Toño has spent his entire life in El Salvador rising hours before dawn to feed the animals and mind the farm of his father. He wants nothing more than a plot of land and a farm of his own, and soon makes his way across the Mexican border to the United States of America, where he’ll earn enough money to help his family and himself. But the year is 1979 and the Salvadoran Civil War is about to begin. Toño soon finds himself working under the table for jewelers and roofers and cohabitating with his fellow immigrants, working every moment he can to secure his plans. He’s searching for a woman who might help him start his own family in El Salvador, and abandoning those who won’t sacrifice their dreams for his—all the while ignoring his father’s warnings of the chaos back home.

While the story is brimming with narrative elements that offer visual potential, our cover cooks selected just a few of them from key excerpts to avoid an overcrowded design: a rattlesnake that Toño kills when crossing the border, a key from a neighbor who turns into a cat, the broken angel wings that Toño’s girlfriend in New York possesses, and the whimsical depiction of his heart crowned by New York’s skyline trying to take flight despite its dwindling feathers. The fresh, modern contrast between the script and sans serif fonts, seasoned with a vivid combination of turquoise and red infuses the design with a celebration of Latinx culture.