PROVIDENCE — At age 9, Javier Zamora traveled from El Salvador across the US border to Arizona. His parents were not with him, but he was not alone, receiving help from others during a harrowing journey.
While immigration remains a hot political topic and fertile ground for other authors, Zamora’s new memoir, “Solito,” brings something to the discussion that is often missing: Love.
“A lot of the times we get lost in statistics,” Zamora said on the Rhode Island Report podcast. “I don’t talk about how many immigrants are dying at the border. I’m not talking about why these immigrants are fleeing. All I’m talking about is human-to-human relationships and the love, and the power [of] somebody who has the highest of empathy, and what that empathy can do for another human being. And I think we forget that. We forget that everybody and all of us are capable of great acts of love.”
Every year, Rhode Islanders read the same book as a part of the Reading Across Rhode Island program, and this year’s selection is “Solito.”
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Reading Across Rhode Island is the RI Center for the Book’s “One Book, One State” program, promoting a single book to help foster discussions across the state. Rhode Island PBS is a supporter and educational partner of the Reading Across Rhode Island Project.
On the Rhode Island Report podcast, Maureen Nagle, education chair of Reading Across Rhode Island, said the book humanizes a major political issue.
“We’re in an election year right now, and we know that this subject is one that people care deeply and passionately about,” Nagle said. “When I think about this story in particular — and the pain that I even felt as a reader journeying along with Javiercito — the predominant emotion even through all of that was the love that I felt through the characters.”
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Nagle said more than 2,000 free copies of “Solito” have been distributed to schools and libraries across the state. During a kickoff event in January at the State Library, one person walked up to the table and was offered the book in Spanish or English.
“Tears came to their eyes because that hadn’t happened before,” she said. “We realize so much more how important it is to offer bilingual programming.”
Zamora’s father left for the United States when the boy was 1. His mother followed when he was 5. He lived with his grandparents four more years before he made the journey north.
When asked how his parents have responded to the book, Zamora said, “My Dad read it. My Dad also doesn’t believe in therapy, so I think he read it with his brain, not his heart. My Mom believes in therapy and hasn’t read past chapter one. And my Grandpa has also not read past chapter two, which is when he leaves me. So I think it’s very difficult for them to really acknowledge and to read my perspective of the things that happened to me when they weren’t there, which has also cost them.”
Last year, Zamora wrote an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times titled “It’s Time for the Pulitzer Prize for Literature to Accept Non-Citizens.”
“After 19 years here without a green card, then four years with an EB-1 ‘Einstein Visa,’ after earning a master’s degree in writing from New York University and fellowships from Harvard and Stanford, I still wasn’t enough to be equally considered among my literary peers,” he wrote.
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On the podcast, Zamora said that opinion piece had an impact. In response to his commentary and other voices, the Pulitzer Prize Board announced that it will expand eligibility for its books, drama and music awards to include some non-US citizens, starting with the 2025 Pulitzer Prizes.
“As a writer myself, I thought that the literary world was like this safe haven for everybody,” Zamora said. “To me, it showed that even writing institutions have lacked a lot of imagination — in imagining someone like myself being good enough to win an award.”
But now, he said, “Little 9-year-old (children) from Colombia, from Cuba, from Ethiopia, from anywhere in the world — now they know that their stories could also win a Pulitzer, this fancy award, and that their stories are worthy.”
To get the latest episode each week, follow Rhode Island Report podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other podcasting platforms, or listen in the player above.
Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at edward.fitzpatrick@globe.com. Follow him @FitzProv.