Enrique’s Journey by Sonia Nazario presents the overall themes of poverty, crime, work, and drug abuse. To society these themes are also seen as social problems. These problems affect society on a larger scale but on a smaller scale they have a huge affect on Enrique’s family. “The effect of immigration has been family disintegration. People are leaving behind the most important value: family unity.” (Page 282) Poverty is defined as the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions. This is the main theme presented throughout the entire novel. Not only in Honduras but also in the United States people face poverty stricken lifestyles. In Honduras Lourdes, Enrique’s mother, has been forced to …show more content…
People have trouble finding jobs let alone finding an adequate job to support their families. Lourdes left home to travel north to the United States to find a better job in order to support her family back in Honduras. Jobs are hard to find and when you can find them they have low wages, poor working conditions, and the jobs usually don’t last long. Lourdes worked several jobs that barely allowed her to make ends meet. The jobs she had included being a nanny making $125/week, working at a pizza shop, a bar, and a refrigerated fish factory. “Immigrants like herself, she says, work hard at jobs no American wants to do, at least not for minimum wage with no health benefits or paid vacation time. “ (Page 251) Despite all her troubles to get to the United States Lourdes still faced problems finding adequate work to support her family. Drug addiction plays a huge role in Enrique’s life. Before he chooses to go to the United States he resorts to drug use to separate him from his problems. His addiction to drugs ends up causing more problems for him. Enrique sniffs glue to get high and when he’s not high, he is drunk. His drug addiction begins to interfere with his relationship with his family. “Now even his grandmother wishes he would go to the United States. He is hurting the family and himself.” (Page
Enrique and many other Central American kids have a hard life. They come to America where they think their mothers will magically solve their problems because their mothers are supposed to be perfect. Enrique and others realize this isn’t true and goes on to accept it. Migrants resent their mothers a little bit, but come to start loving them as the migrants did before their mothers left. Migrants also learn about life lessons on the trains. Migrants learn that people should not be trusted, but not all people are bad. The migrants just have to learn which people are bad and which aren’t. Migrants also learned that you shouldn’t have high expectations of everything and also that you shouldn’t put your problems on one person and expect them to go away. You have to figure life out on your own.
Enrique’s Journey is a book that I would never read for fun. It is completely different from most of the books I have read, and intrigued me because the story was about a boy. Most of the books I have read in school are about a girl who goes through many hardships, and difficulties but I felt I could relate more to this one because it is about a boy who struggles. While I may not have been left thousands of miles away by mother so she could send money back, it was great to see what life was like on the other side. In this paper I will be talking about the micro and macro cultures of Enrique’s town Tegucigalpa. The situation and context of the characters decision making and how they adapted.
In “Enrique’s Journey”, by Sonia Nazario a young boy from Honduras, sets out to reunite with his mother, Lourdes, that abandoned him when he was just five years old. Lourdes leaves to the United States, in hopes to find a better job as an immigrant and to better provide for her family. After many years of suffering without his mom, he travels through Central America to the United States in order to finally reunite with her. He finds his mother beginning to move on as she has a little daughter, named Diana. They run into problems of resentment. Will they be able to finally be a family? Sonia develops this theme of family by using specific facts and characterization. Importance
The push-and-pull factors in Enrique’s yearn for the U.S not only allows him to rediscover himself as an individual in a world of uncertainty, it also eliminates his constant fear of failing as a promising human being; in addition exhibits the undying hope of a desperate man found in hopeful migrants. In Sonia Nazario’s “Enrique’s Journey,” his mother’s trip streamed “emptiness” into the heart of a once comfortable child and left him to “struggle” to hold memories they shared. Enrique’s life after Lourdes’ departure triggered the traumatizing demise of his identity. He threw this broken identity away while facing many obstacles, nevertheless each endea...
Like many other migrants, Enrique had many troubles with his mother too. When Enrique first arrived to the U.S., Enrique and his mother’s relationship was going well. Lourdes was proud of Enrique for finding a job as a painter and sander. Lourdes would always brag to her friends that Enrique is her son and that he’s big and a miracle. However, Enrique starts going to a pool hall without asking Lourdes’s permission which makes her upset. Enrique often yells obscenities and mother tells him not to, but Enrique tells Lourdes that nobody can change who he is.
In Enrique’s Journey, Enrique had to witness many of these incidents occur to others. He has seen many women get raped, people get things stolen from them, people fall off the train
The main events of the story occur in Honduras and Mexico. Tegucigalpa, Honduras is where Enrique was born and raised by several family members. In Tegucigalpa, Enrique is shuffled from house to house simply because he is unable to control his emotions. This makes Enrique angry and he begins to rebel against the people he lives with. At the age of 17, Enrique decides to leave his family in Honduras and travel to the United States in hopes that he will reunite with his mother. His journey will take him through Chiapas, Mexico, the most hostile city at the point of his travel. In Chiapas, corrupt Mexican police officers and gangs stop migrants and order them to give up anything in their possession. Enrique was beaten and thrown off a train in Chiapas by gang members who raiding the train. After being thrown off of the train Enrique realizes that the journey is not going to be as easy as he dreamed it was. The second most hostile city of the trip, Oaxaca is where many migrants are deported. The people of Oaxaca have a very distinct way of speaking and behaving. In Oaxaca Enrique is kept on toes, wondering if he will be deported because of his awkward dress and dialect. The last important place in the story is Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Nuevo Laredo is last stop for immigrants travelling to the United States. From Nuevo Laredo immigrants will illegally enter Texas and begin their struggle for financial success in America. Enrique does finally enter Texas after being pushed on a boat from Nuevo Laredo. Once he entered Texas, Enrique takes a cab to North Carolina hoping to find his mother. Sonia Nazario begins the story by describing Enrique’s confusion as to why his mother has left him. He doesn’t understand that she can’t afford food and ...
Throughout Enrique’s many attempts at successfully making his way by train to the border between the United States and Mexico, he has encountered people who were more concerned with stopping and harming the travelers rather than ensuring their wellbeing. Therefore this imagery during the journey part of the novel helps to provide the reader with the sense that not everyone in Mexico is out to get the people who are trying to obtain a better
Enrique decides to set out on a journey to reunite with his mother in the US. It takes eight attempts over four months to finally reach her. The first seven times he is robbed, beaten, and deported again and again, yet never gives up. Like most migrants, much of Enrique's journey is atop a freight train, but there are many dangers between Honduras and the US. If migrants aren’t killed by the trains themselves, they must worry about the gangsters, bandits, and robbers beating, robbing, raping, and even killing migrants. Just as dangerous are the corrupt police called la migra that do whatever they want to immigrants before deporting them. On the bright side Enrique meets a variety of people on his journey, many attempting the same voyage he is. They share their stories and advice about where to go and where to avoid.
Merriam Webster defines poverty as the state of lacking a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions. The United States Census Bureau identifies poverty as a lack of goods and services commonly taken for granted by members of mainstream society. Professor Gene Nichol, however, defines poverty from an emotional, yet som...
Drug abuse dates as far back as the Biblical era, so it is not a new phenomenon. “The emotional and social damage and the devastation linked to drugs and their use is immeasurable.” The ripple of subversive and detrimental consequences from alcoholism, drug addictions, and addictive behavior is appalling. Among the long list of effects is lost productivity, anxiety, depression, increased crime rate, probable incarceration, frequent illness, and premature death. The limitless consequences include the destruction to personal development, relationships, and families (Henderson 1-2). “Understandably, Americans consider drug abuse to be one of the most serious problems” in the fabric of society. And although “addiction is the result of voluntary drug use, addiction is no longer voluntary behavior, it’s uncontrollable behavior,” says Alan Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (Torr 12-13).
Poverty is “the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions” (Merriam-Webster dictionary, 2015); in other words, struggling to provide a comfortable living style. It is the cause of family stress and many other problems, especially for the children. Millions of people around the world are struggling with poverty; families suffering to provide enough food seem to be growing in numbers. According to the United States Census Bureau, the poverty rate was highest in the 1960s and decreased greatly in the 1970s. However, it is now slowly starting to increase again. Recently released census data by the Bureau showed that one in five people are living in poverty (Census Bureau, 2014). Poverty is even
The question is, what is poverty? Poverty is about not having enough money to meet basic needs of life, including food, clothing, and shelter. Nevertheless I believe that poverty is much more that not having enough money. The World Bank Organization describes poverty as, “Poverty is hunger. Poverty is the lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty
Poverty is a major problem in the United States today. Social, economical, political, and cultural factors all contribute to poverty. Education and economic development are two major issues that will help prevent poverty. The United States Census Bureau defines poverty as an "economic condition in which people lack sufficient income to obtain basic needs for food, housing, clothing, health services and education." In other words, poverty is powerlessness, a lack of representation and freedom. Poverty is an issue that the world faces everyday.
What is poverty? Well, according to Webster's Third New International Dictionary, poverty is "lack of money or material possessions; poor." Two-thirds of the world's population fits this definition. I know that many times we think of being poor as not being able to buy the car we want or take the trip we can only dream about. However, being poor, living in poverty, hits a lot lower than that. For example, a resident of the country of Chad will only bring in $100 each year. Since many people can make more than that in one week, some in one day, can you imagine having the feed a family of five or six, or even a family of two, on only $100 a year? These are the conditions that exist in poverty-stricken countries.