Alejandra Campoverdi.Photo:Brie Lakin
Brie Lakin
Courtesy of Grand Central Publishing
“I feel like I grew into this book,” Campoverdi says. “I couldn’t have written this book five years ago. A lot of it had to do with my own healing journey and my own excavating of these wounds.”
Alejandra Campoverdi with President Barack Obama.Pete Souza, Chief Official White House Photographer
Pete Souza, Chief Official White House Photographer
As much asFirst Genis a memoir, it is also a resource for other First and Onlys. Campoverdi isn’t afraid to share the emotional toll of being a groundbreaker, as well as the nuances of the Latino and immigrant experience. She breaks down her story into categories, like the Bicultural Balancing Act, where one must navigate multiple cultures at once, and Blindfolded Cliff Jumping, which refers to the feeling of navigating new fields without any previous connections.“I had embarked on my career really trying to find a way to merge my love of my culture and what that identity meant to me with my passion and the issues that were important to me,” Campoverdi says. Her work, which had included serving as the White House’s first Deputy Director of Hispanic Media, and running for California’s 34th Congressional District in 2017, doesn’t come without challenges.
“I still face all these pieces,” Campoverdi says. “The breakaway guilt, all of this, is still very active. And this book is how I’m also dealing with it in real time.”The author is only furthering her advocacy for her fellow First and Onlys. Campoverdi, who has benefited from therapy, provides pages of mental health resources in the book. She also launched theFirst Gen Fellowship, which will award ten grants to first-generation college students, per its website.
Alejandra Campoverdi and her family.Alejandra Campoverdi
Alejandra Campoverdi
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More than anything, Campoverdi hopes that her readers feel seen and understand they are not alone. One of her own personal reckonings with this occurred when she introduced her mother and sister to President Obama during her time at the White House; an experience that Campoverdi says was “bigger” than all of them.“It was one of the moments that you can see all of the sacrifices and the debt and the hardship and the isolation and the loneliness and everything come together,” she says. “And you understand that your story and your experience as someone who’s first-gen is so much bigger than who you are.”First Genis now available wherever books are sold.
source: people.com
