Status
Available
Collection
Publication
Random House Trade Paperbacks (2007), Edition: Later Printing, 299 pages
Description
Based on the Los Angeles Times series that won two Pulitzer Prizes, this is a timeless story of families torn apart. When Enrique was five, his mother, too poor to feed her children, left Honduras to work in the United States. The move allowed her to send money back home so Enrique could eat better and go to school past the third grade. She promised she would return quickly, but she struggled in America. Without her, he became lonely and troubled. After eleven years, he decided he would go find her. He set off alone, with little more than a slip of paper bearing his mother's North Carolina telephone number. Without money, he made the dangerous trek up the length of Mexico, clinging to the sides and tops of freight trains. He and other migrants, many of them children, are hunted like animals. To evade bandits and authorities, they must jump onto and off the moving boxcars they call the Train of Death. It is an epic journey, one thousands of children make each year to find their mothers in the United States.--From publisher description.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member BookConcierge
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
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 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.
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
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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 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.
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LibraryThing member abergsman
Enrique's Journey tells the story of a young teen undocumented migrant who makes the dangerous journey from Honduras to the United States. He is one of hundreds of thousands of Central American children who had been left behind by his mom. Lourdes, a single mother who had difficulty providing for
Children like Enrique, and other migrants from Central America, travel on top of freight trains across Mexico to the Rio Grande, a dangerous journey in which most do not make it to their end goal. Many migrants are injured, attacked, and/or killed along the way.
Many single mothers from Central America and Mexico choose to leave for the United States in the hope that they will earn enough money in the United States to send to their families back home for food, schooling, and shelter. They choose separation from their sons and daughters in the hope that the money they send back will keep their family from starvation, and allow them to go to school longer. Often, their children follow years later, desperately seeking reunification with their mothers. This book is a fairly objective snapshot of one boy's journey, traveling on top of trains from Guatemala to the Rio Grande, and provides one important perspective in the complicated case of undocumented immigration.
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her children in her native country, left twelve years previously due to a poor economy, lack of jobs, and high rates of poverty. Children like Enrique, and other migrants from Central America, travel on top of freight trains across Mexico to the Rio Grande, a dangerous journey in which most do not make it to their end goal. Many migrants are injured, attacked, and/or killed along the way.
Many single mothers from Central America and Mexico choose to leave for the United States in the hope that they will earn enough money in the United States to send to their families back home for food, schooling, and shelter. They choose separation from their sons and daughters in the hope that the money they send back will keep their family from starvation, and allow them to go to school longer. Often, their children follow years later, desperately seeking reunification with their mothers. This book is a fairly objective snapshot of one boy's journey, traveling on top of trains from Guatemala to the Rio Grande, and provides one important perspective in the complicated case of undocumented immigration.
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LibraryThing member txorig
Excellent account of what our Latin American brothers and sisters do for a better life. The writing style is abit dry, but it was originally a newspaper article. The statistics at the end are important, but almost put me to sleep! Maybe I was too overwhelmed by the sheer amount of sadness that
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accompanies this sort of plight. Show Less
LibraryThing member dalekenium
It's a compelling book, if only for the fact that it's non-fiction. I found it hard to get personally involved with the people, but that may have been the matter-of-fact style of writing, which seemed like a 300 page newspaper story at time.
Most gripping for me was the afterword, on the plight of
Most gripping for me was the afterword, on the plight of
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illegal immigrants and the legal issues they face once in the US. Show Less
LibraryThing member EatThaiAndRead
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
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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 equation - regardless of how the politics pan out. Show Less
LibraryThing member CatheOlson
This was a nonfiction book centered around a teenage Honduran boy trying to get to the US to find his mother who came 11 years before to try to earn money to support her starving children. After all that time in the US, she is still barely making a living while her children miss her terribly. It is
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amazing what he and other migrants go through to try to get over the border. Show Less
LibraryThing member creighley
The realization of immigration is well documented here with the horror of the immigrants who risk everything to come to the U.S. AND the problem those immigrants pose for the U.S. and its overburdened welfare and health care system.
LibraryThing member nancynova
rabck from Pam99; Heartbreaking. Originally a newpaper series, the author expanded her investigation and turned it into a book. She follows teenager, Enrique, on his journey as an illegal immigrant from Hondorus to America. A great deal of the journey was traveling through Mexico. His mother, left
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as a poor single parent of two young children by her philandering husband, left the children and made it to America. She believed at the time that it was the best thing for her family. But she never got ahead, and sending expensive presents and money to her relatives didn't make up for not being there. After reuniting with Enrique, nine years after she left, the relationship is broken almost beyond repair. Using their tale, the author explores the issue of why? The poverty, the breakdown of family in the country, the dislocation of the children as more and more mothers go north, and the crackdown on immigration, which makes it harder for the immigrants to slip back home & then north again all make it a no win situation. Show Less
LibraryThing member rgruberexcel
RGG: The adult version is incredibly detailed, but the individual specifics as well as the larger context of Enrique's experience is intense and compelling. The rambling of the story somewhat detracts, and points would have been clearer with editing although perhaps Nazario wanted to ensure the
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myriad of facts would bolster the truth of her telling. Reading Interest: YA-Adult. Show Less
LibraryThing member klburnside
This book follows the journey of Enrique, a Honduran teenager who travels to the United States to be with his mother, who migrated to the United States when Enrique was five. Enrique travels through Mexico on the tops of trains, constantly dodging the dangers of Mexican police, gangsters, and
The book deals with important issues, but it isn't a particularly good book. The present tense writing style was awkward and dull. Despite the horrific events the author tells about, it was difficult for me to empathize with the characters because the writing style failed to evoke any emotion. The writing was also repetitive. The author goes on for pages and pages about people being robbed, beaten, falling of the train, etc. I probably sound horribly cold-hearted, but by the end of it all, I found it hard to care. I would have preferred just to read the original articles the book was based upon.
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immigration authorities. The book deals with important issues, but it isn't a particularly good book. The present tense writing style was awkward and dull. Despite the horrific events the author tells about, it was difficult for me to empathize with the characters because the writing style failed to evoke any emotion. The writing was also repetitive. The author goes on for pages and pages about people being robbed, beaten, falling of the train, etc. I probably sound horribly cold-hearted, but by the end of it all, I found it hard to care. I would have preferred just to read the original articles the book was based upon.
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LibraryThing member jopearson56
Great book. Good lesson in appreciating what you've got, and how lucky we are to be in the U.S. Very interesting about Central American family relationships and how desperate Latinos are to get to the U.S., what hardships they will endure to come here, that they even risk death -- over and over.
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Notably kids seeking their mothers. Very sad, seems like the world ought to be a better place. Good information about migrants; I understand much more now than before. Compelling story. Show Less
LibraryThing member EllsbethB
This is a worthwhile and eye-opening read about the illegal immigrants from Central America.
LibraryThing member MarkPSadler
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
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 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
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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 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
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LibraryThing member LivelyLady
Good investigative report of the plight of people trying to get out of their country in general and the saga of Enrique in particular. He is about 6 when his mother leaves him with grandma as she escapes from Hondouras to the US. He makes the journey over a decade later after being caught multiple
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times. This is an exposé of what the children go through as they are left behind, then try to also go to the US and then the problems when they are here illegally. Very good though lengthy. Show Less
LibraryThing member Jewel.Barnett
This is a gripping, haunting true story that affects each and every one of us. I am reading it for class but I had to read it and re-read it because it is that good.
LibraryThing member sraelling
The story of a boy's dangerous odyssey to reunite with his mother. Enrique's mother left when he was 5 yrs. old. At 16, he decides to make his first attempt at crossing to the US. He made 6 attempts, each one ending in being sent back to Honduras. Some of his attempts left him beaten up, robbed,
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naked. He is successful on his 7th attempt - but it is not an easy or safe journey. And once he's made it, life with his mother, Lourdes, is not exactly as he had dreamed it would be. Reason for coming to the US? Poverty - extreme poverty- no jobs, especially in Honduras. Show Less
LibraryThing member reader1009
nonfiction/immigration from Central America (Honduras); unattended minors and their families
I never got around to reading the original, Pulitzer-winning full-length book, which has been mentioned by two separate books I've read this year, but on discovery of the 2018 "young reader edition" decided
I never got around to reading the original, Pulitzer-winning full-length book, which has been mentioned by two separate books I've read this year, but on discovery of the 2018 "young reader edition" decided
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to check this out. It is pretty accessible for teens as far as interesting content goes, and with the increasing number of unattended minors being detained at our borders, also very timely. The author provides a very brief but fairly comprehensive explanation of different factors and considerations about Immigration at the US southern border--she doesn't go into people from other areas of the world who fly in and overstay their visas, but there is a lot here for readers to think about. Show Less
LibraryThing member ToriC90
Really eye opening story. Because it was multiple newspaper articles first and then later published into a book, there are some repetitive parts and can be choppy, but acknowledging this as I read it seemed to help. A must read if you're interested in learning more about immigration law and what
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some immigrants go through. Show Less
LibraryThing member libmhleigh
The author wants to explore the increasing number of Central American and Mexican American children who are traveling to the United States without either parent. Often, these children have one or more parent in the U.S. already, which causes them to make the journey to reunite with their loved
Quote: “‘This,’ a Los Angeles woman who helps immigrants, told me, ‘is the adventure story of the twenty-first century.’�Â?
I thought this books was a fascinating read, particularly because the author originally wrote it as a newspaper article, so it is very journalistic. In addition to following Enrique, the author spends months in Honduras and Mexico, traveling on top of trains and simulating the train hopping experience as much as possible while keeping a relative degree of safety. The story of the visits people take to reunite their families and strive for a better life is well-documented as are the consequences of the decision to make the journey.
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ones. The parents have typically taken the journey five to seven years before, looking for an alternative to the poverty they live in- particularly looking to provide their children with a better life. However, the children encounter many dangers during the journey, including corrupt cops and government officials, deportation, angry citizens, robbery, rape, assault, and being dismembered or killed by the trains. The trains constitute a significant portion of the journey- migrants travel on the tops of the trains to traverse much of Mexico.Quote: “‘This,’ a Los Angeles woman who helps immigrants, told me, ‘is the adventure story of the twenty-first century.’�Â?
I thought this books was a fascinating read, particularly because the author originally wrote it as a newspaper article, so it is very journalistic. In addition to following Enrique, the author spends months in Honduras and Mexico, traveling on top of trains and simulating the train hopping experience as much as possible while keeping a relative degree of safety. The story of the visits people take to reunite their families and strive for a better life is well-documented as are the consequences of the decision to make the journey.
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LibraryThing member dbsovereign
This book works for me as a expose of immigration brutality, but loses some of it's focus by spreading the story out to include several people making the journey north. Knowing that its first iteration was as an LA Times series rates it as deserving of a Pulitzer Prize. The corruption and blatant
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cruelty exercised by some of the gangs and law enforcement agencies, makes the narrative both tragic and a tough read. I found myself avoiding it at times... Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Audie Award (Finalist — 2010)
Commonwealth Club of California Book Awards (Silver Medal — Nonfiction — 2006)
Christopher Award (2007)
Dayton Literary Peace Prize (Longlist — Nonfiction — 2007)
IRE Awards (Finalist — Book — 2006)
Language
Original language
English
Physical description
299 p.; 7.97 inches
ISBN
0812971787 / 9780812971781