Tessie Santiago

Tessie Marie Santiago (born August 10, 1975 in Miami, Florida) is an American actress of Cuban and Spanish descent. Biography Family and education Tessie Santiago is a first generation American. Her parents and grandparents fled from Cuba after Fidel Castro took the power of the country in the early 1960s. Her grandfather was a sculptor. Santiago's father, Joe Santiago, was a musician and her mother's mother was described as a painter. (Santiago's mother, Tess Stebbins, went on to earn a college degree from Barry University as a working adult in Florida and is Executive Director of Medical Education at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.) Santiago learned to play the piano at age seven. Santiago has two younger siblings, a brother and a half-sister. She attended Miami Coral Park High School graduating class of 1993.