First Gen: A Memoir

In this memoir, women’s health advocate Campoverdi (producer of the documentary Inheritance) expands on a talk she gave at Harvard’s Latinx Graduation in 2016. Her book is structured around a series of “emotional reference points” that “first and onlys” have in common. As a first-generation Mexican American, the author has often been the first and only Latina in many spaces. She graduated cum laude from the University of Southern California and earned a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Still, she notes how she has repeatedly been underestimated throughout her education and career. That’s resulted in an outlook of precarity, even as she demonstrates pride in her accomplishments. In this book, the author hits her stride when she writes candidly about her experiences, including her disaffected teen years in mid-’90s Los Angeles and her encounters with sexist and racist people. Many know the author as a former aide in the Obama White House, and Campoverdi herself was a candidate for U.S. Congress in 2017. Readers will probably get the impression she is not done pursuing public office.