On the Emmy-winning Netflix series Orange is the New Black, Diane Guerrero plays Maritza Ramos, a sassy prison inmate from East New York. On the Emmy-nominated CW series Jane the Virgin, Guerrero plays Lina, luxury hotel waitress and best friend of the title character. She’s also appeared on episodes of the CBS series Blue Bloods and Person of Interest.

But Guerrero’s life didn’t start out on a fast track to success in Hollywood. Born in New Jersey, and raised in Boston, Guerrero found herself an orphan of sorts at 14 when her parents and older brothers were deported to Colombia. Without the generosity of fellow Colombian families in Boston, Guerrero’s family situation might have sent her down a very different path.

Now, with bestselling author Michelle Burford, Guerrero has written a memoir detailing her experiences and shedding light on the human impact of America’s highly contested laws and attitudes towards immigration. Guerrero will discuss her experiences and writing process for In the Country We Love: My Family Divided at Politics & Prose this Saturday.

Deportation wasn’t a rude awakening for Guerrero—it was a constant presence in her life. “With every ring of my family’s doorbell, with every police car passing on the street, a horrifying possibility hung in the air,” reads the book’s introduction. And as she notes throughout the text, immigrants might be considered a “minority group” among people inclined to use such classifications, but more than eleven million undocumented immigrants face the same uncertainty as she did.

Burford’s background in ghostwriting made her an ideal fit to collaborate with Guerrero on this book. She’s written bestselling memoirs with Olympic gold medalist Gabby Douglas, Grammy-winning singer Toni Braxton, double amputee Amy Purdy, and kidnapping victim Michelle Knight. Her career began during the founding years of Oprah’s O Magazine, where she served as an editor and met such luminaries as Julia Roberts, Elie Wiesel, Barbara Streisand, and Madonna, according to her website.

The book’s details are as devastating as the points they service. Guerrero vividly recalls the perfectly ordinary and enjoyable day that culminated in the news that her parents had been deported, lingering on her high school classmates’ similarity to the kids in the classic 80s musical Fame.

She also exposes the insecurity and ambiguity that lingered over her relationship between her parents long after the initial shock of the deportation had worn off. “Papi and I had established our rhythm, and Mami’s reentry felt like an interruption,” she writes, complicating the conventional reunion narrative. “I knew there was no life for me there,” she later says of Colombia, where she takes a vacation that awakens powerful, not-always-pleasant emotions.

Both of the shows on which Guerrero’s had prominent roles occasionally touch on immigrant issues; Jane the Virgin earned plaudits for a storyline in which the title character’s grandmother tried to earn her green card, and the Hispanic women of Orange is the New Black regularly discuss issues of race and culture. In the Country We Love: My Family Divided goes deeper than those shows, with their dense narratives and array of characters, have time to do. Just in time for an election season that will likely include contentious discussions of immigration reform, readers will likely come away from Guerrero’s book with a deeper understanding of the issues underlying those debates.

Guerrero will be at Politics & Prose at 6 p.m. on May 7; the event is free.