Erika Piancastelli was born and raised in Southern California. When she was young, her family had Filipino and Chinese parents that came to the United States as illegal aliens. She was five when her parents first came to the States, and she believes they had only a suitcase with them. Eventually they made it to San Francisco, where her parents got a job as teachers at a school in the Chinatown.
Piancastelli grew up in the Bay Area of California, and then for the next seven years worked as a secretary in the aerospace and defense industry in Hawaii, Los Angeles, and Arizona. After a short stint as a teacher, she joined the Peace Corps, working in Africa, and after that worked as a translator in Spain, Brazil, Mexico City, and Buenos Aires. From there she served as an executive assistant to the secretary of state for consular affairs, and later became a foreign service officer, specializing in political and consular issues. After that position, she worked as a U.S. government translator, specializing in fluency in Russian and Eastern European languages. Eventually, she went into private practice in international relations, assisting the secretary of state on visa issues, and later working as an assistant to ambassador Susan Rice in Pakistan.
In 2021, she returned to Sarasota, Florida, to serve as communications director for the State of Florida. In that capacity, she became known as one of the first female communications directors in the nation. Now, she is trying to win Florida’s open congressional seat in the upcoming primary.