Tolog Review: Enrique's Journey

Enrique's Journey
by Sonia Nazario
reviewed by Krista Celo 

Enrique’s Journey by Sonia Nazario is a suspenseful, eye-opening novel about the dangers that South American children are faced with as they flee poverty in their home country to journey to the United States. Conveyed from the perspective of a young Honduran boy, readers are shown the underlying, harsh truth of the treacherous journey these children must face to reach the United States. Enrique’s journey exposes readers to the real-life and concurrent adversity concerning immigration into the United States. Nazario puts this current debate of immigration into perspective, and gives us a strong view of the migrant’s lives.

From the moment Enrique’s mother stepped off of the porch, Enrique is unaware that his mother is leaving their home in poverty-stricken Honduras, to find work in the United States. While his mother is away, Enrique begins to grow angry and miserable imagining a life where his mother is there. Enrique, determined to escape unbearable circumstances, decides he will follow his mother to the United States. However, Enrique and other Central Americans know that it is not as easy as embarking a plane. These migrants must ride atop trains waiting to maim or kill them, while keep watch for dangerous gangs, spiteful immigration agents, and bandits waiting to strike. Enrique takes us alongside him through his physical and emotional journey, as he endures horrendous and death-defying conditions to reunite with his mother.

Enrique’s Journey is a well-written novel, told through the perspective of Enrique, but including many perspectives to show readers the important, yet avoided, issue of immigration. Nazario gives readers awareness into the experiences of Central American families who have no choice but to live separately in order to survive. Nazario digs deep within her heart-felt writing through an in-depth look at immigration and its effect on families. I personally enjoyed this novel, simply because I was able to gain a different perspective on life and receive insight on immigration into the United States.

Tolog Review: Enrique's Journey

Enrique's Journey
by Sonia Nazario
reviewed by Marta Maynes 

Enrique’s Journey by Sonia Nazario tells the astonishing story of a young Honduran boy on his journey to find his mother. Nazario transports readers to corrupt Central America, where she follows a boy named Enrique and narrates his unimaginable odyssey to reconnect with his mother in the United States. Like the majority of the immigrants traveling north and south through Mexico, Enrique must be a quick learner; he must master the art of riding atop trains, learn to hide from ‘la migra’, the cruel migration officers, learn how to beg for food, water, and shelter, and most importantly, never give up on reaching his destination. 

Enrique must face many perilous dangers during his journey to the United States. He not only encounters the dangerous, “train of death” (Nazario), but also ruthless bandits and gangs who rob Enrique of the few pesos he carries. In addition, migrants run the risk of, “get raped or murdered” (Nazario). Enrique learns that he needs to be brave, confident, and clever to survive his treacherous odyssey to his ‘promise land’ where he and his mother will finally be reunited after 11 long years. 

The Pulitzer Prize winner, Sonia Nazario, addresses the everyday struggles of immigrants looking to escape their economic and personal hardships in Enrique’s Journey. Nazario tells her story as if she were alongside Enrique. With her style of writing, readers feel more connected to the story and feel like they are in Enrique’s shoes, struggling along with him. Nazario’s vivid details and stories really make readers stop and reflect and realize how similar they are to the immigrants. Often, the media dehumanizes these migrants, but Sonia Nazario puts real faces to the many migrants struggling to reach their new beginnings. Nazario opens readers eyes and hearts to witness the grueling challenges faced by the immigrants traveling through Mexico to reach their personal ‘promise lands’. 

Tolog Review: Enrique's Journey

Enrique's Journey
by Sonia Nazario
reviewed by Megan Koehler

Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario is an eye-opening and heart wrenching non-fiction book about a boy trying to cross the border and find his mother in the United States. Enrique’s Journey takes place over a span of twenty-three years and tells the true story of a young boy named Enrique and his journey traveling from Honduras across Mexico and into the United States so he can see his mother again. His journey was far from easy, and he faced many difficulties along the way, including hunger, robbery, and drug problems.

On January 29, 1989, Enrique’s mother, Lourdes, left Enrique and his sister, Belky, with family members and departed poverty-stricken Honduras for the United States. Her plan was to get a job in the United States and send money back to her children so that they could go to school past the third grade and eventually move out of their thirty square foot shack. She promised her kids that she would be back in one year. Little did she know, life in the United States was not easy for immigrants and she would break that promise. 

Enrique was seven when his mother left. As a teenager he had trouble at home without his mother. He started getting into trouble at school and getting into drugs at home. He missed his mother so terribly that he decided that he would set out alone and travel across Central America and Mexico to the United States. Eleven years after his mother left him, he left behind his sister and girlfriend in Honduras in search of his mother. He rode on top of trains through Mexico and Central America, in constant fear of falling off or being robbed and beaten by the gang members that control the trains. He finally makes it to the Rio Grande, but cannot get across without the help of a smuggler. He is penniless and does not have his mother’s phone number. Without her help, he has no chance of ever getting across the river and seeing her again.

Enrique’s Journey is a tragic tale of a young boy’s journey to find his mother. It is full of suspense and keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire time. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the issue of illegal immigrants in the United States, and to anyone who enjoys stories about adventure and heartbreak. Will Enrique ever cross the Rio Grande and reach his mother in the United States? Read Enrique’s Journey to find out. 

Tolog Review: Enrique's Journey

Enrique's Journey
by Sonia Nazario
reviewed by Charlotte Collins 

Sonia Nazario's non-fiction book Enrique’s Journey follows the journey of Enrique, a boy from Honduras, who makes the dangerous trek through Central America to the United States. As a child, Enrique’s mother, Lourdes, left Honduras for America searching for a better life and for money to send home to Enrique and Enrique’s sister, Belky. Once Lourdes leaves, Enrique bounces from relative to relative and struggles with the ultimate question of why Lourdes would leave him. After many years of feeling alone and forgotten, fifteen-year-old Enrique decides to make the risky and potentially deadly journey from Honduras through Mexico to the United States to find Lourdes. Alone on the perilous journey atop fast moving trains and surrounded by violent gangsters and brutal, corrupt police officers, Enrique embarks on the journey of a lifetime. 

Sonia Nazario uses logos, ethos, and pathos to show the reader the dangers and trials of the expedition taken by hundreds of thousands of migrants trying to make it to the U.S. She uses logs when she recites statistics about the hardships faced by the migrants. She uses ethos when she describes how she went on top of the trains with child migrants to see their struggles firsthand. She uses pathos when she describes the excruciating pain and emotional turmoil Enrique and many other migrants go through. Also, throughout the story there is a sense of irony because Enrique is going to America to search for his mother who left him as a child while his girlfriend, Maria Isabel, suspects that she might be pregnant with Enrique’s child. Enrique’s Journey explores the themes of family, abandonment, and hope. 
By writing her story about not only Enrique but about the effect Enrique’s journey had on the rest of his family, Nazario shows the different ways immigration affects the family as an individual. Abandonment is shown by Enrique first being abandoned by his mother, and then by every other member of his family as he jumps from house to house. Nazario shows the theme of hope through Enrique’s determination and refusal to give up. Enrique remains hopeful throughout his journey of the idea of a brighter tomorrow. 

I loved Enrique’s Journey. I thought it was a compelling storyline with a thought-provoking message.

Tolog Review: Enrique's Journey

Enrique's Journey

by Sonia Nazario

reviewed by Skylar Bowyer

Enrique’s Journey by Sonia Nazario follows the real journey of a young Honduran boy that is trying to make his way to America to find his mother. When Enrique, the Honduran boy, is five years old his mother, Lourdes, leaves their impoverished home of Tegucigalpa for better opportunities in the United States and to send money home to provide for her family. Enrique and his sister Belky then have to face life growing up without a mother, with no idea of when she will return. Due to the absence of Enrique’s mother in his childhood, Enrique gets involved in drugs, commits crime, and hurts other people, including his family. 

When Enrique is a teenager he decides to set out on a treacherous journey north to the United States in search of his mother. On his adventure to America, Enrique is challenged with numerous obstacles, including riding on top of trains, avoiding La Migra, the Mexican immigration police, and escaping the ruthless gangsters that rob migrants of all of their belongings. During the course of Enrique’s journey, he is robbed, beaten, and deported eight times, yet continues to make his perilous journey to find his mother. 

This true heartwarming story was filled with adventure and hardship, as well as success and a great feeling of accomplishment. I think what made this story so captivating was how much work the author, Sonia Nazario, put into to writing these series of articles that appeared in the Los Angeles Times. Sonia Nazario found Enrique and interviewed him about his odyssey, then went back and mirrored his journey so she could see all of the hardships he faced, making it feel as though we, the readers, are following Enrique on his adventure. Sonia also did extensive research on the journeys immigrants face trying to get to the United States. Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who loves a true story that puts you side by side to the main character.

Tolog Review: Enrique's Journey

Enrique's Journey
by Sonia Nazario
reviewed by Francesca Legaspi

Sonia Nazario’s novel, Enrique’s Journey, tells the true story of a Central American boy named Enrique, who struggles to reunite with his mother, Lourdes. She left Enrique and his sister at a young age with their grandparents in Honduras so she could travel to the United States, in the hopes of finding work so she could send money home and support her family. Enrique, heartbroken and motherless, grows up feeling alone and confused since he is constantly moved to various family houses, abused by others, and forced to do tedious tasks at a young age, all while he yearns only to be with his mother once more. Enrique is eventually forced out of his home with his grandparents after he becomes rebellious due to feeling unwanted, and begins to commit crimes and hurt his family. After years of being ashamed of himself, alone and praying for Lourdes' return, Enrique decides to travel to the U.S. so he can be with his mother again and endeavor to better himself, although he knows that it’s highly probable that he will lose his life in doing so. However, determined to find his mother, he sets out on his illegal immigration journey to the United States by riding on perilous train tops. Enrique befriends other migrants with stories similar to his, but also encounters gangsters who attempt to kill him, bandits who rob him, and la migra, the migration police that deported him back to Honduras a total of 8 times before he again began his 9th journey to reach his mother. He is constantly beat up, robbed, belittled, and forced to jump off moving trains to avoid being deported; however, he continues on because his hope and wish to be with Lourdes again always overcomes his feelings of despair. Despite the hardships, Enrique pushes on through his journey with fortitude, intelligence, tenacious courage, and the help of a few kind strangers along the way. This true story is absolutely heartwarming, invigorating, thrilling, and makes one feel almost as if one is making the treacherous journey alongside Enrique, as well as give one insight into the precarious journey that multitudes of child immigrants made in order to be with their mothers again, regardless of the risk. It is an absolutely magnificent, heart-stopping story for anyone to read, and I most certainly recommend it!