Author Talk: Alejandra Campoverdi

On October 10, 2024, the Vistamar School auditorium filled with students, parents, Vistamar faculty and staff, and members of the community.  When author Alejandra Campoverdi took her seat onstage, the audience fell silent.  Everyone was there to hear her story, one of incredible, rarefied highs, and crushing, debilitating lows that she describes in her book, First Gen: A Memoir.  The audience was rapt as Campoverdi, together with MB United's Laura Kainsinger as moderator, discussed the "spaces between the bullet points," the real struggle between the pinnacles.  

Campoverdi described being a First and Only as an "...emotional journey which transcends race or gender or geography.  There are so many ways to be first gen: the first to break an emotional cycle, for example."  Growing up, she was alone in holding on to her "irrational sounding" dreams, as she was the first in her family to pursue these types of goals.  To illustrate the point, she goes on to say, "Getting from my childhood to USC and graduating from USC was much harder than getting from USC to the White House." 

She discussed the precarious balancing act she managed: pursuing her considerable accomplishments while dealing with mental health issues.  As she tried to heal, she learned "about having the luxury to feel our own experiences and not skate over them in order to survive."  

Campoverdi related how embracing one's vulnerability can lead to authentic connections, and shared the story of how she met actress Angela Bassett when she was a 12-year-old student playwright in a youth arts program.  She later learned that "pain can be transformed into connective tissue with other people," but one must be brave enough to share it. 

She ended by imparting her hard-earned approach to life: to live as unapologetically as she can.