On April 6, 1999 Javier Zamora woke at dawn. He put on the clothes his grandparents had laid out for him: A dark blue dress shirt, dark blue jeans, a black belt, black dress shoes. Nearby sat his backpack–it held his toiletries and more black clothing. The backpack was also black. Everything had to be dark, that was what the Coyote had told them. In his new memoir, Solito, Javier Zamora recounts his three-thousand mile journey from a small fishing village in El Salvador to the United States. He made the trip alone, without family, relying on the help of strangers. He was just nine years old.
