I had first heard about this book at an English teachers convention I attended. The buzz was that it fit the non-fiction, author of color, YA niche that a lot of high school teachers are looking for to teach as a whole class novel. I hadn’t had a chance to read it until my book club recently chose it as one of our picks.
The author, Javier Zamora, recounts his journey from El Salvador to the United States to be reunited with his parents who made the migration before him. Along the way we are introduced to various Coyotes, countries, and traveling companions who either help or abandon him.
Zamora takes a topic, migration, and humanizes it by putting us in the place of a 10 year old boy traveling by himself encountering situations that could have turned tragic for him. Zamora uses his talent as a poet to create striking images to bring the reader into so many of the situations that form the plot of this memoir. The way he describes the danger and the beauty of the Sonoran desert along the U.S. / Mexican border makes it feel like we are right there with the migrants trying to escape the heat and cacti that dot the landscape. Zamora finds the beauty in this tense moment that creates a striking mental image.
This was a conflicting read for me. On one hand, I get that Javier’s parents left El Salvador (and Javier) to build a better life in the U.S. On the other hand, I don’t understand how any parent would allow their young child to make that migration all by himself. Without the assistance of strangers, Javier would have died, been trafficked, arrested, or deported. From young Javier’s perspective, there wasn’t any pressing danger in El Salvador that would necessitate the desperation that might excuse parents allowing their son to make the journey by himself. At the end of the memoir, Zamora tells readers in the epilogue that this issue is a sticking point with he and his parents to this day. And understandably so.
I would recommend this book because it is a unique perspective on migration accounts. We rarely hear about migration from single, young boys traveling on their own. I think this book is elevated by reading it with a book club because there are so many topics and questions to discuss. I wouldn’t teach this in a class due to how long it is, but I think it is appropriate to have 7th-12th graders read it independently.