Solito, Solita

Solito Cover Updated

Solito, Solita: Crossing Borders With Youth Refugees from Central America. Compiled and Edited by Steven Mayers and Jonathan Freedman. Voice of Witness. Haymarket Books. April 2, 2019.

*Solito, Solita was shortlisted for the 2019 Juan E. Méndez Book Award for Human Rights in Latin America, Duke Human Rights Center.

*Solito, Solita was picked by Remezcla as #1 in 2019’s Best Latino and Latin American History Books.

*Solito, Solita was picked by Emma Watson for her feminist book club, Our Shared Shelf.

  • “Intense testimonies that leave one shivering, astonished at the bravery of the human spirit.  Mayers and Freedman have done a magnanimous job collecting these histories.  America, are you listening?” —Sandra Cisneros, Author of The House on Mango Street  
  • “This book fills a crucial missing piece in today’s immigration debate. Everyone who cares about immigration—and about migrants—should read it. By now we seem to hear the phrase ‘Central American migrant crisis’ every day. Yet most Americans actually know little about the overlapping crises that have caused so many Hondurans, Guatemalans, and Salvadorans, many of them children and teenagers, to flee for the United States. Nor do we know how this migration looks from the perspective of the young migrants themselves. The searing, heart-wrenching first-hand accounts in this book bring to life the experiences of Central Americans before they reach the United States: the tragic experiences of poverty, violence, and abuse that push individuals to flee their homes, the agonizing and perilous journeys across Mexico and Central America, and the baffling bureaucracy and abuse they find upon arriving in the United States. The migrants we meet here are not heroes. All have faced excruciating circumstances, and none has emerged unscathed. What they share is the hope that somehow, in a new country, they will find safety and a way to make a better life. But this book gives more than just their stories. Each account is peppered with useful footnotes that define, explain, and provide historical context for the events described. An extensive glossary and a comprehensive set of essays concludes the book, giving readers ample background in the issues that set the stage for the crises faced by individual Central Americans. By reading these accounts together readers can begin to put together the pieces of    the complex historical puzzle that has forced so many Central Americans from their homes, and the ways our own country has contributed and continues to contribute to the fatal unraveling of their countries and their young lives.”—Aviva Chomsky, Professor at Salem State University, author of Undocumented
  • “Solito, Solita gives readers the rare chance to hear directly from young migrants who have risked everything for a better life on our side of the border. With unflinching clarity, they detail the violence they left behind, the fear and difficulties they face after arrival, and the hope and resiliency that carries them through it all. They have courageously shared these experiences with the idea that people like us might read their stories and be moved to action, and we owe it to them to do so.”
    —Francisco Cantú, Former CBP officer and author of The Line Becomes a River
  • “Immigration narratives are too often reduced to tropes, to statistics and numbers, to binary politics and manipulative rhetoric, but not so in this volume of stories. Solito, Solita reaches beyond and beneath the headlines, clearing the mess and the noise so that we can hear the voices that matter most in contemporary migration: those of young migrants themselves.” —Lauren Markham, writer, reporter, and author of Far Away Brothers: Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life
  • “A poignant, uncompromising addition to the growing literature on the plights of migrating asylum-seekers from Central America.”—Kirkus Reviews
  • “In this moving and expertly researched collection of 15 narratives, Mayers, a historian and professor, and Freedman, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, offer readers oral histories told by some of the ‘thousands of children… trekking from Central America to El Norte’ and some of the mothers making the journey with their children.”—Publisher’s Weekly

  • “I Left El Salvador to Protect My Family. It Didn’t Work.” Isai Rodriguez. New York Times, April 15, 2019. This is an edited excerpt of Josué Nieves’ chapter in Solito, Solita.

  • “At 14, I walked through the desert to reach America. My story didn’t end there.” An excerpt of Soledad Castillo’s story in The Guardian on International Migrant Day, December 18, 2019.

  • “1987 Pulitzer Prize-winner wrote about immigration. Here’s what he thinks now.” Los Angeles Times. Amy Hamblin and Luis Gomez. April 11, 2019.

    • Educational Resources for Solito, Solita

    Press for Solito, Solita

    • “La lunga notte di Adrian.” Excerpt in Il Sole 24 Ore, Sunday, May 19, 2019.