‘Everyone has a story’: Nestor Gomez explains why you should get on stage

The Rundown | Chicago News

The Guatemalan civil war brought Nestor Gomez and his family to the United States when he was a teenager in the 1980s.

“In many ways I didn’t have a voice at all,” he told Erin Allen. “I didn’t have a voice because I couldn’t vote as an undocumented person, I didn’t have a voice because I stuttered and I didn’t have a voice because I didn’t know the language.”

Decades later and Nestor is somewhat of a legend in Chicago’s storytelling scene. He’s won The Moth's Story SLAM over 70 times and the Chicago Grand SLAM three times (and he’s competing for a fourth win on Saturday, Oct. 7). In this episode, he explains how he found his voice, how he stays conversational on stage and why everyone has a story worth telling.