Solito

Javier Zamora’s memoir is creative nonfiction. The narrative is true, but Zamora uses novelistic writing and stylistic tools to tell his story in an interesting and emotionally effective way. One stylistic element is where he chooses to begin his story. Zamora could have chosen many points in time and/or place to begin narrating his journey to the US. However, to give readers a sense of the emotional buildup to his journey, he chose to begin several weeks before leaving, interspersing the narrative with flashbacks, memories, and pieces of family history. This both sets up subsequent events and provides information about Zamora’s family, culture, and everything else he is leaving behind. The elements of his life in El Salvador not only shape him, but they also remain with him and give him strength during his arduous journey.

While Zamora mentions the civil war, economic difficulties, violence, and death, he does so in passing because the book is not about the political or economic reasons people have for migrating to the US. For him, migration is about being with family. He devotes more space to showing the reader life with his grandparents and Aunt Mali. They form the nucleus of his life in El Salvador, and everything else is secondary. This not only establishes the family as a central theme in his memoir, but it also shows how much of a sacrifice it was for Zamora to leave that family behind. As the epigraph explains, the absence of Zamora’s mother was an open wound in his heart, and he desperately wanted to be with her again despite the sacrifices he would have to make.

This supports the dual themes of The Strength of Family and Community and Latin American Immigration to the US. The memoir presents the personal story of someone sacrificing their entire life to come to the United States, and it reminds American readers that many immigrants leave their home countries only because they have to. In Zamora’s case, his father left to protect himself from the violence of the civil war and/or gangs and to lessen the strain of economic hardship: “Mali says they left because before I was born there was a war, and then there were no jobs” (4). His mother left to be with her husband. Now, the son is leaving to be with his parents. Telling the story from a child’s perspective circumvents the political arguments that can accompany immigration stories. Young Javier has limited understanding of the overall context, and this allows him (and readers) to focus on his personal experience of migration.

Aside from introducing himself, his family, and his country of origin in the opening chapters, Zamora introduces the reader to certain stylistic devices he will use throughout the book. While the book is predominantly English, Zamora interjects Spanish words and phrases, particularly words unique to Salvadoran Spanish. Furthermore, he uses Spanish punctuation, most notably inverted exclamation points and question marks, with both Spanish and English phrases. These stylistic devices allow the American reader unfamiliar with, or even only slightly familiar with, the Spanish language to learn and become more immersed in Zamora’s mother tongue. It also provides the Spanish-speaking readership a chance to encounter regional Salvadoran expressions.

While introducing the American reader to life in El Salvador, the first two chapters also show the reader how much of American life and culture Javier already knows. He likes the Ninja Turtles, Transformers, the Power Rangers. He imagines having a quintessential American Christmas with a Christmas tree and snowball fights. This shows that American culture has permeated El Salvador, and it is also a result of having parents who live in the US. Even before he leaves El Salvador, Javier has a complex cultural identity.

The complex theme of Language as Identity is introduced in this section when Javier hears the term “indio” (Indigenous) for the first time. The word was originally used by Spanish explorers to indicate the Indigenous people they encountered in the Americas because they believed that had reached the West Indies. However, as colonialism became a part of life in the Americas, the term came to indicate people with the most Indigenous blood, separating them from the mestizos (those with Spanish and indigenous ancestry) and from the peninsulares (the European Spanish). After colonialism ended, indio continued to be used to describe someone of Indigenous ancestry, but increasingly it was used as a derogatory term or ethnic slur. This is the first time Javier sees that language can label someone in a way they don’t like, and he will experience this further as the memoir progresses.

The end of Chapter 2 begins Javier’s journey to America and introduces the smuggling network run by the coyotes. Javier does not understand the logistics or politics of border crossing; nevertheless, Zamora hints that Don Dago is not simply taking Javier and the others to the US. Many people and organizations work together to coordinate moving people through Mexico and into the US, and it is a big business. This becomes more and more apparent as the journey progresses, but it is evident early on that Don Dago is taking orders from someone else when they must wait to move to their next destination.