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“It’s hard to reconcile the fact that [Solito] hasn’t always been with us. How can something so essential and fundamental to the American story not already be part of our canon?”—San Francisco Chronicle
When Javier Zamora was one year old, his father fled El Salvador’s United States-funded Salvadoran Civil War. His mother followed in 1995, leaving the five-year-old Zamora with his grandparents until he migrated to the U.S. on his own at age nine. In his debut memoir, Solito, Zamora retells his nine-week odyssey across Guatemala, Mexico, and the Sonoran Desert before reuniting with his parents in California. A poet and activist, he is a co-founder of Undocupoets, an organization that has succeeded in lifting citizenship requirements from major poetry prizes.
Courtney E. Martin is the author of five books, including Do It Anyway: The New Generation of Activists and The New Better Off: Reinventing the American Dream, as well as the popular newsletter Examined Family. She is the co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network, FRESH Speakers, and the Bay Area chapter of Integrated Schools, as well as the Storyteller-in-Residence at The Holding Co. Martin has collaborated with a wide range of organizations, including TED, The Aspen Institute, and the Obama Foundation, won the Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics, and holds an honorary doctorate from ArtCenter College of Design. In her most recent book, Learning in Public, Martin examines her own fears, assumptions, and conversations with other parents as they navigate school choice.
City Arts & Lectures’ Covid protocol follows San Francisco Department of Public Health guidelines and/or requirements of the featured guests. At this time, masks are encouraged but not required. Policy subject to change.