Javier Zamora tells the story of his unbelievable immigration journey when he was only nine years old in his memoir, Solito. His incredible seven-week expedition from El Salvador to the United States takes the reader through the harrowing trip of new cities full of life to the desolate desert with only the cacti to keep Zamora company. Because the book is from the perspective of him as a nine-year-old, this is not your typical life story. The reader is bound to the mindset of a nine-year-old not quite cognizant of the bigger factors at play. Through Zamora’s vivid imagination and observations, the reader is thrust into Zamora’s inner thoughts as he tries to reunite with his parents in the United States. 
Zamora crossed the Mexico-United States border with strangers. Of course, over the seven-week period of trying to cross, they become a family. They become “The Four” (370). They become a unit who need to rely on each other to ensure survival. One of the ways Zamora becomes so entangled with these people is through his studying them using the senses. However, before “The Four”, there was “The Six”. The group gets cut down to four during the first attempt of crossing the border. Marcelo runs off into the night, and Chele runs away when they have a run in with the police. Marcelo, Chele, and Chino, Zamora’s pseudo dad, are chronic smokers. The smell and sound of smoking are tied to the men for Zamora. Zamora becomes even more entwined with the men when he smokes a cigarette for the first time with them. The smoke “filled [his] mouth, [his] tongue, the little punching bag at the end of [his] throat” (118). Zamora travels the path the smoke takes employing the use of every sense. Despite language, geography, or age difference, everybody has senses and can relate to Zamora. This makes the memoir that much more poignant.
Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson explain how senses are so important in their book, Reading Autobiography Now. They claim, “memory is evoked by the senses – smell, taste, touch, sight, and sound – and encoded in objects or events with particular meaning for the narrator” (39). That is exactly what the cigarettes and many other objects in his memoir do for Zamora. A cigarette means so much more than just a cigarette. The men are “encoded” in a cigarette. The same thing can be said for smell. Patricia and Carla, Zamora’s pseudo mom and sister, have a distinct smell. They smell like oxtail soup and their breath in the morning smells “like loroco” (164). Zamora uses his memories of smell to think of his hometown and family. His grandmother’s pupusa stand’s chairs “smelled rancid, like mangos rotting” (164) and his aunt “smells like freshly chopped wood, like sawdust – except for her feet” (164). When Zamora is thousands of miles away from his hometown, he can rely on his memories encoded through smell to give him some comfort.
In addition, in true child fashion, he relies on games to entertain and comfort him. When Zamora and the others are waiting to cross the desert on their second attempt, he and Carla start playing with a hair tie. The two know the hardships they are about to face in the unforgiving desert, yet they find entertainment in a simple hair tie. While they are playing, “[They] laugh. She sounds like a chicken clucking” (282). On the last attempt in the desert, Zamora finds comfort in the cacti that previously haunted his dreams. He “[pretends] they’re cows”, but “it feels weird, like [he’s] playing soccer without a goalkeeper” (363). Of course, we, as the readers, know the broader context that Zamora does not understand as a nine-year-old. He does not understand the severity of what he and The Four are doing. Yet, both the reader and Zamora can take a moment of rest and find solace in a simple, childish game. Similar to what Watson and Smith write, “In reading for memory, then, we also read for the gaps and fissures that may draw us more deeply into what is never a simple or single story” (50). Zamora helps to bridge this gap again when he compares himself to Aladdin. He is Aladdin, “Chino is my carpet. Where’s the genie? I don’t know, but I’d ask for a lake” (319). This simple statement underscores the intersection between Zamora’s childishness coming face to face with the harsh reality of his circumstances.
Solito forces both Zamora and the reader to confront the disconnect between what one goes through from international conflict and how they mentally process it. Diluting the story to be told from a nine-year-old allows the lonely Zamora to have a friend, the reader.
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