Erika Barraza

Erika Barraza was born in San Francisco, California to El Salvadoran parents Alex and Maria Barraza. She is a first generation American fluent in Latin American Spanish. Her "ethnically ambiguous" look is rooted in her unique blend of Hispanic and Maya Indigenous family members. She started acting at age 12 in a middle school production of You're a Good Man Charlie Brown. At 14 she joined the Clayton Arts Academy where she centered her studies on performance arts, where she also began vocal training as a Mezzo-Soprano Belter, specializing in Jazz and Musical Theater styles. She attended a local Community College before transferring to the University of Michigan to double major in Theater and English. She later went on to graduate with an MA in Social Entrepreneurship from Hult International Business School, where she emerged as a founder of a media company experimenting with first person point of view videos, with an intent to affect social change movements through the use of new media formats. In 2017 she began producing and directing virtual reality experiences that place a focus on using the medium to elevate social justice stories. While founding media companies and exploring critical use cases of emerging technologies she continued to pursue performance art casually participating in local choirs, community theater, and participating in workshops to develop new plays. In 2019 she moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting. She has studied with The Ruskin School of Acting and continues to favor the Meisner technique she began studying while in High School. A lifelong athlete she is an advanced competitive swimmer, trained in boxing, rock climbing, and yoga. She has lent her voice to multiple virtual reality experiences, and occasionally hosts digital streaming shows with topics on virtual reality and comic book adaptations into modern media. In 2021 she began production of several independent films, and is frequently cast as a "professional" type.