Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario
This author should stick to her Pulitzer prize winning journalism. The book is written in the short, choppy manner of a newspaper writer. It is repetitive. It supplies way too many names and places that are not crucial to the crux of the story.
The nonfiction story itself is compelling, but not enough to fill 300 pages. Basically, mothers flee Central America, leaving their children behind because they think they can make a lot of money in the United States. They flee in the name of love: they will send lots of money back to their children and save enough money to bring the children to the US. The mother in this story left her two children when they were preschool age, and twelve years later the boy, Enrique, decides to journey to the United States. (the save-money-to-bring-her-children-to-America plan didn't work out after 12 years and Enrique leaves Honduras with no money, no map and only his mother's telephone number.) Enrique's life in Honduras has fallen apart--he quit school, sniffs glue, and runs with a bad crowd. He feels if he could just get to his mother in North Carolina that his life would be better. It is difficult to set aside the abject poverty that Enrique lives in, but you do want to take the kid and smack him for some of his poor life choices. Anyhow, he tries to sneak to the United States seven different times; on the eighth try he is successful in entering the United States illegally and his mother pays smugglers $1700 to deliver him to North Carolina. There are so many bad guys along the boy's trip that you as a reader almost become immune to the misery these migrants face. (and you can easily forget that they are breaking multiple laws) The author acts like a journalist--she supplies the names and places of everyone she used for research to authenticate the boy's journey. It is too much to sort through to try to remember who/what is significant and who/what is not.
I'm not sure why this book would make a "must read for college" list other than to raise social issues about immigration. It is a nonfiction story. However, it does not hold much literary value, and I prefer books that have both.
The nonfiction story itself is compelling, but not enough to fill 300 pages. Basically, mothers flee Central America, leaving their children behind because they think they can make a lot of money in the United States. They flee in the name of love: they will send lots of money back to their children and save enough money to bring the children to the US. The mother in this story left her two children when they were preschool age, and twelve years later the boy, Enrique, decides to journey to the United States. (the save-money-to-bring-her-children-to-America plan didn't work out after 12 years and Enrique leaves Honduras with no money, no map and only his mother's telephone number.) Enrique's life in Honduras has fallen apart--he quit school, sniffs glue, and runs with a bad crowd. He feels if he could just get to his mother in North Carolina that his life would be better. It is difficult to set aside the abject poverty that Enrique lives in, but you do want to take the kid and smack him for some of his poor life choices. Anyhow, he tries to sneak to the United States seven different times; on the eighth try he is successful in entering the United States illegally and his mother pays smugglers $1700 to deliver him to North Carolina. There are so many bad guys along the boy's trip that you as a reader almost become immune to the misery these migrants face. (and you can easily forget that they are breaking multiple laws) The author acts like a journalist--she supplies the names and places of everyone she used for research to authenticate the boy's journey. It is too much to sort through to try to remember who/what is significant and who/what is not.
I'm not sure why this book would make a "must read for college" list other than to raise social issues about immigration. It is a nonfiction story. However, it does not hold much literary value, and I prefer books that have both.
Comments