Carlos Mencia

Ned Arnel Mencia (born October 22, 1967), better known by his stage name Carlos Mencia, is a Honduran-born American comedian, writer, and actor. His style of comedy is often political and involves issues of race, culture, and social class, juxtaposing existing social issues with ethical convention. He was formerly the host of his own show on Comedy Central, Mind of Mencia. Mencía was born in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, the seventeenth of eighteen children. His mother, Magdelena Mencía, was Mexican, and his father, Roberto Holness, was a Honduran whose distant ancestors included immigrants from Germany, England, and the Cayman Islands. At the time of his birth, Mencía's mother engaged in a domestic dispute with his father, and declined to give her son his biological father's last name. The name appearing on his birth certificate is "Ned Arnel Mencía", although Mencia has said that out of respect for his biological father he went by the Holness name anyway, and was known as "Ned Holness" until he was eighteen years old. Mencia was raised Roman Catholic in East Los Angeles, California by his aunt Consuelo and uncle Pablo Mencia. By his own admission, staying out of trouble was difficult while growing up, but with the help of his family he excelled in school and stayed out of gangs.  He majored in electrical engineering at California State University, Los Angeles,  but left early to pursue a career in comedy after a successful performance at an open mic night at The Laugh Factory.