Enrique's Journey is an American best seller by a renowned journalist and Los Angeles Times reporter, Sonia Nazario. The author has intensively researched for this book and looks as if she has applied all her journalistic skills in this book. This paper discusses the book, Enrique's Journey and further analyses several related aspects.
The book touches several aspects of the human life. The story is based on a real life account of a Honduran adolescent, Enrique who starts a thorny journey from his hometown, Tegucigalpa to the US with a motive to find his mother, Lourdes after travelling almost 1600 miles and passing through a number of odds. The author has described how people are living in poor countries in a very real manner. The author indicates the life conditions of people in the poor regions and suggest that how they struggle for even fundamental necessities of the life. A simple finding that comes out of the book is the family ties which are so strong that people remain attached to each other apart from a number of odds. This is something which should astonish the sociologists of the advanced and rich societies where family ties have almost lost their affection and care for each other irrespective of the every amenities and prosperity of the life .
Illegal immigration has always been an important issue for the Americans and in past few years the issue is widely discussed due to some economic and political reasons. The author herself experienced the hardships of the migration by following Enrique. She experienced how Enrique travelled on the roof of “Death Trains”. He had travelled through the dangerous terrains of Mexico where life of a human being is always on dangle and bandits and gangs decide the fate of people. On the other hand she has also portrayed the problems that migrants face in the US and the compromises they make for living. In an instance, Lourdes has been portrayed leaving the hospital in a disposable paper because she had not even underwear to wear. Author portrays how Lourdes tried to look ugly to avoid sex demands. Nazario has presented the migration issue in human context and also suggests weighing up the migration policy of the America. The author addresses a number of issues in her book; she discusses US migration policies, poverty, economic policies, activities of gangs in Mexico, race, and human life conditions along with several other issues.
After having a look at the abovementioned analysis, it is good to conclude that the most traumatic aspect of the story is that a mother is compelled to his leave his son behind because she is unable to take care of his son in those odd conditions. She cannot feed her family at their place and leaves them just because she thinks that she can do something once she reaches to America. Here the author comes with a very considerable question which is related to the poverty and economic policies of the concerned place. Why people are still unable to fulfill the fundamental necessities of their life in some parts of the world while on the other hand there are societies where every amenity of the world is available easily.
Work Cited
Nazario, Sonia. Enrique's journey. NewYork: Random House Publishing Group, 2007.
