Did you work while going to school? What kind of responsibilities did you have growing up? Brighter Than the Sun by Daniel Aleman caught my attention because it’s a Young Adult story about a very hard experience – being responsible for a family while one is still a child. Set around the Tijuana border between Mexico and the US, I learned a lot from this book. According to an article in Politico Magazine, approximately 50,000 vehicles and 25,000 pedestrians were using the San Ysidro Port of Entry daily in 2017. Brighter Than the Sun is the story of one of these pedestrians, crossing the border to attend school.
Brighter Than the Sun
By Daniel Aleman | Goodreads
This timely and thought-provoking story about a teen girl shouldering impossibly large responsibilities and ultimately learning that she doesn’t have to do it alone is the perfect follow-up to Daniel Aleman’s award-winning debut novel, Indivisible.
Every morning, sixteen-year-old Sol wakes up at the break of dawn in her hometown of Tijuana, Mexico and makes the trip across the border to go to school in the United States. Though the commute is exhausting, this is the best way to achieve her dream: becoming the first person in her family to go to college.
When her family’s restaurant starts struggling, Sol must find a part-time job in San Diego to help her dad put food on the table and pay the bills. But her complicated school and work schedules on the US side of the border mean moving in with her best friend and leaving her family behind.
With her life divided by an international border, Sol must come to terms with the loneliness she hides, the pressure she feels to succeed for her family, and the fact that the future she once dreamt of is starting to seem unattainable. Mostly, she’ll have to grapple with a secret she’s kept even from herself: that maybe she’s relieved to have escaped her difficult home life, and a part of her may never want to return.
Brighter Than the Sun – Review
Brighter Than the Sun was indeed a thought-provoking read for me. I have lived in a partitioned country but never really thought about what it is to live at the border. My childhood memories of country borders are limited to borders being encroached, wars such as Kargil at the India-Pakistan border. Thinking of borders as places where people cross countries, multiple times a day, projects a completely different image of these boundaries on Earth.
The Plot
Sol, short for Soledad, is a sixteen year old girl who lives with her family in Mexico. In all her memory, her family has always owned a restaurant. But when her mom passes away, money becomes short and the restaurant starts to be more of a liability than an asset. In order to support her family, Sol decides to take a job in the US. She already crosses the border every day to attend high school, earning a living there would not be a problem.
Sol is the only member of the family who is a US citizen. She was born on the other side of the border due to her mother’s complicated pregnancy. Her family hopes for her to be the first person to attend college. They want her to do better than they did and in the process, lift up her younger brother, Diego, in particular. But the challenges of living in poverty are not lost on Sol. Before she can realize her dream, she wants to pitch in and do everything she can to put more food on the table and make living conditions better for her family. Hence, Sol makes the decision to move to San Diego and stay with her childhood friend, Ari, and her mother, Nancy.
Friendships and Family
Moving to the other side of the border does not mean there are no hardships there. Sol’s peers may have the luxury of keeping their hard-earned money for themselves, but that does not mean they do not have responsibilities at home. Ari taught Sol and I a lot of things, including being compassionate and learning to look beyond what we are told. People don’t always share all sides of their existence and when we become friends, it is easier to talk about it and share what may be a burden or joy. I also learned about the laws surrounding employment of school-going kids and the hours that have to be considered for their shift work.
In Nancy, Sol finds the love she misses from her mother. She doesn’t want to inconvenience the two of them but soon learns that Ari and Nancy adore her and genuinely like having her around. I loved their little fond family!
I enjoyed the friendships in this book! Bruno is a senior at Sol’s school who also crosses the border most days. The side plot of Bruno and his expulsion hearing added dimension and tension to the story. Bruno’s situation is a great way to learn about the way Mexican kids are perceived in school, particularly due to language differences, how they are bullied by their peers and the ways in which the wealthy and (people who have rich) parents abuse their powers.
Sol makes friends with her co-workers too. It was eye-opening to read about the evening and morning work shifts and how they affected Sol’s school life. She has many dreams but her responsibilities towards her family are front and centre. The long days of school and then work are making her neglect her school work, which she desperately needs to do well at if she wants to go to college. She worries about Diego since she knows he is being bullied at school. She is frustrated with her father for not doing more, and that his best may not be enough to keep the restaurant. She experiences pressure from her older brother to do more to support the family as she is the only member who can work in the US and hence earn more in shorter periods of time.
Brighter Than the Sun makes it to my list of books with grandma-granddaughter relationships. Abuela is a great source of strength for Sol and her presence added a lot to the story for me. Her grandma is the first to admit that they have put a lot of pressure on her and maybe the need for money has made them forget that she is still a child and at sixteen, taking on the responsibilities of an adult.
Becoming Sol
Sol’s name, Soledad, stands for Solitude and in her teenage years, she has tried hard to break out of the mould she thinks her name has put her in. Short of Soledad, Sol means the sun. That is what Sol is striving for. To be happy and be someone.
In between all the tense moments, Sol starts to enjoy the present moments. She often tells herself to focus on the now. This makes her very relatable because no matter what age we may be, we all struggle with being in the present. Our responsibilities, fears, hopes and dreams can keep us looking to the past and future. Sol is learning. She struggles and has her moments of darkness and loneliness when she wants to shut out the rest of the world. But she finds her energy again and her friends and family support her in the best way they can. One of her sources of inspiration is Ellen Ochao, the first Mexican American woman to go to space. I love that she has people to inspire her and role models who give her strength to keep following her dreams.
I particularly enjoyed the open-ended way in which Brighter Than the Sun is concluded. Sol realizes that her efforts to support her family are a choice and when things are looking better, she doesn’t have to put her dreams on hold.
Brighter Than the Sun is a moving tale about the responsibilities on one young girl’s shoulders and how she begins to balance family expectations with pursuing her own dreams. How she used to think of life changes with her experiences and there are equal parts moments of despair and joy. Sol is a strong protagonist who I was rooting for all the way! I wish her lots of success in her future.
One book leads to another. My curiosity in Mexican history piqued when I connected with Reyna Grande about her book, A Ballad of Love and Glory. My recent read of Independence by Chitra DK offered me insight into what it was like to live in a partitioned country and the risks people have to take to escape from one side to the other. Brighter Than the Sun is many people’s current experience and I am glad to have broadened my knowledge about life at the Mexico-US border.
Daniel Aleman’s debut novel, Indivisible, is on my TBR now! That book deals with immigration and deportation through the perspective of a teen. I am sure it will have a lot to teach me.
Further Reading:
- Check out this article by Alex Zaragoza who, similar to Sol, grew up in Mexico and went to school in the US: What It’s Like to Cross the U.S.-Mexico Border Every Day
- See a photo gallery of the San Ysidro Port of Entry at: A Day at the Busiest Border Crossing in the World – POLITICO Magazine
- Take a look at the live wait times at the border: San Ysidro – Border Wait Times
Many thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy of this book for an honest review. Check out tomorrow for an interview with Daniel Aleman.
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