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Maternal lineage is on Andrea Menchaca’s mind. Menchaca’s mother, award-winning Mexican writer Lucia Menchaca, showed her daughter her humor and talent at writing groups and poetry readings. Her mother’s wit made Menchaca feel she couldn’t measure up, but encouragement from a boss in New York and an “anti-honeymoon” trip to Germany with her then-19-month-old baby made her feel like she was cut out for comedy.
“I thought it was really funny how dark their—I don’t know if it’s [German] humor, but their view of the world is, and when I got back, for a few weeks I had a bit in my mind,” Menchaca tells WW of her comic origins. “I couldn’t sleep because it was ruminating in my head, and I don’t know why I decided it had to be a comedy bit.”
Menchaca found an open mic shortly before the pandemic and got laughs for a routine about the trip and how much better it was than her marriage to her ex-husband. She disavows it now and says she is cautious talking about her marriage onstage (she came to Portland from New York with him in 2013, after immigrating from Mexico). Nevertheless, the experience lit the fuse that’s led to a quickly exploding comedy career. One of Menchaca’s funnier bits, pinned to her Instagram page, details the first time she saw her ex’s new wife at the gym.
“We, like, locked eyes and I recognized the fear in her eyes. She grabbed all of her shit and left right away. And I didn’t say anything, but part of me wanted to stop her and be like, what are you afraid of? That you’re going to look into my eyes, we’re going to fall madly in love with each other, and I’ll marry you and then later on divorce you and take half of everything you own? Because I know I have a reputation in your household, but I really only did that one time,” Menchaca says in the act. “And not for nothing, everything you own is the half I didn’t want.”
The story feels relatable to anyone who’s been in similar situations with exes or their new people, but Menchaca, now 34, feels as though she pulls the most easily from her own life, or her takes on the women in her family—her mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and daughter. Menchaca makes a point to tell audiences that she doesn’t define these women, and to bring her daughter to comedy shows whenever possible.
“I don’t feel like I can do anything but talk about myself, which can be tiring for me to hear,” she says. “I talk about them freely because it’s all of their existences through my experience; I’m not speaking for them.”
Menchaca admits she’s surprised she was voted Portland’s Funniest Person, remarking on the city’s deep pool of comedians. She doesn’t watch comedy specials because she doesn’t want to accidentally have her delivery or opinions influenced, but she says she respects many Portland comedians. She didn’t want to name any for fear of leaving anyone out, but while talking about her own style and jokes, Menchaca spoke admiringly about a bit by Funniest Five alumnus Dylan Jenkins.
“He talks about sparkling water for the longest time, and every time I see it, I’m just like, ‘He’s still on sparkling water!’” she marvels. “I would love to be able to do that sort of silly stuff where you talk about nothing really, but for some reason that’s just not my forte. I’m working toward that.”
Menchaca believes she has a reputation as a “serious” comedian—perhaps because of her naturally wry, unflappable delivery that presents her as someone who’s openly unimpressed with the horrors of daily life—but she says that puns and dumb jokes make her laugh the hardest. She once donned a blond wig to spoof White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt at an open mic, which in turn led to a recurring gig as a foreign correspondent for The Not That Late Show, a live, weekly talk show next at Portland Center Stage that skewers global, local and entertainment news.
“I never felt like I was good at being in front of people or speaking out loud, but if I wrote it or put it out in any other way, I couldn’t get the reaction, and I really appreciate the feedback of people,” Menchaca says. “Laughing means people agree with you, and I like that feeling of ‘I guess I was right’...Being right is my favorite dopamine.”
Menchaca performs at a variety of comedy shows, including improv, storytelling and revues for LGBTQ+ audiences. The different writing demands to pop at each show challenge her to keep thinking in new ways, which Menchaca says have inspired some of her best work. Milagro, the Latino arts and culture center in Southeast Portland, recently awarded Menchaca a grant to record an hourlong special in March for the organization’s upcoming Women’s History Month programming. Menchaca says she enjoys performing at LGBTQ+ comedy shows and venues as an ally. And, she says, she’s sticking up for men in 2026 as her effort to help reunite America.
“I feel like it’s my work as a nonman to not just go out there and be like, ‘Men suck,’ or some nonjokey thing that would get a cheer,” she says, clarifying that men shouldn’t get a pass for bad behavior either.
“You can be truthful and also have an opinion on that and still make room for these worlds to merge,” Menchaca continues. “There are a lot of straight men who are great, and we can’t lock them all out like we can’t just not go to queer shows. I just want everyone who is funny to get booked.”
What’s the funniest thing Andrea Menchaca has seen in Portland?
“The other day I went to the pharmacy and I witnessed the pharmacist get really exasperated with a person who didn’t speak English—and it’s not funny because it’s like, you work here, you should keep your cool either way—but just how close his mind was to figuring out how to say something in a way that someone who speaks another language could potentially understand. He just kept saying the same thing over and over and getting really frustrated. I was like, ‘Wow, you really have no Plan B, you’re just going to keep saying the same thing over and over.’ Eventually, I stepped in and the guy luckily spoke Spanish, because if he spoke any other language, I could not help out, but that to me—you never want to assume that someone speaks Spanish, and also it was a medical situation and I shouldn’t have to be knowing your things—for him, there was no other way: ‘I just have to keep saying these three things over and over again, and somehow you’ll learn English.’”
