I internalized her leaving and I made it my fault as a little kid. And so this is like a self, almost hatred that was planted in me from that age caused by my mom's departure. Because why are these people leaving? Why is the person that's supposed to take care of me and love me, my mother? Why is she gone? As a little kid, I have no context for a war, poverty, all these push factors, the violence that was increasing. So at no context for that, the only context that I have is my mother's love.
At age nine, Javier Zamora embarked on a harrowing, 3000-mile immigration journey from El Salvador to the United States. More than twenty years later, he’s finally ready to revisit that period of life and what it took for him to survive such treacherous circumstances.
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