America Dreaming

Book excerpt: This is a tale about a dream come true. The story of a boys longing to belong to a home, a family, a country. Rejected as a baby by his father as well as by his mothers family, Memo, at the age of five, is abandoned by his mother Mara at a boarding Catholic school in Mexico, while she pursues her acting career. After three years of beseeching, Mara takes pity and takes him to El Salvador, where he struggles to belong to a family that treats him as an inferior and a country that treats him as a foreigner. At age fourteen he goes to Nicaragua, hoping his father would provide what his Salvadorian family has not. His father wants nothing to do with him By a quirk of destiny, Memo becomes a Radio and T.V. teen star in El Salvador. But he soon realizes that, by pursuing acting he has given up his education thus surrendering his future for an uncertain present. A lover of American movies, he spends all his free time in movie theaters dreaming about living in America, a country that seems to have it all. He decides that only in America would he be able to realize his dreams. He implores his cousin Violeta, who lives in the United States, to sponsor him. After several years of pleading, Violeta acquiesces; but he will have to finance his trip. Memo starts the long legal process. Meanwhile, he saves all his money to pay for the trip. He returns to Nicaragua to ask his father for help. His father rejects him and wishes him failure. Memo will have to do it alone. At last he overcomes all obstacles and boards an airplane bound for America. What will he learn there? Memo cannot wait to find out.