Javier Zamora is a renowned Salvadorian poet and activist.

When he was just nine years old, he immigrated alone from El Salvador to the U.S.

His memoir, Solito, details this harrowing journey that many immigrants face.

The book is everything. It's beautiful, heartbreaking, deeply personal, and so incredibly important.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Javier a few times since his book became a read with Jenna Pick in 2022.

I hope you enjoyed this, our first conversation. Let's start with the title of this beautiful book, Solito.

Why did you name it that?

Solito means alone, and that word has meant different things. When I was in El Salvador, you know,

the war happened, the civil war from 1980 till 1992. I was born in 1990. My dad left right before I was

about to turn one. And then my mom left when I was four years old. So I grew up not knowing my dad, I would communicate with him through a telephone, letters, and photographs. And when my mom left, I was left with my grandparents and the same thing. I would just communicate through telephone calls, letters, photographs. So I felt parentless and I felt alone,

even though I was with loving grandparents and two loving aunts,

my dogs and my friends and everything,

but I still felt different than all the other kids.

And once they gather enough money to bring thing, but I still felt different than all the other kids.

And once they gathered enough money to bring me to this country, in the journey that was 3,000 mile journey, that was only supposed to take two weeks max, and the journey that I was

supposed to be with this coyote on dago whom i had met

because he's the same person that brought my mom here and so i knew him but then the two weeks

turned into seven weeks nine weeks and i think is at that point in the book where I realize being

by myself, again alone, solito, that it was the first time in my life where none of my parents

were with me. But then that changes again as this group of strangers, these immigrants, Marcelo,

Chele, Chino, Carla, Patricia, and Martha made me feel less alone. And slowly they become my family

and a family without whom I wouldn't be here today.

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