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Enrique's Journey (The Young Adult Adaptation): The True Story of a Boy Determined to Reunite with His Mother

Sonia Nazario

3.87 · Rating details · 12,965 ratings · 2,273 reviews

Based on the Los Angeles Times newspaper series that won two Pulitzer Prizes, this astonishing story puts a human face on the ongoing debate about immigration reform in the United States. Now a beloved classic, this page-turner about the power of family is a popular text in classrooms and a touchstone for communities across the country to engage in meaningful discussions a ...more

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Hardcover, 288 pages

Published August 27th 2013 by Delacorte Books for Young Readers (first published February 1st 2005)

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Nov 08, 2016 Brina rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: pulitzer-winner, nonfiction, hispanic-culture

This September I will be honoring Hispanic Heritage Month by reading Hispanic authored books across many genres. Although the official month does not begin until September 15, I have a wide, varied lineup of books planned out and decided to get off to an early start. Enrique's Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother by Sonia Nazario was originally a series of Los Angeles Times articles by the author over a span of five years. Winning the Pulitzer for feature re This September I will be honoring Hispanic Heritage Month by reading Hispanic authored books across many genres. Although the official month does not begin until September 15, I have a wide, varied lineup of books planned out and decided to get off to an early start. Enrique's Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother by Sonia Nazario was originally a series of Los Angeles Times articles by the author over a span of five years. Winning the Pulitzer for feature reporting as well as additional awards for her work, Nazario details the complexity of decisions made by Central Americans when they choose to leave home for the luxuries of El Norte.

One morning while preparing for work, Nazario happened to have a poignant conversation with her housekeeper about children. From this talk, Nazario found out that her Honduran native employee had not seen her four children in over ten years since she came to the United States in a search of a better life. Intrigued, the seeds were planted for Nazario to research why Central American women flock to the north, leaving their children behind with relatives, in hope that their children would eventually have a better life than the one left behind. Nazario decided to target a teenager who followed his mother north and investigate the pluses and minuses to life in Honduras and the United States. Her search lead her to seventeen year old Enrique and his mother Lourdes, who had already been in the States for over ten years. After meeting Enrique and Lourdes, the reporter decided to recreate his journey in order to bring to light the dangers of immigrating to the United States.

Honduras is a country of few wealthy and many impoverished with the few controlling most of the nation's wealth. Healthy men leave for the north, leaving a population of women and their children. Most women in Lourdes' situation have little more than a fourth grade education because they are expected to work to help with their families' finances. Once these women come of age, they have few opportunities to work, either making tortillas, selling their crafts, or obtaining menial factory jobs. As a result, they can barely make ends meet and the cycle of poverty repeats itself. Women decide to make a dangerous trip north, hoping that they will have enough money to either bring their children to live with them or to build a better future in Central America. Children like Enrique grow up in the care of relatives and come to resent their parents, and many, when they reach an old enough age, make the same trek north.

Nazario decided to make the trip atop train cars in hopes of showing just how dangerous the journey is for those hoping to immigrate to the United States. She had the luxury of protection from the Mexican authorities as well as the choice to check into a motel at any point along her trip. Enrique and people like him face many dangers: deportation, gangs in both Central America and Northern Mexico, jailing, hunger, and grave injuries at the hands of the trains that they hope will carry them to a better life. The ones who do make it become illegal immigrants. They resent the parents who they hoped to reconnect with in the first place and many only obtain the same menial work they could have had in their native countries. Many teen boys join gangs and girls craving attention become pregnant. All wonder why their parents left them and did not stay in their native countries in the first place.

I found Enrique's Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother to be a compelling story yet one written like an extended newspaper article rather than well crafted book. The story showed Nazario's skill as a human interest writer as the prose was written in basic sentence structure and read quickly. I felt for a young Enrique who had to grow up without parents yet grew frustrated with him as he made poor life choices leading up to his immigration. The research and facts about immigration ended up being more intriguing than the actual story as Nazario tells about the toll that illegal immigrants and their often times legal children take on American taxpayers. This number continues to rise as immigrants continue to flock to the United States and have children at a higher rate than native born Americans. Although this book is from ten years ago, the topic is as relevant as ever as immigration continues to dominate the headlines. Nazario leaves readers with these thoughts to ponder as she does not wrap up Enrique's story as neatly as she began it, as I rate this story 4 for the subject matter and 2.5 for the writing.
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Mar 13, 2008 Diana rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: people who want to know more about immigration that just what happens at our border

Shelves: immigration, non-fiction

Stuff I already knew:
-The US/Mexico border sucks and there are lots of shady people making lots of money off of it.
-People leave their countries and come to the US because they are dirt poor and can't support their families

Stuff I didn't already know but learned from this book:
-The Mexico/Guatemala border sounds like it's even worse than ours... not necessarily in terms of how difficult it is to cross, but rather, in the absolute brutality of the gangs and bandits that prey on migrants...
-Speak ...more

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Oct 22, 2011 Carol rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: go-big-read, non-fiction, family-saga

Book rating: social relevance 5 stars, writing 1 star.

Lourdes, a single mother of 2 children, makes the decision to leave her homeland of Honduras for the United States to support her family. She leaves behind Belky (daughter, 8 years old) and Enrique (son, 5 years old) in the care of two different relatives. Eleven years later, Enrique, sets out to find her. The book details Enriques harrowing 4 month struggle to reunite with his mother. The book details the perils of immigrants from trains, ba ...more

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Oct 04, 2008 Amber rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Everyone in the US should read this book in order to understand the dangerous journey that Central American immigrants make in order to work in the US. This is not a book that tries to persuade you to feel one way or another about immigration. It is simply about one boy´s journey through Mexico on top of trains and the perils that surround him. He has many flaws, but a deep desire to reunite with his mother (who immigrated to the US when he was 6) and to send money back home to his family in Hon ...more

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Feb 12, 2012 Audrephilia rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I can't believe how gruesome, violent, and nearly hopeless the journey is from South America to America! I mean, I thought all hispanic people snuck in with a few dangers. The news makes it sound like getting into America is easy as pie for migrants. I was so shocked to read that there's approximately a 0% chance of traveling via train and on foot without encountering horrific violence, debilitating injuries from boarding and unboarding the train, rape, robbery, and/or many other nightmare scena I can't believe how gruesome, violent, and nearly hopeless the journey is from South America to America! I mean, I thought all hispanic people snuck in with a few dangers. The news makes it sound like getting into America is easy as pie for migrants. I was so shocked to read that there's approximately a 0% chance of traveling via train and on foot without encountering horrific violence, debilitating injuries from boarding and unboarding the train, rape, robbery, and/or many other nightmare scenarios. There is NO chance someone traveling this way will avoid all of those things. It doesn't happen to some, a few, or most. At least one (but like multiple) of those things absolutely will happen and that is so fucking upsetting! From the gangs that board trains to the motherfucking POLICE that do it, it's such an unbelievably brutal and impossible trip! Enrique had to start over what, 8 times?! When he wasn't caught and deported, he was just beaten within a half centimeter of life. There's no denying that it is a certainly perilous endeavor. People starving in these countries, desperate for hope, SOME way to make some money, SOME way to be able to send money for their children hear that it's dangerous and probably think what we up here in the land of mostly sososo much think--Yeah, it's dangerous, if you're not careful. No, it's dangerous PERIOD. If you're a girl on the train, plan your psychological coping with rape. Just go ahead and mark it on your day planner. (If it isn't immediately stolen in Chiapas by the lowest human life forms ever. Before they push you off the train and lose you a leg, arm, or head to the vortex at the wheels and tracks.) The lucky prosperous can afford smugglers: "coyotes" or traffickers who are savvy and have transportation and know all the best ways to get into the States. They cost thousands. And the most the average South American can seem to save up is in the hundreds, especially without a very devout benefactor already in the U.S. and wiring back copious amounts of money. You know all that money we pay illegals? And how well they live? (I mean, it's a dream to some of them, but by our own standards, it's repugnant.)

Both perspectives were interesting. Why Lourdes left her children to come here and the outrageous struggles she faced! Being scammed and robbed by Americans who say, "We can help you get papers! We can help you get your children papers! Only $1200! All you have in the world is $800? We'll take that," then their whole business disappears overnight. I felt horrible for her! Then Enrique living in Honduras, never enough or any of most things, selling spices in town, feeling abandoned by his mother. I sympathized with him, too.

When they're reunited, I kind of found them both to be dicks. Enrique was a smarmy brat who when he wasn't criticizing his mother for abandoning him and wasting money on "luxuries" spent his time and money on weed, beer, topless bars, and paint thinners to get his huff on. Getting DUIs that cost $1000. Lourdes never indulged in those things, but I guess that didn't occur to him. He could NOT stop his venomous tirades against Lourdes for leaving him in Honduras, but spends days calling Maria Isabel (his girlfriend and babymama in Honduras) begging her to come to the U.S. and leave their 3 year old behind. He says it's what's best for their daughter!

I also didn't wholly sympathize with Lourdes who felt the money and objects she sent back to Honduras for her children was love. That she thinks Honduras is a disgusting, lawless, horrible place. But it's totes cool that her two kids are there without her! And she got pregnant when she moved here. Genius move!

Even though they have MANY faults, some of them enormous, it's still egregious that there's almost a system of necessity for leaving children behind, coming here, sending back money, and never seeing their kids again. I never thought about it. When I went to wire money once for a friend, I stood in a long line behind hispanic people. Never thought about it.

I really have no idea what should be done about this, other than HUGELY relaxing immigration laws. Immigrants don't take anything from us. "They work jobs Americans don't want" isn't just a sound byte--It's true. Look what happened right here in Alabama! We're still affected by unemployment like the rest of this country in our recession, but who poured in at farms to replace the crop pickers run out of the state by our fascist immigration laws? NO ONE. Yep, fucking NO ONE. Those farms are in astronomically dire straits now because of it! Not only that, but they pay our taxes. If they have utilities or ever buy anything here, they pay them, but reap very few of the benefits that legal citizens do. We can't go to Honduras, Peru, Mexico, Guatemala, ANY of those places and tell them to make their country better. To make it habitable. To look out for the vulnerable populations. So what we can do is make our own country more accessible, for the love of Jesus. (Even though his name sounds suspiciously hispanic.)

No one should have to experience the things people do on that trip north. ...more

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Aug 14, 2011 Ryan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I learned a lot about illegal immigration from reading Sonia Nazario's Enrique's Journey. Nazario, a distinguished journalist for the Los Angeles Times very much takes a "features" approach in her writing, emphasizing the human stories and motivations that create the statistics.

It certainly makes for a compelling read. Enrique's story starts in Honduras with his mother, Lourdes. Lourdes cannot afford to feed and educate her children, so she leaves for "el norte." Her plan is to work hard, save m I learned a lot about illegal immigration from reading Sonia Nazario's Enrique's Journey. Nazario, a distinguished journalist for the Los Angeles Times very much takes a "features" approach in her writing, emphasizing the human stories and motivations that create the statistics.

It certainly makes for a compelling read. Enrique's story starts in Honduras with his mother, Lourdes. Lourdes cannot afford to feed and educate her children, so she leaves for "el norte." Her plan is to work hard, save money, and return home. Things don't go expected: her husband marries another woman, abandons the children of this marriage to his mother, and Enrique comes to deeply resent his mother even while idolizing her. By the time he's 17, his girlfriend is pregnant, he is sniffing glue, and he has been kicked out of several households. Enrique decides to follow in his mother's footsteps. I think it would be fair to say that he feels as though without her love, he will never be complete.

Migrants like Enrique travel by train. Readers from North(ern) America are predisposed to romanticize people that "ride the rails," but it's more dangerous than we might expect. In addition to gangs and bandits, Enrique has to dodge corrupt police officers and, of course, "la migra." (I lost count of how often Enrique was deported from Guatemala before he finally made it to Mexico and started getting deported again.) He is severely beaten at one point as well. Nazario emphasizes that gang rape and decapitation by train wheels are common occurrences. However, Enrique is on a quest to reunite with his mother, and he endures.

It is difficult not to become discouraged while reading about all of the people that prey upon the migrants. However, Nazario highlights several instances in which people, often motivated by Jesus' teachings to care for the poor, demonstrate remarkable charity and self-sacrifice.

It's also disappointing to read that life in America is not all its cracked up to be. Children that do manage to reunite with their mothers soon become disillusioned by many realities. For one, their mothers are not ideal, and they still have to work hard rather than spend time with their parents, which aggravates the children's sense of abandonment and deepens their resentment. The mothers, Nazario explains, are not inclined to apologize, viewing their actions as a sacrifice their children cannot understand. These children often turn to drugs, gangs, or pregnancy to find the love that they feel they are missing.

I'm often frustrated when reading the newspaper by how easily journalists are manipulated into spreading a corporate or political message. Here, Nazario seems to have presented a balanced picture. I couldn't think of anyone that she should have spent more time interviewing, excepting perhaps policy makers. She herself follows in Enrique's footsteps, though with guards and visas. She quite effectively illustrates the hardship of this migration while also pointing out the resources that Americans spend responding to this phenomenon.

In many ways, this makes for an emotional reading experience. To what extent is it informative?

I would have preferred to see more discussion and consideration of Nazario's claims about immigration. She often throws out statistics about immigration, and I found myself often frustrated by the lack of detail or analysis. At times, she seems to use the term "immigrant" to refer to both legal and illegal immigrants, which I think confuses the issue. Nazario's notes are quite transparent in the sense that she explains where her claims come from, but still do not really break down how her sources conflict and compliment each other. Considering that this is not an academic text, perhaps the greatest absence is that there is no section that highlights further reading on this issue.

Ultimately, I found that Enrique's Journey provided a human context for a form of migration that most newspapers outline with statistics. I did find myself thinking that I could understand why so many people would risk so much to travel illegally into the land of the free. And I was impressed by her decision to travel the rails, even if she was guarded. ...more

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Sep 22, 2012 Peter Derk rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Well, I hated it.

It's kind of hard to say that because of the book's subject matter. It makes me feel like I'm saying the subject matter wasn't important. It's sort of like being in a writing class where someone writes a non-fiction piece about a past trauma. It's hard to talk about the problems with the piece without feeling like you're invalidating the events and the person in some way.

That said, hated it. It didn't have so much a narrative as it read like a list, a catalouging of atrocities. ...more

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Sep 14, 2008 Ms. Montaño rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: all educators and people interested in learning about immigration

Recommended to Ms. Montaño by: Professors at UCLA

"Enrique's Journey" completely challenged my views on immigration and helped me identify the challenges that I face as a teacher. Sonia Nazario begins the book by providing a background of information on the immigration policies of the 80's and 90's. She then takes us to Honduras where a mother is about to leave her children so that she can come to the US and have a better life in order to provide a better life for her children. As the years go by, the mother is faced with the decision to risk h ...more

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Apr 13, 2015 Lorena rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: central-america

I live in Oaxaca Mexico, and have lived in Veracruz and Chiapas, three places where refugees pass through from Central America to the north of Mexico, or to the United States. These locations figure prominently in Nazario's amazing book. I read it some years ago, just after I had moved to Mexico. Shortly afterward I visited California and was eating in a big Mexican restaurant in SF. Because I had just recently read "Enrique's Journey" I talked to some of the women who were cleaning off the tabl ...more

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Jul 06, 2012 Sheryl rated it did not like it · review of another edition

This is not a book. It's a report. It's straight forward reporting and I admire her efforts to get the full experience, but the ongoing repetition of the same kind of details to make her point was overkill for the general public. ...more

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Mar 31, 2012 Robert Early rated it did not like it · review of another edition

I honestly wanted to love this book. I wanted to get lost in the stories of these immigrants. I wanted to feel emotionally connected to them. I wanted to cry. I wanted to smile. I wanted to feel relief. I wanted to feel SOMETHING! Unfortunately, Enrique’s Journey (2006) falls well short of being considered even mediocre in my opinion.

First off, I don’t want anyone to think I’m some heartless monster. I sympathize with Central and South American people who illegally immigrate to the United States I honestly wanted to love this book. I wanted to get lost in the stories of these immigrants. I wanted to feel emotionally connected to them. I wanted to cry. I wanted to smile. I wanted to feel relief. I wanted to feel SOMETHING! Unfortunately, Enrique’s Journey (2006) falls well short of being considered even mediocre in my opinion.

First off, I don’t want anyone to think I’m some heartless monster. I sympathize with Central and South American people who illegally immigrate to the United States. They’re forced into a lose-lose situation (a catch twenty two in a sense). If they stay in their home countries, they get to be with their loved ones, but they’re unable to provide the necessities of life, such as food, clothing, and shelter. If they enter the U.S. illegally, they’re able to make enough money to send back home to support their families, but they run the risk of never seeing their loved ones again—not to mention the risk of death or injury during the dangerous journey up north.

So you’re probably wondering how I couldn’t enjoy a book with such an interesting and emotionally charged topic. To put it simply, I enjoyed the ideas of the book, but I didn’t enjoy the way the book was presented.

Now, I’ve never read anything else by the author, Sonia Nazario, and I’m sure she’s a wonderful journalist; however, I found her writing completely uninspired in Enrique’s Journey. Like I said, I tried to get into the story, but I found Nazario’s prose uninteresting ad downright boring. Granted, there were a few parts of the book that had me on the edge of my seat—especially when Enrique crosses the Rio Grande—but on the whole, I thought her writing style was too straightforward (for lack of a better term). Take this paragraph from page 237 as an example:
“It is spring 2004. Enrique has been gone for four years. Enrique and María Isabel have not spoken for more than four months, since last Christmas. Enrique calls his sister Belky. Go find María Isabel, he tells her. Tell her she must call me.”

I don’t know anyone who would consider this “good” writing—and this continuous throughout the whole book! I felt as if I were reading Nazario’s initial outline for the story, as if she spewed out all of the things she wanted to say and published it without reworking the syntactic and paragraph structures to create flow and coherence. The story is basically a long list of actions that drone on and on and on and on.

I did enjoy the last section of the book titled Afterword: Women, Children, and the Immigration Debate. Nazario does a thorough job discussing the highly politicized immigration issue in the U.S., and she highlights some troubling, yet thought-provoking statistics—for example, the fact that “nearly half of all Central American children who arrive in the United States after the age of ten don’t graduate from high school.” Unfortunately, this 20-page section of the book does not salvage the other 247 pages. ...more

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Jun 16, 2018 Kressel Housman rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, young-adult, sociology

Latin American immigration to the U.S. has been much in the news lately, but even though the author researched this book in 2000 and updated it in 2012, I still believe it’s an accurate picture of what goes on now, at least south of the border. Enrique’s mother Lourdes left Honduras when he was five and his sister was seven. She called when she could and sent back money so that the grandmother, caring for the kids, could afford to feed them, pay school fees, and even buy some extras, like soccer Latin American immigration to the U.S. has been much in the news lately, but even though the author researched this book in 2000 and updated it in 2012, I still believe it’s an accurate picture of what goes on now, at least south of the border. Enrique’s mother Lourdes left Honduras when he was five and his sister was seven. She called when she could and sent back money so that the grandmother, caring for the kids, could afford to feed them, pay school fees, and even buy some extras, like soccer balls. But even if Enrique’s life improved materially because of his mother’s choice, he suffered emotionally without her. By the time he became a teenager, he’d gotten into drugs, fathered a child, and then decided to make the exact same trek his mother did: get to America, reunite with her, and send money back to Honduras. Along the way, he is repeatedly robbed and beaten by gang members, starves at times, and is always trying to stay a step ahead of law enforcement. The overall picture is a real rock and a hard place for all who face the choice: stay in Honduras with little hope of raising your kids out of poverty and violence or escape to the United States in an inevitably treacherous journey with no guarantee of a happy ending. And now Trump and Jeff Sessions are doing their darndest to make sure happy endings are less likely for these immigrants than ever.

One of the points made in the book is that experts say that the best way to solve the immigration problem is to improve conditions in the Latin American countries so that people won’t have to leave. Indeed, the only light in this whole dark story came from those church networks who housed and fed migrants on their journey. I’m a big believer in the power of charitable action to mend the world, but it will take law enforcement to protect the people from the rampant gang violence bolstering the drug trade and the corruption that allows it to go on. The solutions will be complex and difficult to execute, but on this I am clear: making life even harder for the Enriques of the world is not the answer.

I recommend this book to all Americans. Whatever laws undocumented immigrants have broken do not merit such harsh punishment, especially in light of the brutal conditions they are trying to escape. ...more

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Dec 27, 2012 Lisa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, immigrant

I think everybody in the U.S. with an opinion about immigration should read Enrique's Journey.

When Enrique is five years old, his mother leaves Honduras for the U.S. so she can support her children. But for Enrique the separation is unbearable, and when he is sixteen, he goes in search of her. Too poor to afford a smuggler, he travels the way that the poorest of the poor are forced to travel: by jumping onto freight trains headed north. The dangers of traveling this way are real and devastating: I think everybody in the U.S. with an opinion about immigration should read Enrique's Journey.

When Enrique is five years old, his mother leaves Honduras for the U.S. so she can support her children. But for Enrique the separation is unbearable, and when he is sixteen, he goes in search of her. Too poor to afford a smuggler, he travels the way that the poorest of the poor are forced to travel: by jumping onto freight trains headed north. The dangers of traveling this way are real and devastating: hunger, exhaustion, sickness, gangs, bandits, robberies, beatings, murder, rape, maltreatment and extortion by Mexican immigration officials, severe amputation or death from falling off the train, and on and on. For these reasons, some migrants refer to this mode of travel as "The Train of Death."

It's a miracle that anyone survives this trip. To make the situation even more extreme, consider that a significant portion of people traveling the trains are children.

CHILDREN.

The book takes the emotional dangers of family separation as seriously as it does the physical dangers of riding the train, exploring in depth the significant psychological damage that growing up in Latin America with parents in the U.S. causes families.

I really can't sum the book up, I just urge people to read it. One of my favorite things about it was that it broadened the picture from the tight focus that many people in the U.S. have on what happens inside U.S. borders, and zoomed out to incorporate the economic distress that drives migration from Latin America. It also discussed Mexican attitudes towards Central American migrants traveling through Mexico, a dynamic of the Central American immigrant experience that many people in the U.S. are unaware of.

I think one of the most important points to pick up on in the book is that people are willing to risk rape, amputation, and death to get to the United States. I think that should inform how policy makers in the U.S. approach immigration. If migrants want to come to the U.S. in spite of any obstacle, policy makers should be focusing more on improving country conditions in Latin America than on cracking down on undocumented immigrants who have entered our borders. No one wants to leave their family or their home; people leave because they're driven to by economic distress and violence.

If you are interested in this topic or this book, you might also be interested in the documentary Which Way Home, which follows several kids traveling the trains. ...more

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Oct 24, 2008 Lisa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I liked this book although it read more like a newspaper article than I was anticipating. Having worked with many immigrants from Central America, I found myself amazed at what some of them may have gone through to get to this country, as I had not thought much about the actual process outside of paying smugglers. I was also amazed that the author supposedly did some of the same travels, I have to think she had some sort of protection with her other than papers stating who she was...?

We tend to ...more

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Jun 21, 2016 Liz Murray rated it did not like it · review of another edition

I confess I didn't read this the whole way through. I was put off in the prologue when the author says that she hopes Latina mothers in the US with children back home will understand the full consequences of leaving their children behind and make better-informed decisions. Latina mothers understand all too well what the consequences are and insinuating that this book will educate them on the topic is horrifically patronising. No one is making this decision without extreme forethought and distres ...more

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Mar 31, 2020 Book Concierge rated it really liked it

Shelves: concierge, immigrant-experience, mexico, young-adult, nonfiction, coming-of-age, library, honduras, strong-women, family

Subtitle: The True Story of a Boy Determined to Reunite With His Mother

Journalist Sonia Nazario first met Enrique and his mother, Lourdes, in search of a story. She had originally heard of mothers who leave their children behind from her cleaning lady. Her interest piqued, she sought to document what such a journey entails … for the mother who goes ahead, for the children left behind, for the boy who was determined to travel nearly 2,000 miles alone to find the mother he had not seen for more th ...more

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May 27, 2009 Tonya rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Excellent book. I found it to be eye-opening as well as extremely thought provoking. I appreciate Nazario for successfully delivering a heart wrenching and sympathetic account of Enrique's and his family's stories yet still allowing the reader to feel that whichever side of the immigration issue he/she stands, it is ok as long as we realize the true matter is so gray and complicated... in no way black and white and obviously having no short term solutions. The only reason I gave 4 instead of 5 s ...more

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Jul 06, 2013 Lynne rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This author should stick to her Pulitzer prize winning journalism. The book is written in the short, choppy manner of a newspaper writer. It is repetitive. It supplies way too many names and places that are not crucial to the crux of the story.
The nonfiction story itself is compelling, but not enough to fill 300 pages. Basically, mothers flee Central America, leaving their children behind because they think they can make a lot of money in the United States. They flee in the name of love: they wi This author should stick to her Pulitzer prize winning journalism. The book is written in the short, choppy manner of a newspaper writer. It is repetitive. It supplies way too many names and places that are not crucial to the crux of the story.
The nonfiction story itself is compelling, but not enough to fill 300 pages. Basically, mothers flee Central America, leaving their children behind because they think they can make a lot of money in the United States. They flee in the name of love: they will send lots of money back to their children and save enough money to bring the children to the US. The mother in this story left her two children when they were preschool age, and twelve years later the boy, Enrique, decides to journey to the United States. (the save-money-to-bring-her-children-to-America plan didn't work out after 12 years and Enrique leaves Honduras with no money, no map and only his mother's telephone number.) Enrique's life in Honduras has fallen apart--he quit school, sniffs glue, and runs with a bad crowd. He feels if he could just get to his mother in North Carolina that his life would be better. It is difficult to set aside the abject poverty that Enrique lives in, but you do want to take the kid and smack him for some of his poor life choices. Anyhow, he tries to sneak to the United States seven different times; on the eighth try he is successful in entering the United States illegally and his mother pays smugglers $1700 to deliver him to North Carolina. There are so many bad guys along the boy's trip that you as a reader almost become immune to the misery these migrants face. (and you can easily forget that they are breaking multiple laws) The author acts like a journalist--she supplies the names and places of everyone she used for research to authenticate the boy's journey. It is too much to sort through to try to remember who/what is significant and who/what is not.
I'm not sure why this book would make a "must read for college" list other than to raise social issues about immigration. It is a nonfiction story. However, it does not hold much literary value, and I prefer books that have both.

Merged review:

This author should stick to her Pulitzer prize winning journalism. The book is written in the short, choppy manner of a newspaper writer. It is repetitive. It supplies way too many names and places that are not crucial to the crux of the story.
The nonfiction story itself is compelling, but not enough to fill 300 pages. Basically, mothers flee Central America, leaving their children behind because they think they can make a lot of money in the United States. They flee in the name of love: they will send lots of money back to their children and save enough money to bring the children to the US. The mother in this story left her two children when they were preschool age, and twelve years later the boy, Enrique, decides to journey to the United States. (the save-money-to-bring-her-children-to-America plan didn't work out after 12 years and Enrique leaves Honduras with no money, no map and only his mother's telephone number.) Enrique's life in Honduras has fallen apart--he quit school, sniffs glue, and runs with a bad crowd. He feels if he could just get to his mother in North Carolina that his life would be better. It is difficult to set aside the abject poverty that Enrique lives in, but you do want to take the kid and smack him for some of his poor life choices. Anyhow, he tries to sneak to the United States seven different times; on the eighth try he is successful in entering the United States illegally and his mother pays smugglers $1700 to deliver him to North Carolina. There are so many bad guys along the boy's trip that you as a reader almost become immune to the misery these migrants face. (and you can easily forget that they are breaking multiple laws) The author acts like a journalist--she supplies the names and places of everyone she used for research to authenticate the boy's journey. It is too much to sort through to try to remember who/what is significant and who/what is not.
I'm not sure why this book would make a "must read for college" list other than to raise social issues about immigration. It is a nonfiction story. However, it does not hold much literary value, and I prefer books that have both. ...more

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Aug 19, 2013 Marcy prager rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is a powerful story of one child, representative of 48,000 children per year, who leave Central America and Mexico each year in search of their mothers in the United States. Enrique's mom, while she lived in the Honduras, scrubbed laundry in a muddy river for others to make money. She sold tortillas, used clothes, and plantains door-to-door. She sold gum, crackers, and cigarettes on a sidewalk curb. Her husband had left her.

Enrique's mom left her family when he was five to go the the Unite This is a powerful story of one child, representative of 48,000 children per year, who leave Central America and Mexico each year in search of their mothers in the United States. Enrique's mom, while she lived in the Honduras, scrubbed laundry in a muddy river for others to make money. She sold tortillas, used clothes, and plantains door-to-door. She sold gum, crackers, and cigarettes on a sidewalk curb. Her husband had left her.

Enrique's mom left her family when he was five to go the the United States to get a better job and send home money so that both of her children would have food, clothes, books, and pencils so that they could be educated. His mom, like so many others in her situation, had every intention of saving money in the United States to send for her children within two years.

Enrique was left for a while with his father, who had started a new family. His stepmother did not want him. His uncle took him in, treated him well, and then was killed. Enrique went to live with his grandmother, but when he started to sniff glue and became an addict, his grandmother threw him out of the house. Enrique's mom, out of loneliness, became pregnant with another daughter, and could never save enough to send for her other two children. Her guilt was enormous.

Enrique, like all other children, did not want money. He wanted his mom. He felt abandoned by his mom, his dad, and his grandmother. He only dreamed, day after day, of leaving and finding his mom. Enrique became a "migrant," escaping through Mexico by jumping from the top of one train to another. Like other migrants from Central America, (Central Americans are considered inferior by Mexicans), corrupt police shake them down for money, gangs of bandits rob them, rape women, and kill migrants randomly. So many migrants lose their limbs by jumping from train to train. When migrants are caught, they are sent back to their starting place. Enrique tried to escape many times, each time getting wiser, trying to stay safer on his journeys. He was robbed and beaten, almost left for dead.

This is not a story for the faint hearted. There are, however, good people from the Mexican states of Oaxaca and Veracruz, who throw food, drinks, and clothing to the migrants as their trains pass. There are a few priests who help feed and shelter migrants. Olga, who should be recognized publicly for her heroism, brings migrants to her home, feeds them, and helps those who lost their limbs, heal. She raises money to give the limbless prosthetics.

Once children finally make it and find their moms, by paying "coyotes" money to transport them across the river and keep them safe until they cross into Texas, or other U.S. parts, the "love" they have stored for so long turns to resentment towards the mom. She left. Children were abandoned. The words and actions of the abandoned are hurtful once the reunion has occurred.

I applaud Sonia Nazario for "becoming" one of the migrants to experience their plight and pain. Enrique was her choice, the boy to follow, on his quest to find his mom. He was successful, but at what cost? ...more

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Jun 01, 2016 Nick rated it really liked it · review of another edition

With tireless reporting--the notes on sourcing are more than twenty pages--Sonia Nazario took up in "Enrique's Journey" the story of one of the Central American youths who travel through Mexico. Enrique is an Honduran teenager whose mother left for better prospects in the United States when he was five. She was ahead of her time; the U.S. Border Patrol has reported approximately 1.8 million apprehensions of unaccompanied children (under the age of 18) from October 2012 through April of this year With tireless reporting--the notes on sourcing are more than twenty pages--Sonia Nazario took up in "Enrique's Journey" the story of one of the Central American youths who travel through Mexico. Enrique is an Honduran teenager whose mother left for better prospects in the United States when he was five. She was ahead of her time; the U.S. Border Patrol has reported approximately 1.8 million apprehensions of unaccompanied children (under the age of 18) from October 2012 through April of this year. Enrique himself was not apprehended, making it across Mexico largely on the roof of a train called "the Beast", running from gangsters and the migration authorities of two countries, eventually crossing with a coyote. Nazario largely lets Enrique and his family tell the story but she does not shy away from the larger implications, including United States support for repressive regimes that have done little to relieve endemic poverty; many of the gangs that now oppress El Salvador and Honduras learned their trade on the streets of Los Angeles, from which they have been deported. The most powerful sections of the book are those that treat this as a human story, not a political one. At least in the days when Enrique crossed Mexico, Chiapas was fierce in deadly, but in Oaxaca and Veracruz, villagers who are themselves poor routinely throw clothing and food to the migrants on the top of the train. The story of the families split apart by migration are harrowing; children are abandoned by parents who find it hard to send money out of their small, sometimes erratic, paychecks. The absent mothers and abandoned children constantly examine their decisions, not always convinced that the emotional cost to the family is too high a price. Living in very crowded apartments, discriminated against in stores and by employers, victims of swindlers who promise a green card, they long for a Honduras, regardless of the poverty. But the pull is great; Enrique himself, at 17, left a girlfriend and daughter behind. And that is perhaps the unstated element: these are families mostly headed by single parents or grandparents; whether it is the modern economy or a decaying social fabric or crime--one of Enrique's uncles is murdered while transporting money--these are families already fracturing without the departure of caregivers. Americans tend to think of migration as statistics, as a threat or a measure of the failure of the Border Patrol and Latin American governments and economies. Nazario finds the tragedy behind the dry newspaper prose or hot cable and web rhetoric, the people. I know they exist; I have met them in courthouses here in Texas: the mother reunited with a daughter conceived in a rape by her half-brother; the girl with a medical condition, trim and lovely, which means that at home the gangsters will be after her; the boy who told me that when he graduates from high school he wants to be a policeman because he believes laws should be respected. Every migration is a hunger for better and at the same time a great loss. Enrique is just one boy, lucky to have his story told in a best-seller; there are many, many more. ...more

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Jan 22, 2015 Kimberly Smith rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I give this book 3.5 stars.

EVERY American needs to read this book! Journalist Sonia Nazario has done an incredible job illuminating a huge problem in the world that most Americans know virtually nothing about. There are hundreds of thousands of Central Americans, many are little children, riding the trains, a kind of "super highway" up through Guatemala and Mexico to seek a better life in the United States.

Her writing style reads exactly like what I imagine her installments for the LA Times mus I give this book 3.5 stars.

EVERY American needs to read this book! Journalist Sonia Nazario has done an incredible job illuminating a huge problem in the world that most Americans know virtually nothing about. There are hundreds of thousands of Central Americans, many are little children, riding the trains, a kind of "super highway" up through Guatemala and Mexico to seek a better life in the United States.

Her writing style reads exactly like what I imagine her installments for the LA Times must have been... that journalistic, unemotional play by play of the facts, somewhat repetitive at times (to remind the reader of the most horrifying dangers from the last installment? Or to show how PERVASIVE a problem it is when people fall from a moving train and end up losing a limb as they fall and are run over on the tracks?). And yet it doesn't matter WHAT the writing style is. It's still a horrifying situation, full of heartbreak from every angle, and the material should be read by EVERYONE, regardless on where they stand politically on the immigration reform issue.

It was hard to learn that single mothers, and parents not making it financially in countries like Honduras, have to make such a gut wrenching decision to leave their children behind to try to make a better life. It never is a quick fix, either. They can't return as quickly as promised, or send for their children as soon as they had imagined. So there are all these children who long for their parents, who feel abandoned and neglected, who get into drugs or gangs a lot of the time, and make their countries of origin even worse. Many of these kids strike out on their own, running away to ride the trains to America to find their mothers.

The journey is so dangerous. No officials, police, or border patrol are to be trusted. They are often as crooked as the bandits and gangs who rob and rape, murder and pillage along the route. It was disheartening to read how many take advantage of the already destitute travelers. This is a brutal journey, and young little children are taking it. Many are murdered, die of train accidents, or disappear because of kidnappings. For every person that actually makes it into Texas, 8 busloads A DAY of people are caught along the way and deported back to Honduras. And yet there are some good people along the way, the kind people of Veracruz who throw food onto the train, nuns and especially an eccentric priest in Nuevo Laredo who sees the worth of a soul and does what he can to help the poor, desperate people. It made me want to send him money on a regular basis, knowing that he would put it to good use to ease suffering.

This book will haunt me for a long time. I want to DO SOMETHING about it. ...more

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Sep 23, 2015 Melissa Barbier rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: mc-literature, info-bios, digital-texts

Enrique's Journey is a heartbreaking story about the realities of immigrants. It helps the reader learn about the how and why immigrants come to a country illegally. I was left wondering more about the immigration process and how immigrants could go through the process legally. I was also left wondering why Enrique and his family do not seem to start the legal process of becoming a citizen and I wanted to know why and what was stopping them. I sincerely wonder what the process is like and how it ...more

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Jul 16, 2014 George rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, nook-st

ENRIQUE'S JOURNEY, by Sonia Nazario

HEART-WRENCHING. EYE-OPENING.

"Gripping, heroic and important, 'Enrique's Journey' captures the heart. Most Americans or their forebears came to the United States from other countries. They experienced difficult journeys and wrenching family separations—all in the hope of finding a better life in this new land. Enrique's story is 'our' story, beautifully told."—Edward James Olmos, page 229

"She [Enrique's mother] left for the United States out of love. She hoped ...more

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May 06, 2008 Caz Margenau rated it liked it · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 23, 2008 Jessica rated it liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: people who live in the US.

Recommended to Jessica by: Kent Bassett

Three stars. But, everybody in the US should read this book. I don't believe there is a competitor out there. I thought after 6 years of immigrant rights work that I knew something about the risks of getting to the US from Central America. I didn't. It drives home the violence of our failure to achieve amnesty, again, making it now 22 years since the last time folks were given the opportunity to come out of the shhadows, visit their families, travel home or north without risking their lives.
But ...more

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Sep 26, 2012 Cheryl rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: biography-memoir, adult-nonfiction, other-cultures

In Enrique’s Journey, author Sonia Nazario details the true experiences of a young Honduran boy as he attempts to cross the border into the United States to reunite with his mother, Lourdes. In an effort to escape extreme poverty and starvation, and to provide a better life for her two young children, Lourdes, a single mother, decided to leave Honduras and try to find work in the U.S. She left her children with relatives and promised to return in a few years. Eleven years later, Enrique found hi ...more

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Jun 30, 2017 Marsha rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: a-good-read-for-my-sisters

Read this book.

Sonia Nazario presents the story of a mother who leaves her family in Honduras to enter the US illegally in order to make money for them to go to school and eat. She thinks she will only be gone a year. After many years, her son, Enrique, now 15, decides to make the extremely dangerous journey to find his mother. After several attempts and near death experiences (he was very lucky to not die), he finally is reunited with his mom. However, reunification is fraught with difficultie ...more

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Mar 19, 2008 Cammi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I absolutely loved this book and recommend it for everyone out there. It doesn't matter what you think or feel about the illegal immigration issue, you will never be the same after reading this book. It opened up my eyes and helped me understand some of the people that I encounter every single day. It also made me realize, yet again, how good I really do have it. What would lead a mother to leave her children to come to a foreign land, to face death and struggles beyond her imagination? What wou ...more

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Feb 14, 2016 Jamie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This book was an easy read, but difficult to digest because it hits so close to home. My students have shared the same experiences that Sonia shared in this book. We must do something to help all of these unaccompanied minors risking everything to come north to reunite with their families. It is an overwhelming, dangerous, unjust problem. My heart breaks with each new story. I am looking forward to using this book during summer school to help my students process some of their experiences.

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Nov 05, 2019 Laurie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

More like 3,5 but bonus points for intention.
This is an excellent story that is really important for people to learn more about. I'd say read it just to create more awareness. That being said however, it's clear that the author is a journalist. I'm not saying she's a bad writer, but it does mean that the narrative doesn't "flow" like you'd expect it to in a regular novel. ...more

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About Sonia Nazario

Sonia Nazario

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Sonia Nazario has written about social issues for more than two decades, most recently as a projects reporter for the Los Angeles Times. She holds the distinctions of winning the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing, and of being the youngest writer to be hired by the Wall Street Journal.

She grew up both in Kansas and Argentina. She permanently moved to the U.S. as the Dirty War was happening i ...more