Meet the Author

Alejandra's award-winning memoir, FIRST GEN, examines the emotional toll of social mobility on those she refers to as “First and Onlys.” A national bestseller, FIRST GEN is the winner of the California Independent Booksellers Alliance (CALIBA) Martin Cruz Smith Award, and was longlisted for the Outstanding Works of Literature (OWL) Award for the First Year Experience. FIRST GEN is also the 2024 Opportunity Matters Book Club selection for the Council for Opportunity in Education (COE), a national book club for first-generation and low-income students at colleges and universities across the country.

Previously, Alejandra served in the Obama White House as the first White House Deputy Director of Hispanic Media. She produced and appeared in the groundbreaking PBS documentary Inheritance, and founded the LATINOS & BRCA awareness initiative in partnership with Penn Medicine’s Basser Center for BRCA.

Alejandra holds a Master in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and graduated cum laude from USC. She currently serves on the boards of the California Community Foundation and Harvard's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy, and is a Senior Fellow at the USC Center on Communication Leadership and Policy.

Sponsored by the El Camino College Schauerman Library and the First-Generation Initiative. More information to come regarding location. For additional questions contact [email protected].