Enrique's Journey

Enrique's Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with his Mother is a national best-seller by Sonia Nazario about a 17-year-old boy from Honduras who travels to the United States in search of his mother. It was first published in 2006 by Random House. The non-fiction book has been published in eight languages, and is sold in both English and Spanish editions in the United States.[1] A young adult version was also published in 2013 aimed at children 10 to 14 years old and reluctant older readers. The young adult version was published in Spanish in July 2015. [2]

The cover of Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario.
GenreNonfiction
PublisherRandom House
Publication date
2006
Published in English
2006
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback & iTunes)
Pages300 pp (English edition, hardback)
ISBN978-0-8129-7178-1 (English edition, hardback)
OCLC77617402
305.23089/687283073 B 22
LC ClassE184.H66 N397 2007

It is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of articles in the Los Angeles Times published in 2002 also by Sonia Nazario.[3]

Enrique's Journey has been chosen as a common or freshman read by over 200 middle schools, high schools, and universities nationwide.[4] Facing History & Ourselves developed a six-week unit teaching guide to accompany the young adult version of the book.[5]

Background

Nazario spent nearly five years reporting on and writing Enrique’s Journey. After doing months of research, she met the book's Enrique, a then 16-year-old undocumented immigrant, at a shelter for migrants in Nuevo Laredo. She spent time shadowing him there and hearing about his remarkable trip north. Nazario reconstructed Enrique's dangerous trek from Honduras to the U.S. by making the same 3,000-mile round-trip journey, much of it on top of 7 freight trains, up the length of Mexico. She then retraced his journey a second time. Each trip took three months.

Nazario has continued to cover Central American migration and unaccompanied minors in her opinion column for the New York Times, and to post other coverage of unaccompanied minors making the journey north on her website. [6] [7]

Summary

When Enrique is five years old, his mother, Lourdes, leaves Honduras to find a job in the United States. The move allows her to send money back home to Enrique so he can go to school past the third grade. Lourdes promises Enrique she will return quickly. But she struggles in America. Years pass. He begs for his mother to come back. Without her, he becomes lonely and troubled.

When she calls, Lourdes tells him to be patient. Enrique loses hope of ever seeing her again. After eleven years apart, he decides he will go find her. Enrique sets off alone from Tegucigalpa, with little more than a slip of paper bearing his mother's North Carolina telephone number. Without money, he will make the dangerous and illegal trek up the length of Mexico the only way he can—clinging to the sides and tops of freight trains.

With gritty determination and a deep longing to be by his mother's side, Enrique travels through hostile, unknown worlds. Each step of the way through Mexico, he and other migrants, many of them children, are hunted like animals. Gangsters control the tops of the trains. Bandits rob and kill migrants up and down the tracks. Corrupt cops all along the route are out to rob and deport them. To evade Mexican police and immigration authorities, they must jump onto and off the moving boxcars they call El Tren de la Muerte–The Train of Death. Enrique pushes forward using his wit, courage, and hope–and the kindness of strangers.

Lourdes, Enrique's mother, decided to move to the United States from Honduras in order to support her two children financially. She hoped to get enough income to take her children to good schools and be able to provide for their basic needs; she also hoped they would live a better lifestyle than she did.

Enrique was too young to understand the reasons Lourdes left. Although the family knew about it, they were not able to explain to Enrique. He was cared for by different relatives and finally ends up with his paternal grandmother. He starts to sell food to meet the family expenses. Due to frustrations and anger towards his mother, he begins sniffing glue and is eventually kicked out by his grandmother, who could not stand his behavior. Enrique's experiences motivate him to take a dangerous journey to look for his mother because he believes she is the only one who can understand and take good care of him.

Enrique's older sister Belky was left under the care of her aunt who took good care of her, sent her to a private school with the money Lourdes sent, and eventually went to college.

Maria Isabel, Enrique's girlfriend, was very supportive even though she knew he turned to drugs to numb the pain of his mother leaving him and what had happened to him after. When Enrique settled in the United States, he received the good news that Maria Isabel had a baby girl and named her Jasmin. Enrique was happy to be a dad and he sent money to support them. Enrique worked hard and saved enough to hire a smuggler to move Maria Isabel to the United States, then Jasmin later joined them.[8]

Don Francisco Presenta Reunion

Enrique's family was reunited on a Spanish-language talk show produced by Univision called Don Francisco Presenta hosted by Don Francisco. [9]

Sonia Nazario joins Enrique and his mother, Lourdes, in discussing Enrique's Journey and what happened after the newspaper series was published. In the episode, Lourdes says through tears that it has been 17 years since she has seen her daughter Belky, who remains in Honduras today[10]. Don Francisco then announces that Belky is backstage, and he calls for her to come out.

Lourdes stands to meet her and they embrace, both sobbing. Enrique stands and wraps his arms around his mother and sister, and the three of them embrace as the audience cheers. Lourdes is heard telling Sonia that she didn't know this was going to happen. [9]

Awards

The series of Los Angeles Times articles that was the genesis of the book won more than 20 journalism awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing[3].

Don Bartletti won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for the photographs he took for the Los Angeles Times series, which are also featured in the book.[11]

Enrique's Journey has won both the 2006 Christopher Award [12]and the 2006 California Book Award [13]in Recognition of Literary Excellence, Silver Medal. It has been adopted by over 100 universities as their freshman or common read. [14] In 2015, it was one of the most popular choices for a common read, according to a survey by Inside Higher Ed.[15]

In 2014, Enrique's Journey was listed as number one on a list of the top ten best non-fiction books on The Latino Author. [16]

Sonia Nazario

Sonia Nazario has since become an advocate for unaccompanied minors who face immigration court alone. In 2019, a record number of unaccompanied minors were detained at the southern border of the U.S.[17] Nazario has been on the board of Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) since its inception. The nonprofit was started by Angelina Jolie and the Microsoft Corporation in 2008.[18] On July 17, 2014, she testified before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the violence children were fleeing in Central America, in places like Enrique's former neighborhood on Honduras. Nazario has since been a contributing op-ed writer for the New York Times. Her articles focus on immigration, asylum, Central America and Mexico, often revisiting Enrique's neighborhood in Honduras for further reporting.[19]

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See also

Sources

References
  1. Schulten, Amanda Christy Brown and Katherine. "Text to Text | 'Enrique's Journey' and 'In Trek North, First Lure Is Mexico's Other Line'". The Learning Network. Retrieved 2018-08-29.
  2. "About Enrique's Journey". enriquesjourney.com. 2014-02-10. Retrieved 2019-11-13.
  3. 2003 Pulitzer Prizes - Featured Writing
  4. "Random House Common Reads Enrique's Journey". Random House.
  5. "Teaching Enrique's Journey". Facing History and Ourselves. Retrieved 2019-11-25.
  6. "Opinion". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-11-13.
  7. "Media Coverage: Children and the Journey North". enriquesjourney.com. 2014-02-22. Retrieved 2019-11-13.
  8. Mc Bride, Melanie. "Enrique's Journey". gradesaver.com. Retrieved 24 November 2015.
  9. "Don Francisco Presenta". enriquesjourney.com. 2019-05-10. Retrieved 2019-11-13.
  10. "Update on the Family". enriquesjourney.com. 2014-02-08. Retrieved 2019-11-13.
  11. "Don Bartletti of Los Angeles Times". Pulitzer.org.
  12. "Christopher Award", Wikipedia, 2019-11-08, retrieved 2019-11-13
  13. "California Book Awards Complete List of Winners". Issuu. Retrieved 2019-11-13.
  14. "Enrique's Journey Common Reads". enriquesjourney.com. 2014-03-09. Retrieved 2019-11-13.
  15. "Inside Higher Ed 2015 Popular Freshman Reads".
  16. "Top Ten Best Non-Fiction Books by Latino Authors for 2014 | thelatinoauthor.com". Retrieved 2019-11-13.
  17. Villegas, Paulina (2019-10-29). "Detentions of Child Migrants at the U.S. Border Surges to Record Levels". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-12-06.
  18. "Ten years of KIND". supportKIND.org. Kids in Need of Defense (KIND). Retrieved 2019-12-05.
  19. "Sonia Nazario column". New York Times Opinion. New York Times. Retrieved 2019-12-05.
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