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BOOKS I READ: Solito: A Memoir by Javier Zamora (2022). Javiercito is nine years old when he embarks on a perilous journey from El Salvador to La USA. His parents, now living in California, have sent for him, hoping the same coyote, Don Dago, who got his mom across, will also deliver Javier safely. He joins various caravans— centipedes, he calls them for their usual long line of migrantes; he endures long bus trips, clandestine boat rides, and multiple desert crossings, all subject to ending abruptly, and badly, at the next checkpoint. He survives with the help of the small groups attached to each coyote or pollero. His last impromptu group becomes a pseudo family he depends on for his life, Patricia and her daughter Carla joining Chino, a young man from her town, and Javier.
Javier Zamora tells his story from the perspective of the boy that made the trip, a bright kid with that had started to receive praise for this academics. He is wide-eyed and observant, describing the natural beauty he encounters, the awfulness of being on the run, bouncing from safe-house to hideout, while depicting the furtive characters he meets along the way. He and his fellow travelers, especially those not from Mexico, fear their otherness, a stigma they try to conceal using fake accents and local slang.
This interview with Javier Zamora, from the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference is an excellent companion to the book: https://svwc.com/media/livestream/solito.
Check out my Bookshop.org stand; and browse my reading log. The previous book from the log is below:
