Guns, guards, snarling dogs: A child migrant’s story
Javier Zamora travelled alone from El Salvador to the US when he was just nine years old.
Javier Zamora travelled alone from El Salvador to the US when he was just nine years old.
He had been living with relatives after his parents migrated to the US, but longed to be in his mother’s arms. His parents hired a ‘coyote’, or people smuggler, to bring him across the borders, but the trip went wrong. Javier was abandoned by the coyote, and found himself reliant on strangers for survival as he journeyed for two months by bus, boat, and on foot, nearly dying in the Sonoran Desert. Javier is now a poet in the US, whose work explores the trauma of that experience, and what it means to be an undocumented migrant.
Presenter:Jo Fidgen
Producer: Rebecca Vincent
Get in touch: [email protected]
(Photo: Javier Zamora. Credit: Gerardo Del Valle)
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- Tue 20 Dec 202212:06GMTBBC World Service
- Tue 20 Dec 202218:06GMTBBC World Service except East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa
- Tue 20 Dec 202223:06GMTBBC World Service East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa only
- Wed 21 Dec 202200:06GMTBBC World Service South Asia
- Wed 21 Dec 202203:06GMTBBC World Service except South Asia
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