Alberto Ledesma

Alberto Ledesma grew up in East Oakland, California. He completed both his undergraduate and graduate studies at UC Berkeley, earning a PhD in Ethnic Studies. He has served as a faculty member at California State University, Monterey Bay, and as a lecturer in Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley, and has held several staff positions at Berkeley, including Director of Admissions at the School of Optometry and Writing Program Coordinator at the Student Learning Center. As a writer, Dr. Ledesma has published academic articles, poetry, and short stories, with essays appearing in ColorLines, New American Media, and The Harvard Journal of Education. He is also a past member of Sandra Cisneros’s Macondo Writers Workshop and the Voices of Our Nations Artists Writers Workshop. He is the award-winning author of Diary of a Reluctant Dreamer, and his forthcoming follow-up is tentatively titled An Undocumented Psalm to Heal My American Heart.


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Writing on Public Books

Republicans Debate Amnesty

“Being undocumented during my formative years … meant that I always lived with fear,” recalls Alberto Ledesma. “I thought that any misstep I took could endanger [my] entire family.” An artist and writer, Ledesma is one of the approximately 2.7 million formerly undocumented immigrants who were able to adjust their status because of the Immigration […]