Javier Zamora: Campus Community Book Project

Memoirist, poet, and speaker Javier Zamora believes that immigrants must keep ownership of their own stories.

In his award-winning memoir, Solito, he explores his harrowing journey to the US as an unaccompanied nine-year-old that gives a unique and unforgettable glimpse into the realities of child migration.

Accompanied only by strangers and a hired “coyote,” he left his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with his mother and father in the United States. The three-thousand-mile journey is supposed to last two weeks but stretched into two life-altering months spent among strangers turned guardians as they traveled to the United States.

Narrated by his nine-year-old self, Zamora’s memoir, Solito, provides an intimate account of his near-impossible journey and the unexpected moments of kindness, love, and joy scattered across perilous boat trips, desert treks, arrests, and betrayals.

Zamora’s Solito is the selection for the 2025-2026 UC Davis Campus Community Book Project.

You may also like the following events from Mondavi Center:

• This October, 3rd October, 07:30 pm, Stop Making Sense: A Film by Jonathan Demme and Talking Heads in Davis
• This October, 6th October, 07:30 pm, I'm With Her: Wild and Clear and Blue 2025 in Davis
• This October, 15th October, 07:30 pm, Raiatea Helm: A Legacy of Hawaiian Song and String in Davis

Also check out other Arts events in Davis, Literary Art events in Davis.