Javier Zamora
By the time Javier Zamora was just five years old, both his parents had fled El Salvador to escape a United States-funded Civil War.\xa0 Zamora lived with his grandparents until the age of nine. That\u2019s when he migrated to the U.S. In his debut memoir, Solito, Zamora retells the experience of traveling alone as a young child.\xa0 The nine-week odyssey took him across Guatemala, Mexico, and the Sonoran Desert \u2013 before he was able to reunite with his parents in California.\xa0The memoir has resonated deeply with other asylum seekers in this country. And Zamora has gone on to become an activist and acclaimed poet. On May 18th, 2023, Zamora came to the Sydney Goldstein Theater in San Francisco to talk with Courtney Martin about being an adult, writing a book from his perspective as a child, overcoming trauma, and what it means to be an outsider in the country you call home.