Solito

The numbers of Latin American immigrants in the US soared in the late 20th century, growing “from less than one million in 1960 to nearly 19 million in 2010” (Tienda, Marta and Susana Sanchez. “Latin American Immigration to the United States.” Daedalus, 2013). Latin America is a diverse region that includes Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean islands, and the United Nations identifies 33 Latin American countries. Spanish, with regional variations, is the predominant language in Latin America, but Portuguese, French, Creole, English, and Indigenous languages are also spoken by various populations in the region. Given this level of diversity, it is difficult to generalize about the experiences of people from this region of the world, yet Javier Zamora and other Latin American migrant writers recognize the commonalities of their experiences of crossing the border into the United States. It is the tension between the staggering diversity of Latin Americans and the universality of the immigration experience that Zamora and other Latinx and Latin American writers explore in their work.

Part of this tension lies in the gulf between the perspectives of the immigrants themselves and the US-born individuals who hear, read, or see their stories.