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

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 mother’s 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 than a decade.

The book began as a series of articles for The Los Angeles Times newspaper. It was original published for an adult audience. But when I requested it from the library, I received the young adult version.

I’m familiar with the show more difficulties and challenges faced by these desperate migrants. I’ve read other books (both fiction and nonfiction) that depict these journeys. I’ve seen at least one movie that graphically represents the tale. These young people leave an impossible situation for a dangerous trek across more than one country. Along the way they face beatings, arrest, injury, hunger, thirst, snake bites, and the possibility of being sent back or even killed. But they persist. In Enrique’s case, as for so many others who attempt the journey, it’s because they simply cannot go another day without at least trying to reach their mothers.

It’s plenty horrific, though I’m sure the graphic depictions are toned down because I read the YA version. Their stories are heartbreaking and eye-opening.

I’m glad that Nazario followed Enrique and his mother for several years, so we witness not just the harrowing journey, but the ultimate results of their long separation and attempts at reunion. show less

This book is a symbol of one one of the things I love about book club. I would never have heard about it without it. And although I usually want to read for escape, getting enough real life in my job and my husband's job, I was compelled to read this book and learn more, to put a face on an illegal immigrant and his plight. If you have any feeling on the matter, if you live in this country that is struggling with how to deal wiith this issue, read this book. Yes, all voters and politicians, including the President, should read this book. It won't give you answers, but it will make you better informed about the situation.

The premise is that Enrique is a young boy who longs for his mother. Enrique lives practically alone in the Honduras; show more his mother illegally migrated to the U.S. in order to help pay for her children's lives in the Honduras. Enrique is desperate to go to his mother but has no money to make the journey, so like thousands of others he rides trains from his country to ours. Pulitzer prize winner, Sonia Nazario, writes about his journey, along with the facts surrounding it. She even rode the trains in the same manner as the illegal migrants, so that she would be able to truthfully write about the experience.

The entire book is compelling, but one of my favorite stories is of Padre Leo in Nuevo Laredo, who is both hated and adored for his charity work with migrants. He says: "Jesus wasn't killed for doing miracles. It was because he defended the poor and opposed the rulers and the injustice committed by the powerful."

Very interesting. show less

All she wanted was to be able to provide for her family. To be able to feed them and clothe them. To feel like a good mom. So she left Honduras and came to the United States to find a job so she could send money home to her kids and family. Lourdes is like so many mothers, wanting to provide a good life for her children, but unlike many mothers, she had to make the hard choice to leave her home country to make that happen. Her son Enrique was just five when she left, and when he turned 16, he decided to come to the United States to find his mother. His journey north would have discouraged most, but he stuck it out, even after being deported several times, being beaten to within an inch of his life, being robbed, being alone, and feeling show more rejected and hopeless. He persevered, much of the time with only a scrap of paper with a phone number written on it and the clothes on his back, in order to make it to the U.S. When he arrived and found his mother, the reunion was at first happy, then turned sour as Enrique's feelings of abandonment and rejection come to the surface. As Enrique and his mother figure out how to relate to one another again, they discover that being mother and son means more than being in the same country. show less

This is a heart-wrenching book that presents a compassionate examination of illegal immigration in the United States. Journalist Sonia Nazario follows the journey of Enrique as he travels from Honduras to the United States to find his mother. Nazaio highlights the fact that a significant number of illegal immigrants are children whose parents left them behind while they enter the U.S. to try and create a better life for their children. Enrique’s family is poor and barely surviving. His mother decides to leave her children behind while she enters the U.S. to find work and send money back to her family. Enrique feels abandoned, develops all kinds of problems, and ultimately travels through Central America in order to enter the U.S. show more illegally to find his mother. The journey is dangerous, many children die or are seriously injured. Nazario gives us background on Enriques hometown in Honduras, the experience of his mother in the U.S. and numerous other characters that Enrique encounters.

The book reads like a newspaper series. It is meticulously researched and Nazario actually takes the journey herself and requires therapy to recover from her experiences (as stated in the introduction). It is a hard read. As a parent, it was a harder read for me. I couldn’t imagine how a mother could leave their children behind. But these women risk death, rape, and incredible hardship for the sake of improving their children’s lives. The book highlights the corruption of authorities in Central America, provides a glimpse into how desperate people take on incredible journeys for an opportunity for a better life for their families, and describes some incredible contrasts between the violence of gangs and police, and the compassionate behavior of some poor communities in Central America. show less

Decent story about a boy from Honduras who is determined to find his mother in the U.S. She left her family when he was very small and he was fixated for years on finding her again.

When he reached his teens he started to plan seriously to travel to the US. Leaving behind his girlfriend, he hitched rides on trains headed north. Much of the book is about the horrors and challenges he faced. He was caught and sent back on a bus. This happened several times until he finally reached the border and managed to call his mother to ask for help in paying for a guide. Ultimately he did reach his mother, but reunions like this one never quite meet expectations.

We get to follow him and his girlfriend as they cope with his life in the north and show more her attempts to meet up with him.

What makes this story interesting is that the writer took the time to travel the rails the way the boy did, mostly on top of the cars, but of course she was safer than he was and spent each night in a safe place. She also tracked and interviewed his friends and his mother so the story would feel complete. Importantly, she ends the book with additional information on this traffic and what befalls so many of these immigrants, so many looking for a way out of extreme poverty. It isn't a pretty story but it has its moments, places where people are dedicated to helping others at great cost to themselves.

It's an important story, particularly in these times of immigrant fear. show less

I have read umpteen books over the last six months on the subject on migrants leaving their Central American or Mexican homes for a shot at the dream of living in Ther United States. The ones that come here are predominantly wonderful loving parents ready to work hard and send the money they make back to the families so they can survive a little better than most of the people left behind to the abject poverty in Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala etc.

Their stories are always tragic full of loneliness, abuse and death. The people attacking them are robbers, gang members and renegade police officers, each countries el migra, ready to put a hold on the dream A hold is all that it is. These people are determined to run away from the poverty show more their lives have given them, willing to risk life and limb to reach loved ones who have gone ahead. I have to highlight Enrique's Journey as the one most exceptional tale that I have read on this subject.

While other authors too have travelled with migrants to trace their stories and steps none have done it as efficiently, none have laid bare the awful tragedy or shown the determination of the people she followed so graphically than journalist and authorr, Sonia Nazario. Having met seventeen year-old Enrique's she goes about back-tracking, following up on every detail of his story from visiting his home town, interviewing his relatives, riding El Tran de la Muerte and witnessing for herself the terror of bandits on the roof of the train carriages, of people falling or being knocked from their perches to fall on the rails to perish or to lose a limb. She stopped and interviewed the priests that helped the migrants with food and shelter, the ones that stood in harms way to help strangers. In short everywhere Enrique went so did she.

The story she wrote is adapted from the news story she earned a Pulitzer prize for and takes the reader along on the torturous decisions that humans make to leave their small children to give them a better life and how those same separated children so often turn to drugs and crime before making the decision to travel to America to find their family. We feel the agony of the attacks on the physical bodies - Enrique was thwarted seven times before finally reaching the promised land - and we gather into our souls the love expressed by the folk that help those worse off from themselves as they throw food and clothes to the trainriders. For the priests and health-workers that administer spiritual and physical food Nazario shows a side of humans that I have not seen described in other border crossing tomes. She brings indignation, faith, a feeling of hopelessness that one cannot do more and intense feeling to her writing. I shed a tear or two in the dramatic tale of Enrique's Journey show less

I found this book for my neighborhood book club when it was my turn to choose, and I wanted to find something that would bring the nationwide immigration conversation "home" to us. It won the Pulitzer when it was first published as a series of of articles in the LA Times. An amazing true story of a reporter who retraces the journey of a Honduran boy to the U.S. in search of his mother, riding on the backs/sides/tops of trains. At times I cried at how people were treated - cried aloud while reading on a cross-country flight. At times it's too obvious to readers that the book was originally published as a series of articles (could have used a better editor). But I highly recommend it to better understand the human side of the immigration show more equation - regardless of how the politics pan out. show less