“For seven weeks (from April 20, 1999, to June 10, 1999), no one knew where I was. Grandpa handed me over to Don Dago in Tecun Uman, and Don Dago never called my family in El Salvador again. None of the coyotes or polleros called my parents in California.”
I’m Betty Martin with "Martin’s Must Reads" and those are lines from the author’s note of Javier Zamora’s biography Solito. Javier was nine years old living in El Salvador when he learned that he was finally going to join his parents in the United States. Enough money had been saved and a coyote employed to help him leave El Salvador, travel three thousand miles through Guatemala and Mexico and across the U. S. border. He was told that it would take two weeks. But then, he waited weeks just to start the journey, and endured a perilous boat ride, long treks through hot deserts, dashes under and over fences and two arrests before he was finally reunited with his parents. He would never have made it if not for two adults who became his family and helped him survive the journey.
The book jacket says, “Solito provides an immediate and intimate account not only of a treacherous and near-impossible journey but also of the miraculous kindness and love delivered at the most unexpected moments. Solito is Javier Zamora’s story, but it’s also the story of millions of others who have had no choice but to leave home.”
If you’re interested in understanding just what immigrants are willing to endure in order to come to this country, then you must read Solito by Javier Zamora.
