N4L 119: "Enrique's Journey" by Sonia Nazario

SUMMARY

Sonia Nazario, Pulitzer Prize winner for her feature story about immigration, turned her articles into her bestselling memoir, Enrique’s Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother. By physically retracing the very steps and train rides of teenage immigrant Enrique, Nazario faced the same obstacles and dangers. Her bravery and authenticity make her book a standout among immigrant literature.

Historically, immigrants on the southern border have been mostly men. However, Nazario joined the newest wave of American immigrants—single moms who have left their children to find work. Consequently, their abandoned children eventually follow, desperate to find their absent mothers. So, from the beginning, Nazario insisted on publishing Enrique’s Journey in both Spanish and English in order to inform the women migrating. They need to know, she insists, both the advantages and potential costs and dangers of such a choice. Simply put, “For most migrants, the biggest downside to coming to the United States is the damage caused by years of separation for parents and children.”

Evenhanded and honest about a hotly debated topic, Nazario manages to transcend the details of Enrique’s story and to invite us to consider vetted solutions that can stem the exodus at its source. She proposes we provide economic opportunities to keep people stay in their countries; help stop the flow of drugs; reduce gang violence; bolster good governance; promote foreign aid to nonprofits; be more compassionate towards those trying to escape harm; make it easier to get to our immigration courts, including providing attorneys for children.

Although Nazario still carries post-traumatic stress from riding the rails, the price she paid to capture this raw memoir continues to pay dividends. Today, thousands of readers are not only armed with powerful immigration statistics but also emotionally charged to improve immigration policies.

KEY POINTS

Train trips on El Tren de la Muerte (“The Train of Death”) through Central America and Mexico characterize a modern-day immigrant odyssey in which children face perils such as gangsters, drug lords, corrupt cops—a whole cast of characters out to rob, beat, rape, and deport them. Mexico reports 40K children are traveling alone from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala—the most violent countries in the world. Most don’t make it but, instead, end up back in Central America. Biggest danger – gangs who see a business opportunity in controlling the tops of trains and shaking down migrants who ride on top Emotional distress is rampant among children who reunite with mothers. Having once idealized their mothers, they feel angry, resentful, and distrusting. They say they would have preferred having their mothers stay to having received money from them. One in four Fortune 500 companies has been founded by immigrants who are full of gumption, willing to take risks, and able to see things from a different perspective. As a result of immigration, two groups lose out: 1) Americans without a high-school education whose wages meet a downward pressure and 2) migrants themselves (who, ironically, often lose their children’s love)

QUOTES FROM NAZARIO  

“[Today’s immigrants] are not coming here for a better life; they are fleeing for their very lives.” “Whatever [immigration] policies we have…should involve keeping families together whether it’s finding a way to keep more of them together in their home countries or having folks migrate here as a unit.” “Walls do not work. Ask China. They built the mother of all walls, and it did not keep out the Mongols.” “Republicans need an immigration policy that has more heart, and Democrats need a policy that has an element of the rule of law—we can’t take in everyone from around the world, but don’t deport people who’ve been here 30 years.”

BUY Enrique's Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother 

RECOMMENDATIONS

Watch Sonia Nazario’s TEDx Talk, “Solving Illegal Immigration [For Real].” Read Nazario’s New York Times articles about immigration.

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