Diane Guerrero is an American actress and author who is perhaps best known for her portrayal of inmate Maritza Ramos on the popular Netflix television series Orange is the New Black. The show is based on the memoir of Piper Kerman, Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison, and relates experiences that happen in a minimum-security women’s federal prison. Diane Guerrero was born on July 21, 1986, in Passaic, New Jersey, and was raised in Boston, Massachusetts. Her parents were Columbians and they, along with Diane’s older brother, were deported back to Columbia, after an unsuccessful attempt to obtain legal citizenship, when Diane was fourteen. Diane has since become a strong advocate for immigration reform; she volunteers and is an ambassador for the Immigration Legal Resource Center.

Diane is also a board member for Mi Familia Vote, a national organization that helps communities become involved in the search for social justice. She was recognized for her charitable work in May of 2018 at the  Phillip Burton Immigration & Civil Rights Awards ceremonies. In 2016, Diane released her memoir, co-written with Michelle Burford, entitled In the Country We Love: My Family Divided, which details her family’s deportation.