BRIGHTER THAN THE SUN

Pulled between her feelings of obligation to her family and the lure of her own dreams, Sol must find a way to straddle both political and personal borderlands.

Sol means sun in Spanish, and it embodies the effervescent young woman Sol strives to be. But her name is short for Soledad, which means solitude and represents not only the feast day on which she was born, but the isolation she has felt since her mother died. By virtue of her birth, she is the only U.S. citizen in her family, so she can attend a high school across the border from Tijuana—and even one day a U.S. university, something she has long dreamed of. For now, though, it also means she’s the only one eligible to work in the States. As her family struggles with grief, Sol shoulders the burden of supporting them financially. On the one hand, living with friends on the California side of the border opens up opportunities to cultivate new relationships and renew old ones. On the other hand, she misses seeing her family every day. The push and pull between her desires and obligations in both Mexico and the U.S. turns the border into a liminal space that represents the dichotomy and tension it requires to balance between being Sol and Soledad. Though outside tensions build to a climactic moment, the story’s heart lies within Sol’s first-person stream-of-consciousness narration.

A coming-of-age narrative with no easy answers but in which hope blooms.