Dinner, and a book is supported by the Rex and Alice A. Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.

Nine year old Javier Zamora lives with his grandparents and Aunt Molly in El Salvador.

His life is happy, but he misses his parents, who migrated to the US years ago.

Javier has attempted to join them twice already.

His visa application was denied.

So now his grandparents need to hire a coyote.

Don Diego, to take him across the border to the U.S.. Let's meet my guest, Rebecca Espinosa Kubacki, to find out what happens next.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm excited about this book.

It's probably one of the.

It's just such a heart wrenching book.

The word solito means alone.

And Javier is nine years old.

His parents left when he was five years old.

So he hasn't seen them for four years.

And he's just waiting for that time when he can cross the border and get reunited with his parents with his mom.

It has taken so long and they have to be very quiet.

They can't say a word to anyone that he is going to be leaving when when the time comes.

You have to understand that, you're so afraid of being caught.

Yes.

Going to the United States.

And so it has to be very secretive.

The fewer people that know, the better, because if word goes out that he's trying to do it, it, it won't happen.

He could be arrested, his parents could be arrested.

and so the hope the book is, is really broken into three parts.

The first part is just that anticipation.

Waiting, waiting for that time when they will say, okay, this is a good time to cross and this is the plan.

And he waits and he waits and his motions are very conflicted because he loves his grandparents, but he wants to see his mother and that he's nine years old and he wants to be close to his mom.

And that is probably the most heart wrenching thing, is that that I'm so excited, but I'm so sad at the same time to leave with familiar tension.

And there is conflict there that grows within you and doesn't leave you for the longest time.

So he is taken out of school, but his grandpa's going to go with him until they get to the Guatemala border.

They find a coyote that they feel safe with.

That's the most important thing.

the coyote lived in that town, and they said, oh, we know he's honest.

He'll take care of Javier and so they they get the date and they said, okay, I'm going to take you to the first point and then you're going to get on the bus, and Marcela will take care of you from then on.

And, the the interesting thing about that to me at time together is Javier sees another side of his grandfather that he hasn't seen his his father was he drank.

He was, you know, his grandfather, his grandfather.

And so that time that they had together, he really saw a different side of his grandfather that he had never seen.

And that love started to really build.

And that's where he when he left his grandfather, he he realized how sad his grandfather was to see him go, you know, said he was to let go of his grandfather.

And that's where his journey begins.

And not in a good way.

Right?

There's so much conflict in this young man.

And actually, I going to let a little secret out that the author of this book is this is a memoir.

It is his memoir.

And, it's so he's thinking back on this, probably took notes or wrote.

He had a journal, and, I thought he had a journal.

Well, he it wasn't till later, as an adult that he started to to reprocess everything that happened to him.

And we'll talk about his journey and how difficult that journey is.

The very first stop that they make after the grandfather puts him on the bus thinks he's safe.

He's gonna have somebody take care of the very first stop these Mexican soldiers, make them all get off the bus, rob them, take all their money.

They get, you know, they have to pay them off to go on to the next point.

So they get back on the bus totally disheartened because a trip that was supposed to have taken two weeks ends up taking three months.

It stretches out and and sometimes they stop in these cities and they're just to be there overnight and something happens.

They don't know what happens, but they're there for a week or two weeks and.

Everything is secretive because secret don't want to let information out.

And so they're always kept in the dark.

And they they put all their trust in the coyotes saying, you know, their their experience of this, they know how to do it.

They're going to guess they're going to get us to the United States.

but if you want to talk about what.

Let's talk about what we're going to copy and we'll get back to the journey.

The.

Yes, it's a very beginning.

if you remember, Javier's grandmother would make pupusas, which is a, like a tortilla that you fill.

But the.

And she had a stand, and the lady next to her had a fruit stand, and he would go there and she would give him these fruits.

and the fruit was, mangoes, watermelon, pineapple and hikma.

And what you do is you you mix these together and, you know, create a little dish.

But the the interesting thing about this are what makes us so unique in, in the Mexican culture is that even though it's a sweet, you always sprinkle it with tahini, which is a spicy, limey sort of, sprinkle, it just sort of flavors the fruit.

And then, of course, you always add lime to everything.

So your family see that one lime.

And this is just a refreshing, fruit that he would have every day.

And the lady, that next door to him loved him and would, would give him this, and he has fond memories of that woman.

That had her stand next to his grandmother.

I'd like to have a sniff of that to see what it smells like.

Yes.

The lime.

You can, you can, you can, smell the different additives here and all these colors.

To that top, to the fruit.

It gives it that little, Pop.

Well, and I, I've cooked some, actually, you can use beef or chicken, and I've had a taco sauce, and there is, I've added it with spices and, I'm going to let it cook a little bit.

I have tacos, you know, I remember in the United States, when tacos first debuted as, a family dish.

And my children were small and they loved putting these together and inviting their friends over to have them.

And they were very simple.

And there was no high end, food or high end restaurant at the time.

This was like 30 years ago.

And unfortunately, a lot of the Mexican foods become very Americanized.

Really, to sort of satisfies everybody's palate.

But the true Mexican tacos are really very simple.

You you, you use onion, cilantro, lime.

And that's really that's what flavors the tacos.

We, we were just talking about sour cream, which is now something that we use, because we it keeps the tacos very basic, and it brings out the flavors with onion and cilantro, and that's really all you need.

Well, and I have even chopped up some olives and radishes because I had, Oh, yeah, radish had added that.

And, we will have cilantro and you, let's talk about this, this, trick you have, she has all these tiny little cilantro leaves.

They're really tiny, mine are on stems.

And she said, I said, did you spend two hours taking this little.

No.

Unfortunately, this this colander is true.

The holes are too big.

But what you do is you insert the short of the stem through the colander, and then you pull it and it will break off the, the leaves, the leaves.

So did you use smaller counter for that?

Yes, yes.

So see everything's not quite right.

And I thought I saw her little leaves and I thought, oh my gosh, mine are still on stems and I think that's a holdover from the Asian use of cilantro.

And I'm going to turn this way down so it doesn't, overcook.

And so here we have the basics of what you can find at home or on the street.

Right.

And in the book, the meal here is very simple because you have to remember, they were out in the desert.

Yes.

There weren't restaurants.

They weren't.

They were just trying to survive on what they could get to eat.

and so the food was real basic tortillas, avocado, the tacos, when they were, deported back to Mexico, they were taco stands, and that's where they are.

But out on the desert, it was really basically just tortillas and and whatever they could get.

And sometimes it was just the tortilla by itself and it was dry.

And you're going to do some extra special things in the second part here.

And it was dry because they in the desert, they ran out of water and even something like a tortilla, even though you were hungry, it was hard to even swallow because you had so many days where you didn't have any water and you're desperate to just get thirst, and they had to allocate how much water they could drink every day and little sips.

And in, it was a terrible, terrible struggle for the nine year old boy and.

Well, and the, he does join a very small family, a mother, daughter and two boys and they kind of take care of him.

And he loves them, right?

He learns to love them.

His family.

That becomes his family.

Yes.

And, so she makes sure he has water and the grown ups carry the gallons of water.

they might carry two gallons.

And you've got to have this for the whole day and into the night.

Well, and the reason that he adopted this family, adopted each other, is because it was easier to get through checkpoints if you were a family.

Single person.

And so his pretend family became his real family during that three months.

And, so.

well, we're going to tell you some more things that we learned about traveling.

We're going to take just a short break and get ready for the second part.

I hope you're enjoying the book.

We'll be right back.

Our book is Solito by Javier Zamora.

My guest is Rebecca Espinosa Kubacki I love saying All those words.

great.

She is working with her refried beans.

That's right.

And if you remember, again, we were talking about there.

There in the desert.

There, there, there, there really wasn't a lot to eat.

And the basic was, refried beans, tortillas, queso fresco on their tortillas.

And, you know, we grew up eating my mother would make beans and tortillas every single day.

And so we this is part of our, our meals now, you know, and.

Here's a little drink of what this is a, a mango drink.

Oh, yeah.

And it's nice.

It was started drinking yesterday and I thought this is refreshing.

So and mango was a big part of El Salvador.

It's a popular fruit.

But when we were going through, the, just how difficult it was to cross the desert, they, they finally get to a point where they thought they were going to make it, and immigration stops them.

Oh, the.

Fun the whole family is, is arrested.

They they separate.

Javier.

And, the man who is now his, dad and Patricia and got a, mother and daughter separate them, put them in different cells and and it's heartbreaking.

And the horrible thing about this is they take a nine year old boy, and they put him in a jail with adult men.

Yeah.

And how he was so frightened.

He was just.

And you can imagine at nine years old and he's in he sees Carla and, his, his mother, who becomes mom, but this becomes his mother taken away.

And so he's frightened and, and and, your heart just goes out to him because he doesn't know what's happening.

And they finally, allow Patricia and God light and Javier to leave the jail with the understanding that if you get caught again, she's going to prison for 5 or 10 years.

And so that scares him into.

Do we really want to do this again?

Do we want to just go back to El Salvador?

But the desire is so great to see his mother and their desire so great to leave the conflict in El Salvador, which is why they left the first place.

It was the civil war in El Salvador.

There's that desire to to come to America because America is the promised land.

It's a dreamland.

And they're willing to risk their lives and.

Over and over again until, you know, they're threatened.

the interesting thing, too, is that, this young boy is feel safe with this new family.

And I would like to get a map up the shows, leaving it from El Salvador.

I mean, San Salvador, El Salvador, the capital, going through Guatemala, then through Mexico.

Right.

And every time they get into a different country, they have to use the accent of that country because it would give them away if they were stopped.

And when they get to Mexico, what do you need, a spoon?

I do have a knife.

And that's the thing.

They had to work on their accents because the accent from El Salvador is so much different from the accent.

Guatemala or the accents of Mexico.

And so at each turn to, to make sure that they didn't get caught, they would work on their accent in the right way to say the words in that particular, place where they were.

And so it was just this constant, fear of saying the right, the wrong word, this constant fear of the bering caught.

This constant fear of, being thrown into jail or even worse, being stopped at gunpoint, which happened to them twice.

and here you have a nine year old boy on his knees with his hands behind his back, guns pointed at you.

Yes.

And, and you can imagine how traumatized he he was.

And this affects him so much when he's older.

He really has to have some counseling to help think this all through and to trust and to.

Before he was even able to talk about it.

Yeah.

But it's up to his parents about it for the longest time.

We go back to, the journey again.

And whenever they were at a safe point, it was so secretive.

They were literally locked in or in a room or locked in a building, and they had to use secretive knocks to be able to come in or out again because you're so afraid of being caught.

You're afraid of the Migra which is, you know.

Yes, yes.

the.

Ones in charge of migration.

Yeah.

That's, you know.

So, and so if at every turn and if you remember in the word, in the book, there's a word he calls the Cadejo which is, sort of a mythical Central American dog figure.

And that that, figures is going to help them get through it.

Like he prays to him and says, help me get through this.

yes.

but it's just I think back on my grandchildren that are that age and how they, how they would, how would you process that?

And as a parent, because it was supposed to take three, two weeks into three months during that three month period, the parents didn't know if he was alive.

Yes.

The grandparents didn't know if he was still alive.

And the route had to be changed because they were always being under the watch of the helicopters or soldiers.

Very often helicopters would come down.

And in the desert and, and then just the desert experience itself, where they were constantly it was so hot, you know, you your body was burning from the heat at night.

It was so cold.

You had to have tomatoes or sweaters to keep you warm.

and then just walking day after day after day to get to a safe point.

and again, he was a nine year old.

Nine year old, and he'd been taken care of by grandparents.

Life was calm.

Life was good.

I mean it as much as it could be good.

And, and just doing some of these, tacos and, I'm, I'm adding.

I'm going I'm going to start making, the tacos with refried beans.

And it's a cardinal sin to put tortillas in the microwave.

You have to have the heat, your tortillas.

Otherwise it's not authentic.

And my friend Jesusa would be mad at me and you.

Asked me if we had a microwave here.

I.

Don't.

Was that just.

That was something else.

Oh, but you, you, warm up the tortillas?

and then I'm going to grab an avocado.

I'm adding these the cilantro to my tacos.

Okay, so.

Fresco is just a Mexican cheese that crumbles very easily, and it's very salty.

It's got a great flavor.

yeah.

I've never used it, but I had a friend who taught me about, oh, about 20 years ago.

Oh, she great flavor.

And she she liked that sort of thing.

My daughter goes to Mexico about every four months.

She loves the country.

She just thinks the people are wonderful.

And so I hear about her trips and she wants us to go with her the some other trip.

And I can't wait, to do that.

Well, queso frescfo.

It breaks up very easily and it melts.

And it just got a great salty taste.

And if you remember, in the book, towards the end, they were running out of water.

They were running to the.

Very end.

And they, they were able to get some, the queso fresco.

Their hands were filthy.

They were cutting up the, cheese and tortillas, but they didn't care.

They were starving.

and so even with, you know, the fact that their, their hands were washed and that sort of thing didn't matter.

They just wanted something they.

Wanted to eat.

Nobody cared about that because they were all in the same.

The same.

state.

So now we have we have the queso fresco, right.

The fresco.

What is it, masculine or feminine?

Oh, fresco Go.

You know, if I don't mind, I'll borrow your little plate there That's very nice.

We can share.

There.

And then another simple sort of taco that we you have is just avocado and queso fresco.

And I love that.

And I'm going to try to cut open this.

Sometimes I have good luck.

Sometimes I don't.

I did use some olives and radishes.

And I think we need to talk about how the story ends.

Well, let's do that, because the, it kind of wraps up quickly, but it's it's scary.

It's so scary the way they.

Finally gets to the point where he's going to meet his parents.

He hopes and, you know, he's in, they're in a building again, secretive.

We're knocking.

If we knock three times, we're going to say the name.

And if it's your name, that means your parents are here.

and, so he gets the knock, and he waits, and they finally call his name, and he finally gets to be with his parents and just, the condition that he was in when his parents found him, he was dirty.

He was, he had lost weight.

And he smelled.

He smelled.

I mean, it was just a and and, I mean, the parents were so soft that they're.

Happy to.

See him, but to see him in that condition was just.

It just it was heartbreaking.

and again, we talked about the book that it did take him, years to really deal with the trauma that he dealt with.

Yes.

And I was surprised, that as an adult that he would have to go for therapy, but I can, I can read.

I can feel that now.

But you stop and think about, as a nine year old boy, on your knees with your hands up behind your head.

Yes.

And and guns being pointed at you.

in the fear that you have, and not even being able to sleep or close your eyes because you, you can't think about the migra coming after you.

And we talk about the story.

it's it's still happens.

People want to come to the United States because it's a wonderful place.

Even though it's hard, whether it's right or wrong.

It's just it has to do with this boy writing a beautiful story, a beautiful, the way he told his story as an adult.

Yes.

And that, he understands how people feel when they're trying to go through this.

And his his parting words are, don't ever give up.

Continue.

Yeah.

Trying to trying to come because the life in in El Salvador was corrupt.

It's just a it wasn't a good life.

And in you know he he understood once he came to the United States what a wonderful country this is.

Well, it just seems to me that I'm I'm relieved to hear that, that they are, you know, happy about that.

We need we need to kind of wrap up and see what we're doing.

You're going to do another bean and queso fresco well and, and and I'm sure I turn this.

Yes you can you can turn that off.

I'll turned off now.

And the thing too is my mom would always say if you cooked a tortilla and there was a bubble, that means somebody liked your tortillas, so.

Oh, well, I.

See lots of goals.

So we have our fruit.

We have Doritos.

They carry Doritos with them.

Somebody would give them here, a bag of Doritos.

Here are some more seasonings.

Your fruit.

And I just think it's wonderful.

This is everything that we do.

Doesn't matter what you have, you always add a little bit of onion.

You add cilantro.

Yes.

And you put in a spoon a little bit of salsa and that.

Just add that flavor to the taco.

That just.

Wonderful.

Makes it delicious.

And here it is.

It's right here, in the WNIT studio.

And I love these tacos as I said, when we were living in D.C., we would have some with little shrimp and we'd have, you know, oh, yeah, they were fancy places.

And it was a desert.

Well, you had nothing.

And having you.

So you were lucky to get the tortilla.

I was very happy that it ended so well, because it doesn't end well for many people.

And I thought it was a fascinating story.

And when you read the book, you can tell he's a poet.

It's so it's written so beautifully.

The words that he uses to express how he felt, it's just, just his experience.

He just the the words just jump out at you and you just feel what he's feeling.

Well, yeah, but, Yeah.

Solito was just a it's a great book.

It's a great, just a compassionate read.

I loved it, I and I can see so many people on the news, you know, coming through in one saying they wonder if they had all these experiences.

Some of them don't make it.

And, I was so glad you could do this because it is such a good book and you are informed about all of this, know it.

and, it's such a pleasure to have you and, you know, any other statements we want to make, you.

Know, other than, you know, we hope that, you enjoy it.

Simple foods like tacos with, I.

Can't refried.

Beans and get some fresh going.

It really is a delicious meal.

It really is.

Yes, I, I enjoyed making it, and and, you know, you said that people buy very often these they don't make them the time.

You know, my mother used to make them every day.

But now that it's all become a social thing, where you go to the taqueria and you buy your tortillas and you meet friends there, and, you buy them every day, right?

There you go.

Okay.

Well, we're so glad you joined us today.

And, we want to say come back and see us next week and read the book Solito by Javier Zamora.

Gosh I just love the sound of these words.

I just ripple off my tongue.

So good to have you.

Thank you.

Oh, I enjoyed being here, Joy doing this show.

Good food, good friends, good books, good book.

Make it through a.

Very full life.

Thank you.

We'll see you next time.

This Wnit local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Dinner and a book is supported by the Rex and Alice A. Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.