Alejandra Campoverdi

Alejandra Campoverdi (born September 20, 1979) is a former White House aide, an advocate for women’s health issues and media executive. Under President Barack Obama, Campoverdi was the first White House Deputy Director of Hispanic Media in history.^[1][2]

Early life and education

Born in Los Angeles, Campoverdi was raised by a single mother and her grandmother who immigrated to the United States from Mexico.^[3] Campoverdi's mother initially worked in a factory that manufactured car floor mats before later becoming a kindergarten teacher at a school in inner-city Los Angeles.^[4][5] Campoverdi spent her childhood sharing a cramped apartment with her mother, grandmother, and several aunts and uncles.^[6] There were periods when her family was on welfare, WIC and Medi-Cal, California’s public health insurance.^[7] Campoverdi attended Saint Monica Catholic High School on financial assistance and with the support of non-profits and pipeline programs.^[6]

She graduated cum laude from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California (USC). Campoverdi worked as a part-time actress and model during her time at USC to pay for her education.^[8] She later received her Master of Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.^[6] Growing up in L.A. during the 1990s, Campoverdi points to the vote for Proposition 187 and the Rodney King Riots as events that shaped her worldview and served as a political awakening.^[7]

Career

After working for the Agricultural Worker Health Initiative at The California Endowment, a health-focused foundation that expands access to quality and affordable healthcare to underserved communities in California,^[5] and following her master's degree, Campoverdi was hired by then-Senator Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, to work in the Chicago headquarters.^[5] She lived off her credit cards, had no health insurance and stayed in supporter housing.^[7] Campoverdi's focus during the campaign was outreach to various constituent groups, including the Latino community.^[9]

Alejandra Campoverdi briefs President Obama in the Oval Office

Following Obama's victory, Campoverdi was appointed to work in the West Wing of the White House as Special Assistant to the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, Mona Sutphen.^[10] She later became the first ever White House Deputy Director of Hispanic Media.^[11] In the latter role, Campoverdi developed and implemented the White House’s communications strategy directed towards the Hispanic community and briefed President Obama in preparation for interviews with Hispanic media. Campoverdi also worked on White House communications around a broad range of issues, including the Affordable Care Act and its effects on the Latino community.^[12]

In 2012, Campoverdi left the White House and joined Univision as Senior Advisor for Innovation and Communications Strategy, where she also worked with the team that launched Fusion.^[13][3] Campoverdi subsequently served as Managing Editor of #EmergingUS at the Los Angeles Times, a multimedia venture founded by Jose Antonio Vargas that explores race, immigration and the emerging American identity.^[14]

Campoverdi serves on the Advisory Board of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, the Executive Advisory Board of the Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy, and is a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy.^[15] She is a volunteer teacher for InsideOUT Writers, through which she teaches a weekly creative writing class to incarcerated youth in Los Angeles’ Central Juvenile Hall.^[16]

In December 2016, Campoverdi announced that she would seek the nomination of the Democratic Party in the special election for the U.S. House of Representatives in California's 34th congressional district,^[11] replacingRep. Xavier Becerra, who has been appointed to succeed Kamala Harris as Attorney General of California.^[6] The catalyst for Campoverdi’s congressional run was the election of President Donald Trump and the potential repeal of the Affordable Care Act.^[17] In the April 4, 2017 primary election, Campoverdi did not make the run-off.^[18]

Women's health advocacy

In March 2017, Campoverdi revealed in a Washington Post profile that she has inherited the BRCA2 gene mutation, giving her an 85% risk of developing breast cancer, and that she plans to have a preventive double mastectomy. Campoverdi lost both her great-grandmother and grandmother to breast cancer, and her mother and aunt have also battled the disease.^[3]

Campoverdi made the protection of access to affordable healthcare and the Affordable Care Act a focus of her congressional campaign. Two days after she went public with her diagnosis, she released a television ad in which she stated “If Donald Trump wants to have a conversation about women’s bodies, let’s start with mine.” Campoverdi chose to speak publically about her personal health in an effort to bring attention to the stakes of limited access to healthcare.^[19]

In an op-ed for Cosmopolitan that trended nationally, Campoverdi wrote about the right of women to be multidimensional stating “female sexuality and intelligence are not inversely related.”^[20] 

References

Further reading

• Manriquez, Pablo (February 26, 2017). "Top Latina White House Aide Returns for Congressional Fundraiser". The Huffington Post. Retrieved March 11, 2017. 
• Mai-Duc, Christine (March 10, 2017). "L.A. congressional candidate Alejandra Campoverdi makes healthcare debate personal in first TV ad". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 11, 2017.