In 2018, a 13-year-old Honduran boy made a 5-month journey by foot and by train — the infamous La Bestia — to the United States accompanied by his young cousins.
Once he crossed into the U.S., he spent 5 more months in detention, including at a newly opened temporary tent facility in the far West Texas border town of Tornillo.
He was one of thousands of unaccompanied children, or children separated from their parents, detained in the desert.
The boy, who is only identified as D. Esperanza, kept a journal of his experiences in detention and of his journey.
His experiences are told in the new book Detained: A Boy’s Journal of Survival and Resilience.
The book is co-written by Gerardo Iván Morales, a fellow immigrant and teacher assigned to the Tornillo camp.
We're talking today with Morales, D. Esperanza, and Tony Diaz, self-described librotraficante (book smuggler), and founder of Nuestra Palabra, which is arranging a book tour that's making a stop in San Antonio on May 17.
Morales described how he first came to know D. Esperanza.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
MORALES: So, I had the privilege and honor of meeting D. Esperanza inside the child detention center where I spent six months in the summer of 2018.
D. Esperanza was already there for about a month prior to when I got there.
We met on Friday the 13th, which is supposed to be an unlucky day. It turned out to be a very lucky day for me. He was assigned to Alpha 13. So, 13 is kind of a big number. The book comes out on May 13th.
And I was assigned to Alpha 13 alongside two other adults, and D. Esperanza had a natural talent for poetry and writing. He was extremely outgoing, extremely talented.
One day I saw him writing on his bunk bed. He was writing in a composition notebook, and I asked him what he was up to, and his face lit up, and he said, “Do you want to read my rap-slash-poem?” Because in Spanish … it's written in Spanish, so it actually rhymes.
And I read the poem, and it brought goosebumps. It brought me into tears. It was such a powerful poem that I was so in awe of his raw talent and that he captured the experience of immigrants.
The title of the poem is Somos Inmigrantes. We Are Immigrants. And I told D. Esperanza, I said, “Wow, you're extremely gifted — continue writing. You have such a talent, and the world will one day know your story, because it's such a powerful story, and representation matters.”
And to my surprise, time went on, and he actually wrote it.
MARTINEZ (translated from Spanish): D. Esperanza, what you write in Detained are things that people don’t usually hear. People usually just see them on the news, but what you lived – what you write – makes it more personal. I think that makes it more impactful – hearing from the voices of the people who lived these lives, these experiences.
Can you describe some of the experiences from your experience that you carry with you?
D. ESPERANZA (translated from Spanish): I can’t say for sure how long, but I was detained by immigration and in the family resettlement centers for about 5 months.
When I got to the perrera [the “dog pound,” chain-link fenced enclosures], the only thing I felt were the looks of all the adults there. I felt them looking at me, judging me, saying, “Why are you here, what do you want?”
I answered that I was only looking for a place to call home. A comfortable place where water wasn’t leaking through the roof. A home for my cousins who traveled with me, the brothers I made in detention during this journey.
It hurt so much when we were all separated. We had bonded over the struggles we suffered through. I felt like I lost the will and strength to go on. They were my family.
To be, again, taken away, alone, to another place where there were so many people experiencing the same thing as me … in cold detention cells … I felt so lonely.
To be separated again was devastating. I had never felt so alone.
MARTINEZ: Tony Diaz, el librotraficante, you're on the line with us as well, and you are a longtime activist.
And we are reading these stories. We remember the Tornillo camp. It was infamous for housing thousands of unaccompanied children and children separated from their parents.
Can you tell us a little bit about your involvement in this book and spreading the word about D. Esperanza’s story?
DIAZ: Well, as librotraficantes, we're champions of freedom of speech. So, it is time to tell immigrant stories.
And at the most fundamental basis, this is about intellectual freedom. This is a story that needs to be told. I don't even want to touch on all the negative narratives out there about immigrants in our community.
This is a powerful firsthand account from a child that was in detention centers paid for by taxpayers. And unfortunately, we need to look into how children are being treated now in these centers.
On the flip side, we are libro traficantes. We cross all intellectual borders.
Nuestra Palabra wanted to get involved in this. We're organizing a Freedom of Press Tour for precious freedom of speech through five Texas cities.
So, we're hitting Austin, May 15.
We're going to San Antonio on May 17, at Trinity University — Dicke Hall, number 104, at One Trinity place.
And then we're coming back to Houston, Texas, on May 21.
On May 24, which is my birthday by coincidence – all these wonderful coincidences – we’ll be in El Paso, Texas, 2 p.m. at an event with the El Paso Public Library for a nice charla, and that evening for a book release party at The Falstaff.
And then we're going to culminate in Dallas, Texas on May 30.
And people can also visit NuestraPalabra.org to see those dates. Get a copy of the book. And if they buy the book in time, they can also get one of the bracelets, similar to the ones created in the books.
A much longer version of this conversation with Morales, Diaz, and D. Esperanza will air on a future episode of Fronteras.
See Tony Diaz in conversation with Gerardo Iván Morales promoting the Detained book tour below.
