Structure

The work is Javier Zamora’s memoir of his early migration journey from El Salvador through Guatemala and Mexico to reunite with his parents in the United States. The memoir’s structure is simple and serves the narrative purpose of allowing readers to experience Zamora’s struggles and difficulty to find his place as a migrant and a “new American.”

The nonfiction book does always divide into clear boundaries between the past with threads and clues woven throughout each section to tie together Javier’s past, present, and hopeful future. He is intentional in showing the inevitable connection between who he was as a child seeking his parents and a sense of belonging and security in his national identity and the man he grew to be, detailed in the epigraph, still trying to process his journey and fill the space to soothe himself. There is no way...