"First Gen": A Conversation with Alejandra Campoverdi

Join us for an on-stage conversation with Alejandra Campoverdi, a nationally recognized advocate for educational opportunity and women’s health and bestselling author of First Gen: A Memoir. Campoverdi will be in conversation with Martha Williams, the library's director of programs and education.

Alejandra has been a child on welfare, a White House aide to President Obama, a Harvard graduate, a gang member’s girlfriend, and a candidate for U.S. Congress. Living a life of contradictory extremes often comes with the territory when you’re a “First and Only.” It also comes at a price. With candor and heart, Alejandra retraces her trajectory as a Mexican American woman raised by an immigrant single mother in Los Angeles. Foregoing the tidy bullet points of her resume and shining a light on the spaces between them instead, what emerges is a powerful testimony that shatters the one-dimensional glossy narrative we are often sold of what it takes to achieve the American Dream. In this timely and revealing reflection, Alejandra draws from her own experiences to name and frame the challenges First and Onlys often face.
 
Part memoir, part manifesto, First Gen is a story of generational inheritance, aspiration, and the true meaning of belonging - a gripping journey to “reclaim the parts of ourselves we sacrificed in order to survive.”

This program will be livestreamed, but a recording will not be available to watch later. 

Campoverdi will also lead a memoir-writing workshop on Thursday, August 14. Learn more here.