2023~X31. First Gen

Alejandra Campoverdi. 2023.

This raw and honest memoir of a former White House aid is a fast paced, woman of color "boot-strap" story that I quite enjoyed.  Balancing staying connect to her family and roots with getting her education at USC and then Harvard isn't sugar coated. The anxiety, the ambition, and the loneliness of being the first and only" person in her family to go to college and beyond is endearing while also calling out institutions and processes that fail first gen students.  I particularly love, though, how she portrays her mom as this incredibly resourceful parent hellbent on getting every possible benefit out of every job she had, while still coping with her own trauma and the limits it imposed on her.  Her mom's inability to fully support or even understand the value of a college experience, let alone a $150,000 unfunded master degree, made her so real and it was impossible not to love her as she tells everyone she knows when her daughter gets into Harvard, just as if it had been her own good idea to try for that.  Without glossing over questionable choices her younger self made or dysfunctional family histories or her own internal struggles, this is a story worth reading.  For college professors, in particular, I would imagine that this narrative could provide insight to the experiences of students making their own way in the world.

Recommend. 
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