Enriques’ Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with his Mother
Nazario, Sonia (2006).
New York: Random House, Inc.; 294 pages. $26.95. ISBN 1400062055.
Enrique’s Journey, by Sonia Nazario, is as compelling and rich as it is heartbreaking. Well-written and well researched, it describes just one boy’s journey to the United States, yet represents experiences shared by thousands of children from Mexico and Latin America.
First published as a six-part series in the Los Angeles Times before being published as a book, Enrique’s Journey is a page turner with social implications. The intended audience is anyone interested in the issues of undocumented immigrants as well as the rights and welfare of children and youth. Beginning with a brief introduction about why she came to research this topic, followed by the compelling story of Enrique’s journey, and finishing with a detailed description of her methods and sources of information, Nazario does not leave out many details. Though not academic research per se, Nazario includes a description of where she found her information, often providing the names of experts and officials who gave her valuable details. She describes her methods of research, retracing a portion of the journey that Enrique took and interviewing many of the people that he encountered along the way. Nothing less than what one would expect from a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, she writes in an easy accessible style that is enjoyable to read.
As a journalist doing ethnographic research, or “fly-on-the-wall” reporting as she calls it, Nazario confronts many of the same challenges faced by academic researchers working with children and youth, especially those in adverse and life threatening situations. In a discussion following the publication of the initial six-part series, Nazario identifies some of the ethical, professional, and legal challenges she faced. She states, “You’re going to see them [children] go through really, really difficult things, especially with this kind of fly-on-the-wall reporting. But I think that brings an immediacy and a power to the story of being there, witnessing it, showing it in a present tense that you don’t otherwise get.” She also acknowledges that just by being present and asking questions, she is affecting the outcome, perhaps changing the story that is revealed. She states,
For me the dividing line was whether or not I felt the child was in imminent danger. Not discomfort, not ‘things are going really badly,’ not, ‘I haven’t eaten for 24 hours.’ I knew that once I intervened in a significant way, I could not use that kid in the story. I would have to start over totally (Nazario 2006).
Enrique’s Journey is the real-life story of a young family from Honduras—Lourdes, a mother with two young children, Belky, seven, and Enrique, five. Separated for the past three years from her husband, the father of Belky and Enrique, Lourdes struggles to make ends meet, to put food on the table, and to keep her children in school. Like many other women in her situation, Lourdes makes the painful decision to leave her children behind in Honduras and make her way north to the United States. She reasons that she will earn money in the U.S. and send it back to Belky and Enrique, so they can have better lives. She does not plan to stay long—a year, maybe two, just long enough to save up money to rejoin her family in Honduras or bring them safely to her. Faced with many hardships, first in California and then in North Carolina, one year turns into 11 and she becomes more and more distant from her family. Lourdes realizes that she will most likely never return to Honduras.
During this time, Enrique, just five years old when Lourdes leaves, is bounced between relatives in Honduras. He is lonely and has a difficult time understanding why his mother left. He gets involved in drugs and drops out of school. He struggles to find jobs and sells off many of his possessions to buy drugs and food. He desperately yearns for his mother, thinking that if he can go find her, everything will be alright. Eleven years after his mother left him, at the age of 16, Enrique heads north.
Sonia Nazario artfully tells the story of Enrique’s long, arduous journey. She describes his numerous attempts to make his way north, his physical and emotional pain, and his adaptation to a life on the run. She recounts the kind strangers that he meets and the great dangers that he faces. Enrique becomes a member of the immigrant population traveling north who are prey for gangs, corrupt police, and border patrol. The danger does not stop once they cross the border, as they are constantly at risk of being deported back to Latin America. This is the life that Enrique knows. After he is reunited with his mother, other challenges arise; mutual expectations conflict with realities, and cultural and economic differences between the U.S. and Honduras play out in his personal life. Though his story ends, his life continues in the U.S. when his girlfriend whom he left behind in Honduras joins him, leaving their child behind with family.
Nazario concludes the book with a report on the larger issue of immigration. She outlines the benefits and the problems for many entities involved and provides statistics on some of the more pertinent issues. For example, Nazario reports that in 2001, an estimated 48,000 children from Central America and Mexico entered the U.S. without their parents and without legal authorization (p. 265). Clearly, the issue of undocumented immigrant children goes beyond the isolated example of Enrique and is important to study further. Although the body of research on undocumented immigrants is growing, undocumented immigrant children have been studied very little. Ethnographers and other qualitative researchers should use this work as a model for presenting research in an accessible manner and bringing it to the attention of a wider population. With Enrique’s Journey, Nazario has successfully brought “illegal immigration” to life through a personal story, making it more understandable to a broad public.
Nazario, S. (2006). “Ethical Dilemmas in Telling Enrique’s Story: A Reporter Talks about the Limits of Intervening in Risky Situations and Whether to Fully Identify Vulnerable Sources.” Nieman Reports. September.
Reviewer Information
Debra Flanders Cushing is a Ph.D. student in the Design and Planning program at the University of Colorado.