Solito: A Memoir

An incredibly amazing book - what this boy encounters (and what many migrants crossing the US border) is fuel for nightmares, and I suspect most people's experiences are way worst.

Its very easy to dismiss the plight of people coming from a place of violence or extreme poverty as an American with all the securities it brings. Even knowing that its a dangerous journey, that many people die, this book hits at the heart. While i hope to never experience this, and will never understand what the emotional and physical strain that it takes, this book allowed me to be in a migrant on a difficult journey, even if its for a few hours while sitting on a couch.

The story is from the experience of a 9 year old boy, as he remembers it a number of show more years later. Javier is a sweet kid, smart, innocent, and unprepared for this journey. Javier is an innocent in his world, I suspect that some readers missed what was happening in this village, a few murders of young men, and gangs. There is also extreme poverty with no way to become more. If Javier and his family didn't leave, Javier probably would have been recruited into a gang, or worst. Its damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

As for the story - it is incredible. Written from the point of view as a child allowed the 'adult' stuff to stay in the back. You don't find out why Javier is sent, or how the Coyotes keep their flock safe with bribes. However, what Javier thinks and sees is described, his confusion at what is happening, the boredom of waiting in a small apartment, the scariness of a helicopter patrol, the lack of privacy. The scariness of the strangers. I was so excited when Javier crossed the border - than I realized I still had half a book to go. My heart sunk at that point, this poor kid and his 'fake' family, just trying to get to home to their family.

The one thing I do want to mention is that there is Spanish, most you can pick up from the context or emotion. I thought it added to the story - it was used to heighten the story.

Highly recommended. show less

I just now finished reading Solito and can't stop crying.

It was such a powerful story, but it called to mind that each undocumented Salvadoran immigrant's story is much like this one with all of its suffering and pain in an effort to reach a better life with or for loved ones. This memoir was particularly brutal because it was told in excruciating detail by the author who was recalling his being smuggled into the United States "solito" (without anyone he knew) by coyotes when he was only nine years old.

To me, this is an important work because I don't think enough Americans are aware of how hard Salvadorans struggle for themselves and their families when they ultimately decide to make that ardous journey as an undocumented immigrant show more into the United States at any age.

I loved that the book was written with sprinklings of Salvadoran Spanish and culture throughout. As my husband's niece expressed to me today..."My heart soared every time there was a little nugget of Salvadoran culture or language. It was like our own little inside joke." I absolutely agree with her. show less

Javier was nine when he left El Salvador with six strangers and a "coyote" who was supposed to convey them safely to the US. His parents had had to flee to the States during the Salvadorian war, and he had been living with his grandparents and aunt. The trip was supposed to take two weeks, but his family was not to hear from him for almost two months. The story of his journey is harrowing, touching, and a testament to both the horrific nature of migration to the US and the humanity to be found in the most unlikely places. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Note: The author uses a lot of Spanish in the book, not only to emphasize context, but also to show how difficult it is for people of different cultures and languages to show more understand one another. Javier and his group spent a lot of time trying to sound Mexican, for instance, and sometimes failing with disastrous results. Although I often understood the gist of the Spanish, I did find myself using a translation app fairly frequently. Not surprisingly, even that failed to convey the meaning of much of the slang. The frustration I felt was a gnat bite compared to the desperation migrants feel when trying to understand immigration officials. show less

he harrowing journey of a 9-year-old Salvadoran boy through Guatemala and Mexico to rejoin his parents in the U.S.

Being the child of migrants is not unusual in the small town of La Herradura, El Salvador, where Zamora’s relatives regularly disappeared with the local coyote, Don Dago, to try their luck gaining entry into the U.S. When Zamora was 5, his mother left to join his father, who had left when he was 1, in America. The author opens his engaging narrative in 1999: Don Dago has agreed that the boy is ready for the trip to join his family. At the time, Zamora was living with his grandparents and aunts and excelling in school. He was overjoyed at the prospect of reuniting with his parents yet unaware of the many dangers of the show more arduous trek. Zamora traveled within a small, tightknit group of migrants through Guatemala, Mexico, and the Sonoran Desert. The author, now a poet who has been both a Stegner and Radcliffe fellow, meticulously re-creates his tense, traumatic journey, creating a page-turning narrative that reads like fiction. Sprinkling Spanish words and phrases throughout, Zamora fashions fully fleshed portraits of his fellow travelers—e.g., a protective mother and her daughter and a variety of men who assumed leadership responsibilities—as they navigated buses and boats, packing into a single room in motels, passing through checkpoints (not always successfully), and walking for days in the desert with little food or water. Along the way, the migrants, most of them desperately trying to reach their families in the U.S., also had to learn Mexican words and change their accents in order to remain inconspicuous and avoid the dreaded La Migra, which “has helicopters. They have trucks. They have binoculars that can see in the dark. I want our own helicopter to fight against La Migra. To shoot those bad gringos making us scared.”

Beautifully wrought work that renders the migrant experience into a vivid, immediately accessible portrayal.

-Kirkus Review show less

Javier Zamora lived his first nine years in El Salvador with his grandparents after his parents fled to the U.S. as a result of the Salvadorian civil war. He doesn't even remember his father, who left when he was one, and then four years later, his mother followed. They've told him for years that he will come to them, and after trying to legally immigrate and then bend the truth, eventually he is sent, alone, with a group of migrants and a coyote who promises to get them to the United States.

This is simply an incredible, moving, riveting and intense story. Javier's memories of what happened during the journey in 1999 had me on the edge of my seat from the moment his grandfather left and he was on his own, with each change in plans to show more the challenges of the journey, the fear and terror but also the kindness of strangers he met along the way. I was glad I read the e-book, as it made it a little easier to translate some of the Spanish, and though some of the colloquial words and phrases weren't to be found in the dictionary, I could generally follow the meaning anyway. Highly recommended. show less

I've read maybe a half dozen of these nonfiction child migrant memoirs over the years. As each narrative is uniquely and individually eloquent, feel like it would be impossible to even try to compare them. So instead I'll focus on some of the things that stood out for me in this memoir of the journey of 9yr old Javier Zamora, entrusted to coyotes by his grandparents in El Salvador to complete the long, harrowing, illegal journey to the US, where his parents (a father who fled political violence, a mother who followed him in search of economic opportunity) eagerly await his arrival.

His companions on the journey: Patricia & Carla, a mother/daughter who pretty much adopt young Javier into their family group; Chino, a 22yr old acquaintance show more who joins the family group as a de facto father; and Marcelo, a hardened gangster attempting to re-enter the USA after being deported.

Together they brave a perilous ocean journey, checkpoints manned by crooked officers looking to extort money from desperate migras and their families, filthy flophouses with darkened windows, an overcrowded detention center, interminable bus rides, interminable waits, a constantly shifting cast of imperious coyotes, and heartbreaking setbacks, all culminating in a sleepless, horrific 2-day flight across the desert battling scorching heat, bitter cold, thirst, hunger, and the constant threat of discovery. To some extent these experiences are mediated by the unexpected generosity of folks Javier meets along the way: the informal family that adopts him, strangers who offer food, empathy, and encouragement. However, no amount of kindness can begin to obviate the horror of the 7 weeks that Javier spends in the company of strangers, lonely and deeply afraid.

One of Zamora's most remarkable achievements, I thought, was channeling the story through the perspective of his 9-yr-old self. I can only imagine how hard it must have been for him to resist the urge to infuse adult insights or moral/ethical perspectives! But there's power in experiencing these horrors through the naive awareness and untainted emotions of a child. As adult readers, we perceive so much more than Javier is perceiving at the time, but he, in turn, is perceiving so many things that we adults might otherwise miss: the wonders of the natural world (flying fish! lizards! so many different kinds of cactii!), the exhilaration of discovering new foods & cultures, the torment of pre-adolescent insecurity (longing to impress Carla, to be accepted by Marcelo), the confused and terrifying helplessness of being a child in an adult world.

Just one word of warning: fairly significant quantities of dialog are in Spanish - not even classroom Spanish, but regional dialect. Most of the time I was able to infer the content of these exchanges utilizing context clues, but there were a couple of scenes where I did need to turn to Google Translate to make sure I wasn't missing important information.

In summary: a powerful story, powerfully told by a gifted storyteller. show less

A moving account of migration to the USA as experienced by a nine year old boy from El Salvador. Javier is a poet and his memoir is very poetic. He describes his trip in vivid detail - the landscape, people met, his longing and fears, smells and tastes, tiredness and boredom, music and sounds, coldness and heat. You really feel transported back in time, traveling together with little Javier, being in his skin.

The trip happened more than 20 years ago and he had talked about it only twice with his family. It seemed like all these years they were trying to forget this traumatic experience. He also mentions that he worked with a therapist. His poetry and his book also seems like his way of therapy. While writing this book, he got to relive show more his trip. I'm really wondering how much of it is reimagining. He couldn't possibly remember all these details: the meals they had and the cool drinks they ordered. I'm just realizing that my memory is failing me. Even for memorable trips, there are a lot of blanks.

He also admits that the book is his attempt to reach out to Chino, Patricia, and Carla - his family during the trip - and say thank you to them. Their goodbye was very emotional and it's sad that they lost touch, but it's also understandable that people after such a trauma want to get on with their lives.

I think it's a very topical read at the moment to feel more empathy for immigrant stories and it's beautifully written. I listened to the audiobook read by the author and can't recommend it enough. I wished I knew more Spanish, because there were things I didn't understand, but they didn't prevent me from understanding the story. show less