In this astonishing true story, award-winning journalist Sonia Nazario recounts the unforgettable odyssey of a Honduran boy who braves unimaginable hardship and peril to reach his mother in the United States. When Enrique is five years old, his mother, Lourdes, too poor to feed her children, leaves Honduras to work in the United States. The move allows her to send money back home to Enrique so he can eat better and 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 despairs 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 fleece 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. It is an epic journey, one thousands of immigrant children make each year to find their mothers in the United States. Based on the Los Angeles Times newspaper series that won two Pulitzer Prizes, one for feature writing and another for feature photography, Enrique's Journey is the timeless story of families torn apart, the yearning to be together again, and a boy who will risk his life to find the mother he loves.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
A story that needed to be told...but not like this!:
I picked this up, only to put it down after a few pages. The author's rather melodramatic approach made the story seem more like a cheap, badly-written novel than a nonfiction account. I just didn't see any sense that the author had 'connected' with the subject, and so I couldn't connect with it, either.
Enrique's Journey:
The book is about illegal immigration. I read it before my college-aged daughter for insight on what she needed to accomplish. It is an OK story, definitely makes you think twice about trying to get into the US illegally!
Boring, Predictable, Nothing New for Me:
First things first: I need to address that I am reviewing the BOOK, based on my experience of reading it, and nothing else. I am not rating Ms. Nazario, or Enrique, and I am not making a statement about illegal immigration. Nor am I reviewing this book to provoke outrage or negativity. Think of this review as an invitation: if it speaks to you, the information is probably useful, and will inform your decision to purchase or not purchase this book. If it doesn't speak to you, don't read my review; no... more info
Enrique's Journey:
This book was hard to put down as well as hard to read. It evoked the full range of emotions. The inhumanity of some mixes with the incredible generosity of others. It is a story of the best and the worst that humans can be. It puts a human face on the problem of immigration. You will never look at undocumented workers the same way again.
Sonia Nazario does a tremendous job of describing the immigration problem from many different perspectives. Although she focuses on Enrique's journey to the United... more info
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