny. So I got a, a review that was something like. It's so shocking. Like it's something like she, she confuses humor with shock. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Tamara: And I'm like, sometimes I'm not trying to be funny. It's just kind of the way my family is, which is you know, no boundaries and a little horrifying, but I wouldn't be telling the truth if I didn't spill all the beans.

Zibby: Oh my gosh. I keep being sort of haunted by your middle school experience. I think it was middle school when you were pressing the, you didn't know you had to press the light to cross the street, and you just stood there. Oh my gosh, it was so sad. I think I dogeared it. If maybe, can I read this little passage?

Do you mind? 

Tamara: Oh, please. I would love to hear it. 

Zibby: Let's see. Uh, so you're saying you wanted someone to drop you off, but they couldn't. So I memorized the route and walked to school on my own in Buenos Aires the streets were always filled with people. But Irvine, 'cause you had just moved to the States, was an effing, I'm not gonna say it.

I'm not gonna curse the effing ghost town. Unfortunately, no one had ever warned me that in the United States you had to press the pedestrian buttons at crosswalks if you wanted the walk sign to turn green. When I reached my first major crosswalk, I waited for the light to change on its own, but it never did.

So I stood at that intersection for 30 minutes until a Hispanic woman who was pushing a blonde baby in a stroller walk by and press the button for me. You may think it weird that I didn't just cross whenever I saw that no cars were coming, but I stayed in place outta fear that the cops would catch me crossing against a red light and deport me because of this I was over an hour late to school on the first day and was written up. Aw. Aw, 

Tamara: I, this is, I like, this makes me wanna cry. This is one of those passages in the book that are truly sad and I feel like so many people focus on like the funny or the gross, but like, I'm so glad that you read this one because it's.

I can, I still remember myself as a, what was I 11, standing in that it was a cloudy day and it was just so sad and heartbreaking. Poor little me. 

Zibby: Poor little, you. I'm so sorry. And that wasn't the end of it either. You were so on your own, you know? And like the, even the littlest asks were always met with nos, and you just had to find your way through it.

You didn't even understand the language at one of your schools. They were all speaking Hebrew and you're like, not even knowing the language and just, oh my gosh. And all these creepy men in your life and people like up.

Tamara: Right? 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. You just, it was just like one thing after another and feeling so like other and not fitting in and just, oh my gosh.

It was, it was kind, hard, heartbreaking, you know? 

Tamara: It is. And you know, my God, I'm like crying right now because for so long, EI think even until I'm 41 now, and before I wrote the book, I so thought this was all normal. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Tamara: And I so thought that I had a totally. You know, healthy upbringing with, with healthy people that surrounded me and you know, they were my family and I still love them, but it's so nice when I wrote the book to finally acknowledge that it wasn't okay.

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Tamara: You know, and in the intro of the book, I talk about never, I never wanted to have kids because of the upbringing I had, and I think the book was so healing that I totally just flipped on that wanting to have kids, and now I'm trying. 

Zibby: That'll be part two, the sequel. 

Tamara: Exactly, exactly. 

Zibby: When you give birth to a child, starve, 

Tamara: oh my God.

Oh, no, no. 

Zibby: So the, the child star angle of it all was through this deep seated need of ears for attention, honestly. Which you were getting by performing, I mean, this is my therapist take on it. Not that I'm a therapist. Totally. But you know, this, this literally the cry. The cry for attention. The, and also because you were talented, right?

Like getting up there and, and having no, like no filter when you were performing. 

Tamara: No filter. 'cause that's all I learned. I come from a family with no filters. And my idol as a, what, 8-year-old was Madonna during her erotica years of all of them. The most sexual of all. Yeah, but I have to say, like, it's true.

It, I did want attention. I, I did, but I also loved singing and dancing. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Tamara: You know, so I have this duality with performing now as an adult. Which I'm so scared to get on a stage and I have so many conflicting feelings about it, but when I'm up there, I love it. Aw. 

Zibby: Yeah. There was the one scene where a creepy man was in the front row and you could tell he was looking up your skirt and then he passed you and like burned you with his cigarette and you knew it was on purpose, but you didn't wanna tell anybody like, oh my gosh.

These, it's things happen to you all the time. 

Tamara: Yeah. I think like victims of abuse in that way, can they, these kind of things can keep happening to them. I've learned it's a lot of the times, not just once, that the abuse happens because I don't know what it is. I, I'm not sure, but I think you normalize it or there is this kind of need to please everybody and if you know, not complaining about a man looking up your skirt means that you won't offend the man that is looking up your skirt when you're 11 years old. Yeah, lots of therapy was needed after this. 

Zibby: You also. Had so much experience with different sort of socioeconomic statuses in your own family and feeling like your parents were finally making it, and then things would completely change.

And being in private school and then not having enough money for anything and living in houses without any furniture, and then getting your furniture and having it flood and then having nothing again. And this also like this, like forced codependence with your parents and their parents perhaps as a result of the financial situation.

But who even knows? 

Tamara: Totally. Totally. Yeah. It's so crazy Zibby because I, for the first time in my life, I'm taking a break from my parents right now, and it's been one week since I haven't spoken to them and I thought I would be so bummed about this, but in a way, I feel a weight lifted off my chest. Like I needed to break this cycle of codependency because I was doing it.

I, I was still calling my mom like three times a day and my parents were so codependent with, with their parents that they expected the same of me and I was just not willing to do that for my own mental health. So, you know, I think it's a very Jewish thing, the codependency side of it, but I think the levels are just had become too unhealthy.

And it's so funny 'cause I keep thinking like this is a com, a comedic memoir, but it's also not. 

Zibby: Yeah. You know, be, I mean, you have to laugh sometimes to get through anything. 

Tamara: Yes. 

Zibby: Isn't there some famous quote about that? Like all paint, all laughter comes from paint or I don't know, something. 

Tamara: Totally, totally.

It was, it's the way to keep going for me, you know, is to find the humorous side and I wouldn't take anything back. It was, that's how my life happened and I was able to write this book and if this book can help even one person, you know, recognize abuse in their family or codependency traits or. I don't know.

It just makes it all worth it. 

Zibby: Well, your grandparents, I mean, sometimes I think my parent, you know, we all feel like we have to put up the boundaries when we become grownups, right? That is part of individuating and stuff, and so. For anyone who feels like their parents might be crossing the line, all they have to do is read your book because your grandparents like literally moved and surprised you from Argentina to the US into the next apartment.

So you could hear like your most intimate sounds through the wall when you left. Like, get away. 

Tamara: Oh my God. 

Zibby: I mean, what, how do your parents even think about this now? Do they acknowledge sort of the, you know, it sounded like your dad got mad. 

Tamara: Yeah, my dad couldn't stand his father-in-law. In the same way, my mom couldn't stand her mother-in-law yet there was just this enmeshment. But you know, as a kid, I, I was thrilled that my grandparents had immigrated from Argentina to the United States to follow us. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Tamara: I had grandparents, but the reason my parents left Argentina was to get away from them. So I cannot imagine what that must have been like.

And then at the end. When I'm an adult, we all, for kind of all of us end up living together again with the grandparents, which again, I was happy about it, but not so much my parents. 

Zibby: So you basically catch us up to now, right? When you start writing and going into writer's rooms and stuff. But maybe for people, 'cause I just like jumped right into this book and like the things that most affected me.

Take us through a little bit of the overview of your story and, and what the book is essentially. Covering. 

Tamara: Yeah. I mean, it spans my entire life, but it is, it talks about my parents immigrating when I was a child, five years old, from Argentina to the United States. Back to Argentina. And then when I arrive in Argentina, I have a small, uh, I, I try to become a, a star, a child star, and the moment that I make it and I get cast on this big, you know, kind of Mickey Mouse Club type show. My parents decide they are returning to the United States and you know, that's leads us to part four of the book, which is adulthood and all the tribulations of moving back and forth and what that does to like a, a teenage child. And my, you know, issues I had with drugs and with. Um, self-esteem.

It's just kind of what does all of that moving and that codependency do to a teenage child and it, it ends happy with me getting back to performing or to which I loved, but not in the way that I used to do, which was getting on a stage and doing like a Madonna impersonation, but through writing and expressing my creativity through.

Through that, which is nice. More behind the scenes, which suits me a little better, I think. 

Zibby: You even had when you were in Argentina one time after you switched schools, you ended up Jewish in a school full of kids who thought it would be funny to like name their sports team the Nazis and like drawing swastikas literally on their hands.

And it was basically like this immigration of former Nazis right into Argentina at the time. 

Tamara: Yeah, it Argentina's a very interesting place because there are so many Jews in Argentina, and there are so many descendants of Nazis and a lot of Nazis escaped to Argentina. And for me, coming from, you know, going to Jewish schools for a Hebrew schools for so long, switching to that kind of public school full of kids that didn't know what they were talking about was so, so hard.

And the shame and the feeling so alone and the confusion of it. But yeah, these kids were little assholes. I re, yeah, I remember a birthday party where you had, they had to name team names and these two, you know, they must have been 11. They were like, our team name is the Nazis, and I wanted to run into the bathroom and sob.

It was just horrendous. 

Zibby: Ugh. And then even here, when you moved in with your family friends and you were like, we moved out because we didn't wanna be in imposition, but we absolutely were in imposition. Like you stayed with them for, for two weeks. 

Tamara: They were. 

Zibby: And the girl. And the girl who was your age, who, and this is another really sad moment when you get off the plane and you're like, oh yeah, I have my friend.

And you could tell immediately that she was just like not having it. And then her, all her friends in the room next to you were just like, making fun of you and not inviting you. I mean, it's so sad. 

Tamara: It is so sad. It feels so good to admit that it was sad Zibby, you know? 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Tamara: Yeah. It was devastating and like, thank God I got to write this book.

I really, really needed to get all that stuff out it just it was relentless sadness. 

Zibby: It's so bizarre because you seem like a lovely person. Do you know what I mean? Like why was everyone always turning on you? Like why did you find it so difficult? Do you feel like, or was it just the sense of other that you came, you know, that you were from Argent?

Like what was, what do you think? 

Tamara: Yeah, I, I think it was that it was constant change and I do have to say, I mean, there were moments. S in Argentina that, that second time we lived there, where, I don't go into it in the book, but I felt this was, when I went into performing, I felt so happy. I was surrounded by, you know, my parents' friends and their kids who were my friends and my group of performing, you know, crew, which I, I write about a lot and I guess I, I didn't explain that part in the book, but I felt like I so belonged, which is why when we uprooted again to come back to the United States, it was just crushing. And, but I, I have to say, like, I just think that might be the experience of someone who immigrates. It's not easy. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Tamara: Starting a new school with a new language with no family.

It's so hard. 

Zibby: And I feel like the way your parents sort of parented, like no judgment or whatever, but it was very much like you figure it out. Like, okay, here you go, here's the school. And like, we're busy. Like you know, now we're gonna try to drive the fruit trucks and make a living. And like you just have to deal with school.

Tamara: Yeah. And I think that that's a very immigrant, if you talk to most kids of immigrants, they'll say, you know my parents didn't know what grade I was in. You know, there was no support when it came to like academics and stuff like that 'cause they were figuring it out. But I did have this crazy talk with my dad after my book came out where he admitted to me that he was shocked that I had such a hard time adapting.

And he said, I thought you and your sister just. Laughed throughout this whole, you know, back and forth moving, and I was like. That just shows how, you know, your emotional intelligence is not that developed, that you think that it was that easy for, you know, two small kids. We were laughing throughout all the moves.

Now you can tell I have a little bit of resentment towards them, which, but I think that's healthy to process. Like, no, we were not laughing. And here's the thing, Zibby, we were laughing, we were trying to make the best out of it, but like deep down we were not happy kids. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Well, I also am not sure how happy they were.

Tamara: No. 

But I don't think they had time to even stop and ask themselves that. You know, there's also another layer to the book, which is the mental illness that runs in my mother's family. Right? 

Zibby: Yes, yes. 

Tamara: So, which is something I'm also coming to terms with, like having a you know, very borderline personality, narcissistic mother, and there was not much space for me and my sister because she kind of sucked all the air out of the room and it was always her, her, her.

So that's another fun little happening but it sounds like you have a great new therapist, right? I have a great new therapist and I have boundaries now. 

Zibby: Mm-hmm. 

Tamara: And I have a wonderful husband who I don't talk about in the book at all, because it's funny, my mother-in-law read the book and she had the same reaction as you.

It was just like, how did you, how are you a functioning adult, right? And she said, I, I love that you protected my son and you didn't talk about him. You can tell that he's really precious to you and that you didn't need to talk about him. And it's was totally true. You know, it's the family that I created now, which is also why I'm dying to have kids and start, you know, my healthy family of my own.

Aw. 

Zibby: Well, I think it's really great that you put this book out there. I mean, maybe the, the shock and the, the rawness of the, like, how you describe different senses being like body parts that are like, you know, all these things and like, you know, the, the, the bathroom pieces of it and the sexual pieces that are like pushing the boundaries, like, I don't know.

I feel like it's just an a way, it's just a, it's just the cover, you know? Just to get 

Tamara: Yes, it is. And that, I think that's the part that if I could go back now and tone those parts down, I guess those would be it. But at the same time, like when I wrote this book. I told it exactly like it happened, you know, and in my family there are no boundaries.

We talk about poop at the dinner table. We talk about sex super openly. I mean, my mom is an only fans model. Model it, you know, it is what it is. And I wouldn't have it any other way. That part of my mom doesn't bother me. Like I think like go for it. If you feel like selling pictures of your boobs and you know, makes you happy, that's cool.

That part doesn't bother me. It's the, you know, not treating us like with respect. That bothers me. 

Zibby: Yeah. Well, I hope the distance helps. You know? 

Tamara: Yeah. It's already helping and it's not ideal, but for me, it's what I need right 

Zibby: now. So, and when you wrote the book, did it all just come pouring out or did you have some sort of outline, or did you, like how, how was that process?

What was that process like for you? 

Tamara: Um, I did have an outline. I think my first draft of the book was rough and I had incredible editors that my, uh, one of my two editors is from Argentina, so they really helped me hone in on a narrative I. I think I was trying to do weird stuff in the first draft, like a lot of jumping back and forth from the present day to the past.

And when I started telling it just chronologically, it just felt like a smooth narrative and yeah, I'm, I'm really happy with how it came out and, you know, I wanna say the book isn't for everybody in, in that it is very shocking and hard to read, but at the same time, you are peering in through, into the life of someone.

And that was my life. So, you know.

Zibby: So what do you like to do these days when you're not. Writing, performing, working, like what's your, what are some of your happy things that you do? 

Tamara: I love RuPaul's Drag Race. I'm a huge fan. I watch way too much of it. I read a lot and I've made it a point to start reading more.

I'm currently rereading Middlesex, which I hadn't read since I for 20 years. Yeah, it came out 23 years ago. What else do I do? I love going out on walks and dinners. I love dinners with friends. 

Zibby: That's awesome. Do you have advice, let's say there's someone who's trying to write their story the way you did of their life, using their life as material.

What advice do you have? 

Tamara: Do it, you know, it like comes down to just sit down and start writing it, and the excuses have to go out the window and you need to write it. Even if it sucks, at first, it'll get better and have something ready for when you find that literary agent. Or the publisher, you have to have something down on paper, even if it's like the first 25 pages, I think there's, you know, you can't skip around that one.

Zibby: And you mentioned this in passing in the book, so I just wanted to see if you had any more to say about it. But you did say, and by the way, I did once, spend all this time with Brad Pitt, like a whole weekend. Like what did I, what happened there? 

Tamara: When I, I shouldn't have included that in the book because it's gonna take over everything, but I did, I met Brad Pitt through a friend, and we hit it off not romantically, and I had a summer where I hung out with Brad Pitt, went to his house.

We went, played board games, we went to concerts and it was crazy. I was just telling someone, when I met Brad Pitt at his house, I was so, so nervous and he came up to me and he was like, hi, I'm Brad Pitt, or, hi, I'm Brad. And I was like, yeah, but it was wild. I will be telling this story when I'm in a geriatric home in my eighties.

I will be saying I was friends with Brad Pitt for a summer. 

Zibby: Oh, too funny. Okay, well thank you so much. I really, this book really made me feel, and that is what I look for in books. When you feel. All the range of emotions and number one, compassion and admiration that you got through all of it and you wrote this book and you showed them and you got to go back to Argentina and have that book party.

And I was like, go, you. So congrats. 

Tamara: Thank you so much, Zibby. Thank you for having me too. 

Zibby: You're welcome. All right. Best of luck. 

Tamara: Thank you. 

Zibby: Okay. Take care. Bye bye.