Sonia Nazario: An Analysis Of Enrique's Journey

Imagine leaving everything you have ever known for your whole life behind. Your family, your friends, the comfort of having something familiar, all gone. All for a dangerous journey to get to a foreign place, having a fear that you might even not have a chance of making it. Many people endure this expedition like Enrique in search for a better life. Sonia Nazario has done an outstanding job with Enrique’s Journey making you feel as though you are on this journey with Enrique, as he is making this trek from Honduras to the U.S. It is usually a rare occasion if I can make it through the first page of a fiction book without waking up an hour later and finding the book on the floor. With that being said, this book almost feels as though it should

Although she never went with Enrique on the treacherous journey, she tells the story from his viewpoint. After having interviewed Enrique and hundreds of others, as well as having taken the same trip herself, several times, she knows the experiences that these people have to face while traveling. Sonia’s writing style is very unique but at the same time easy for readers to understand. What truly makes the book so incredible is the way she presents the story, instead of Enrique speaking in first-person, Nazario tells the story without using her personal feelings, in third-person, something I imagine very hard to do with a subject as touchy as immigration and a journey as tough as Enrique’s. Nazario makes us feel for the Lourdes, the mother who left Enrique. If anyone else were to write this book I think they would make Lourdes sound like a monster for abandoning her son at such a young age; Nazario, however, allows us to see Lourdes through Enriques eyes in the beginning, as someone still beautiful but still distant. When Enrique talks about his mother he might mention one bad thing about her leaving, then he reflects on all the good about her. Enrique mentions how he has “felt alone all my life,” then is quick to mention “she always told

I felt like I was reading the play write for an action or thriller movie. The severed limbs from trains, to drugs, to police brutality, Enrique’s agonizing experiences left me with my jaw dropped to the floor half the time while reading. How could a boy this age undergo and complete a journey with so much danger to reach his goal? The brutal honesty depicted in this novel is extremely shocking and it introduced me to a side of the world that I never really knew existed. Through Nazarios descriptive language, she really reaches into the depths of the immigration process. Throughout the book there were small sections of photos which she had taken on her journey, these pictures really showed the hardships these migrants faced while crossing a river, or riding on top of trains. The powerful word choice Nazario chose really helps the story develop. My heart broke after reading things that happened to Enrique, the things I fear to be my worst nightmare. On one of his ventures, Enrique stops, to look in “window glass,” Now he doesn't see the same boy he saw before he left home, he sees someone completely different, he sees a “battered,” “scrawny,” and “disfigured” man. Thus creating a “determination to push northward" (Nazario 100). This really shows the quick transition Enrique had to go through, he never had a childhood he had to grow up extremely fast, he had no time to really be a kid. I