Karla Cornejo Villavicencio is an Ecuadorian American writer known for her journalism that focuses on immigration, race, and culture. The semi-autobiographical Catalina is her first novel. Like Catalina Ituralde, Cornejo Villavicencio was born in Ecuador. Her parents migrated to the United States when she was still a baby and sent for her later when she was five years old. She grew up with her parents and little brother in Queens, New York. Cornejo Villavicencio was one of the first undocumented students to graduate from Harvard in 2011. In the fall of 2010, Congress was debating the DREAM Act, which would give undocumented young people an opportunity for legal status in the United States. Cornejo Villavicencio first received attention for an anonymous essay titled “DREAM Act I Summary’m an Illegal Immigrant at Harvard,” which was published on the website The Daily Beast. From this essay, she received a number of offers to write a memoir, which she declined, claiming that she was too young.

Cornejo Villavicencio published The Undocumented Americans in 2020, a work of creative nonfiction that is part journalism and part personal essay. The text includes interviews and insights into the lives of undocumented people across the United States, including Cornejo Villavicencio’s own family.