Jimena Pérez puede volar / Jimena Pérez Can Fly

author: Jorge Argueta 

translation: Elizabeth Bell

illustration: Fabricio Vanden Broeck 

Arte Público Press, 2019

grades 4-up 

Pipíl Nahua, Salvadoran

In these difficult political and economic times, whole families are running from their homes in the Northern Triangle countries (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras), and through Mexico—desperately trying to get to El Norte. They are running away from their extended families, away from their languages and cultures, away from the only home they have ever known. They are running into the mouth of the shark, the United States, whose economic and political policies have cleared the path for the drug cartels, which have taken over and made life unlivable. 

When they reach the border, the US government breaks up family groups and often imprisons the terrified children in overcrowded detention cells, with no physical or emotional warmth, for long periods of time. 

Argueta presents Jimena Pérez puede solar / Jimena Pérez Can Fly from the perspective of one of these children. In his beautiful, empathetic story-poem, the narrator is ten-year-old Jimena Pérez, a happy child who lives with her parents in the barrio San Jacinto, in El Salvador. She and her mom sell produce in San Jacinto Market, and her mom tells her it’s their home:

“El mercado / nos ha dado de comer

toda la vida.

Tu abuela y tu bisabuela

también trabajaron aquí.

La frutas son benditas

como tú, Jimena.”

“The market / has fed us 

our whole lives.

Your grandmother and great-grandmother

worked here too.

Fruits are a blessing

like you, Jimena.”

After being threatened by the gangs, Jimena’s family makes the painful decision for her and her mom to travel all the way to Texas to live with relatives. They board the dangerous train, known as “La Bestia,” And after their long journey, they’re grabbed by La Migra:

Escucho a lo lejos

la voz de mi mami.

Me siento sola.

Otros niños lloran.

Somos pajaritos

solos y tristes

en una jaula de metal.

Far away I hear

my mama’s voice.

I feel alone.

Other kids are crying.

We’re little birds

alone and sad

in a metal cage.

In the detention cell, she finds a cardboard box filled with books that someone has donated. They remind her of San Jacinto Market and her friends, and give her a measure of comfort. And for a little while, the terrified Jimena is at peace:

Me gusta ver los colores 

y los dibujos de los libros.

Me llevo uno a la esquina

y al abrirlo, 

me abrazan la letras

como las palabras de mi mami, 

como las palabras de me papi.

Soy una pajarita.

Nadie puede detenerme.

Soy Jimena Pérez.

Puedo volar.

I like seeing the colors

and pictures in the books.

I take one into a corner

and when I open it,

the letters kiss me

like my mamá’s words,

like my papá’s words.

I am a little bird.

No one can stop me.

I am Jimena Pérez.

I can fly.

Of course, this is not the whole story. We don’t know how this story ends for Jimena and for the other terrified, incarcerated children. We know that, for this moment, with these beautiful books, Jimena Pérez puede volar. 

Argueta wrote this short, evocative and empathetic story-poem in Spanish, which Elizabeth Bell beautifully translated into English. Mexican artist Fabricio Vanden Broeck’s mostly somber illustrations, rendered in India ink on scratchboard, effectively portray the initial joys and later the terrors of a young Salvadoran child, abruptly separated from her family and imprisoned in a detention center along with other frightened children. 

Through Jimena’s story, Argueta gently supports our young protagonist with some measure of comfort as she begins to feel less alone. At the same time, he presents middle-grade readers with a glimpse into the nightmares that child refugees endure in dealing with their terrors and their unknown fates. 

*Highly recommended for all home, classroom and library collections.

—Beverly Slapin

(published 1/25/20)

Note: It’s a box of donated books that allows Jimena’s dreams of home and family to embrace her one more time. One of Argueta’s passions is to provide beautiful picture books in Spanish to children in El Salvador and to those incarcerated in US detention centers. Although Jimena Pérez puede volar / Jimena Pérez Can Fly does not mention his project, it’s worth noting and appreciating. (See also Oralia Garza de Cortéz’s lovely poem, “Nueva Generación.” (https://decoloresreviews.blogspot.com/search?q=Oralia)

Caravana al Norte: La larga caminata de Misael // Caravan to the North: Misael’s Long Walk

author: Jorge Argueta

translator (English): Elizabeth Bell 

illustrator: Manuel Monroy 

Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press, 2019 

grades 4-up 

Pipil Nahua, Salvadoran

On the mostly black-and-white line illustration that wraps around the jacket, an anonymous group of people gathers in the Plaza Divino Salvador del Mundo. Most wear caps and lug drawstring sacks or backpacks or duffel bags or rolled-up sleeping bags, several carry toddlers or babies in slings, and one has a guitar. All of the people are brown and they face the same direction. Except for one man who is turned to the south, waving goodbye, all bodies and eyes are focused north.

In the group’s center is a young boy. With one hand, he holds a duffel bag and with the other, he grasps his father’s hand. While everyone else is depicted in white and is outlined in black or blue inks, this child wears a red t-shirt and his gaze is directed at the reader. He is the only one depicted with a mouth. His name is Misael Martínez, he is nine years old, he is part of the caravan to the north, and this is his story.

Through narrative verse in a voice that will resonate with young readers, Misael tells them why he and his family are leaving for the north. 

Hemos decidido porque en mi pueblo ya no se puede vivir. No hay trabajo ni oportunidades. Lo que hay es violencia, maras.

We decided to leave because you can't really live in my village anymore. There's no work. There's no way to get by. What there is, is violence, gangs.

As the families walk the 2,500 miles through Central America to the Tijuana border where they hope to cross into the US for a life that that will be safe and secure, Misael remembers his home—the good times and the beauty of simple things:

Yo quiero mucho pero mucho a mi país. Me encanta hacer siembras, ver crecer el maíz y los frijolitos

I love my country so, so much. I love to plant the fields, see the corn come up and the little beans sprout.

Readers also hear the voices of Misael’s parents. When they talk about the gang violence, their hearts are full of empathy for “those poor babies,” nobody’s children anymore but the gang’s. They talk about a neighbor’s son, killed by the cops.

Pobre cipote, se murío llorando y llamando a su mamá. A uno de tata, eso le duele.

Poor kid died crying and calling for his mamá. As a dad, that really hurts.

Misael remembers the good things about their home, the beautiful things: 

Cuando cantan las gualcalchillas canta mi corazón y yo sé que canta el corazón de nuestra Madre Tierra.

When the gualcalchillas sing, my heart sings and I know our Mother Earth’s heart is singing too.

Each short chapter begins with a title and a black-and-white line illustration that sets the scene for the narrative that follows. For the interior illustrations, Monroy used a calligraphy pen and Chinese ink on rustic rice paper, and for the cover, he processed the illustrations digitally to add color. This technique works beautifully with the spacious book design, hinting at detail and leaving room for readers’ imaginations—encouraging them to pause, examine and reflect—and identify with young Misael, his relatives, and the other asylum seekers.

Through these simple line drawings and beautiful narrative poems that need no interpretation, young readers will see the impossible conditions, the violence that is continuing to drive thousands of refugees into the mouth of the shark. And they will also see the impossible beauty of the land that young Misael has left—and the warm arms of his relatives and the beauty of the countryside and the beauty of a kernel of corn sprouting up, breaking the soil and saying “hello.” 

As they walk, the young refugees dream about what they’ll do when they reach the border. Misael fantasizes bathing in warm water and having a washing machine. Another boy wants to work and send money home to his mamá. Another’s ambition is to become a lawyer or a doctor, and yet another is happy to settle for just getting to the north. 

On their long, difficult journey, the refugees are often met with kindness from strangers along the way. In Chiquimulilla, Guatemala, 

Aquí nos regalan agua y comida. Lo más sabroso son las sonrisas de la gente.

They give us water and food. The smiles that people give us taste best of all.

And in Mexico City, a man at the shelter makes pupusas for everyone:

¡Vaya, las pupusas! ¡Pupusas revueltas de sueños, pupusas revueltas de arcoíris, pupusas revueltas de cantos, pupusas revueltas de amor!

“Come get your pupusas! Pupusas filled with dreams, pupusas filled with rainbows pupusas filled with song, pupusas filled with love!”

But when the large caravan finally reaches the US border they are confronted by the foreboding barbed wire-topped wall. Suddenly, cops and soldiers descend on them, attacking the families with tear gas and batons. The screaming, panicked, choking, people run every which way. 

That night, as Misael falls into a fitful sleep, he dreams that he’s flying, that he’s a song, that he’s a butterfly, that he’s a fish and a wave. And then he dreams 

el sueño más dulce: en vez de llegar al Norte llegué a El Salvador.

the sweetest dream of all Instead of going to the North I went back to El Salvador.

Although both Caravana al Norte and Caravan to the North employ language as spoken by a child, they don’t talk down to child readers. Argueta wrote this story in Spanish, and Elizabeth Bell’s spot-on English translation maintains both the poetic rhythm and Misael’s deep feelings. Monroy’s simple, evocative drawings, combined with the desperate narrative of a frightened child, show young readers what it is to be confronted with the real terror of the Central American asylum seekers desperately attempting to get to El Norte. 

*Highly recommended for home, library and classroom collections.

Argueta has a great talent and a gentle heart. Whether he’s writing in Nahuat, Spanish, or English, he knows his responsibility to the children of El Salvador and the children of the world—and he joyously takes it on. 

*Also highly recommended for home, classroom  and library collections are Argueta's Somos como las nubes / We Are Like the Clouds, translated by Elisa Amado and illustrated by Alfonso Ruano (Groundwood, 2016); and Dos conejos blancos and Two White Rabbits by Jairo Buitrago, translated by Elisa Amado and illustrated by Rafael Yockteng (Groundwood, 2016).

—Beverly Slapin

(published 10/5/19)

Gracias a mi amiga y colega, Lyn Miller-Lachmann.