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Enrique's Journey

The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother

Author Sonia Nazario
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Paperback
$20.00 US
Random House Group | Random House Trade Paperbacks
On sale Jan 02, 2007 | 400 Pages | 9780812971781
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In this astonishing true story, award-winning journalist Sonia Nazario recounts the unforgettable odyssey of a Honduran boy who braves unimaginable hardship and peril to reach his mother in the United States.

When Enrique is five years old, his mother, Lourdes, too poor to feed her children, leaves Honduras to work in the United States. The move allows her to send money back home to Enrique so he can eat better and go to school past the third grade.

Lourdes promises Enrique she will return quickly. But she struggles in America. Years pass. He begs for his mother to come back. Without her, he becomes lonely and troubled. When she calls, Lourdes tells him to be patient. Enrique despairs of ever seeing her again. After eleven years apart, he decides he will go find her.

Enrique sets off alone from Tegucigalpa, with little more than a slip of paper bearing his mother’s North Carolina telephone number. Without money, he will make the dangerous and illegal trek up the length of Mexico the only way he can–clinging to the sides and tops of freight trains.

With gritty determination and a deep longing to be by his mother’s side, Enrique travels through hostile, unknown worlds. Each step of the way through Mexico, he and other migrants, many of them children, are hunted like animals. Gangsters control the tops of the trains. Bandits rob and kill migrants up and down the tracks. Corrupt cops all along the route are out to fleece and deport them. To evade Mexican police and immigration authorities, they must jump onto and off the moving boxcars they call El Tren de la Muerte–The Train of Death. Enrique pushes forward using his wit, courage, and hope–and the kindness of strangers. It is an epic journey, one thousands of immigrant children make each year to find their mothers in the United States.

Based on the Los Angeles Times newspaper series that won two Pulitzer Prizes, one for feature writing and another for feature photography, Enrique’s Journey is the timeless story of families torn apart, the yearning to be together again, and a boy who will risk his to find the mother he loves.

Selected by the following Community Reads programs:
San Diego, CA 2007 
Yuma, AZ 2008 
Glendale, CA 2008 
Santa Fe Springs, CA 2009 
Saint Peter, MN 2009 
Laredo, TX 2009 
Memphis, TN 2010 
Denver, CO 2012 
Davis, CA 2013 
Watsonville, CA 2013
Wyoming, MI 2014 
Bakersfield, CA and Kern County, CA 2014 
Rhinelander, WI 2014
Naperville, IL 2015 
Peoria, IL 2015 
Nantucket, MA 2015 
Lakeville, MN 2015 
East Lansing, MI 2016

Selected for Common Reading at the following colleges and universities:
Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN 
Indiana University, Kokomo, IN 
College of Mount St. Joseph, Cincinnati, OH 
University of Missouri, Kansas City 
Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg 
Notre Dame de Namur University, Belmont, CA 
Rockhurst University, Kansas City, MO 
Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, CA 
Southwestern College, Chula Vista, CA 
Henderson State University, Arkadelphia, AR 
Edgewood College, Madison, WI 
University of North Carolina, Charlotte 
Peace College, Raleigh, NC 
Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID 
University of North Carolina, Greensboro 
Central College, Pella, IA 
Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff 
Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, MN 
Florida Southern College, Lakeland, FL 
Bluffton University, Bluffton, OH 
Baldwin-Wallace College, Berea, OH 
Fort Lewis College, Durango, CO 
University of South Carolina, Aiken 
Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA 
John Carroll University, University Heights, OH 
University of California, Santa Barbara (University-wide read) 
Santa Barbara City College, CA 
Texas A & M, College Station, TX 
Allegheny College, Meadville, PA 
Hawai'i Pacific University, Honolulu 
Arcadia University, Glenside, PA 
Chandler-Gilbert Community College, Maricopa County, AZ (Common Read) 
Fullerton College, Fullerton, CA (Common Read) 
Moorpark College, Moorpark, CA (Common Read) 
Bunker Hill Community College, Boston, MA (Common Read) 
Cumberland County College, Vineland, NJ (Common Read) 
Millersville University, Millersville, PA (Freshman Read) 
California Lutheran University, Thousand Oaks, CA  (Freshman Read) 
Meredith College, Raleigh, NC (Common Read) 
Jacksonville University, Jacksonville, FL (Freshman Read) 
Lasell College, Newton, MA (Common Read) 
Metro State College, Denver, CO (One Book Read) 
George Fox University, Newberg, OR (Common Read) 
University of Wisconsin, Whitewater 
University of Wisconsin, Madison (Go Big Read Program) 
SUNY College at Old Westbury (Freshman Read) 
Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, MO (Common Read) 
Adams State College, Alamosa, CO (Common Read) 
North Seattle Community College (Winter Read) 
Rosemont College, Rosemont, PA (First Year Connections Seminar Read) 
University of Richmond, Richmond, VA (Summer Read for Juniors) 
Loyola University Chicago (Freshman Read) 
Newman University, Wichita, KS (Community Read) 
Nassau Community College, Garden City, NY (Common Read) 
Cabrini College Radnor Township,PA (Summer Read) 
University of Wisconsin, La Crosse (Common Read) 
Hesston College, Hesston, KS (Common Read) 
Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, North Adams, MA (Summer Read) 
College of Wooster, Wooster, OH (Common Read) 
Metropolitan Community College, Omaha, NE (Diversity Matters Book Series) 
Manhattan College, New York, NY (Common Read) 
Cedar Valley College, Lancaster, TX (Common Read) 
College of Saint Mary, Omaha, NE (Common Read) 
Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, FL (Campus Read) 
University of La Verne, La Verne, CA (One Book, One University) 
Holy Names University, Oakland, CA (Campus-wide Common Read) 
California State University, Bakersfield (Common Read) 
Utah Valley University, Orem, UT (Freshman Read) 
Ramapo College of New Jersey, Mahwah, NJ (Common Read) 
Birmingham Southern College, Birmingham, AL (Common Read) 
Catawba Valley Community College, Hickory, NC (Common Read)
Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX (Common Read)
East Carolina University, Greenville, NC (Common Read)
Wingate University, Wingate, NC (Freshman Read)
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (Common Read)
Missouri State University, Springfield, MO (Freshman Read)
Rider University, Lawrenceville, NJ (Common Read)
Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA (Freshman Read)
Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI (One Book, One Community)
University of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA (Common Read)
Pierce College, Woodland Hills, CA (One Book, One Campus) 

Selected for Common Reading at the following K-12 schools:
Brother Martin High School, New Orleans, LA 
Northern Valley Regional High School, Demarest, NJ 
Northern Valley Regional High School, Old Tappan, NJ 
Academy of the Holy Angels, Demarest, NJ 
Bay Shore High School, Bay Shore, NY 
Challenge Early College High School, Houston, TX 
Santa Monica High School, Santa Monica, CA
La Jolla Country Day School, La Jolla, CA 
Middletown N.J. High School 
Wheeling High School, Wheeling, IL 
Burlingame High School, Burlingame, CA 
Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical School, Bourne, MA 
St. Ignatius High School, Cleveland, OH 
Putnam County High School, Eatonton, GA 
Hudson High School, Hudson, OH 
Santa Ana High School, Santa Ana, CA 
Animo Venice Charter High School, Venice, CA 
Banning High School, Wilmington, CA 
Hayfield Secondary School, Alexandria, VA 
Los Alamitos High School, Los Alamitos, CA 
Bishop Mora Salesian College Preparatory High School, Los Angeles, CA 
Lakeview High School, Chicago, IL 
John Muir High School, Pasadena, CA 
Cheverus High School, Portland, ME 
North East Independent School District, San Antonio, TX 
La Salle High School of Yakima, Yakima, WA 
Huntington High School, Huntington, NY 
Marian High School, Omaha, NE 
Mercy High School, Omaha, NE 
Elk Grove High School, Elk Grove, IL 
Notre Dame High School, San Jose, CA 
Desert Mirage High School, Thermal, CA 
Los Angeles Leadership Academy, Los Angeles, CA 
Keansburg Public Schools, Keansburg, NJ 
White Plains High School, White Plains, NY 
North East Independent High School, San Antonio, TX 
O'Fallon Township High School, O'Fallon, IL 
Academy of Education and Empowerment at Carson High School, Carson, CA 
Manheim Central High School, Manheim, PA 
Woodrow Wilson High School, Washington DC 
Conner High School, Hebron, KY 
North High School, Sioux City, IA 
Colorado Academy, Denver, CO 
Incline Village Schools, Incline Village, NV 
St. Mary's School, Raleigh, NC 
Jack C. Hayes High School, Buda, TX 
Dobyns-Bennett High School, Kingsport, TN 
Esteban E. Torres High School, Los Angeles, CA 
Northern Valley High School District, NJ 
Jackson School District, Jackson, NJ 
Round Rock High School, Round Rock, TX 
Andover eCademy, Andover, KS 
Christian Brothers High School, Sacramento, CA 
Haverford High School, Havertown, PA 
Gates County High School, Gatesville, NC 
Niles North High School District 219, Skokie, IL 
University School of Milwaukee, Milwaukee, IL 
Environmental Science and Technology High School, Los Angeles, CA 
Harpeth Hall School, Nashville, TN 
Johns Creek High School, Johns Creek, GA 
Lake View High School, Chicago, IL 
Watchung Hills Regional High School, Warren, NJ 
Atlantic Technical Center High School, Margate, FL 
Kellam High School, Virginia Beach, VA 
Chatham High School, Chatham, NJ 
St. Raymond High School for Boys, Bronx, NY 
Immaculate Conception Academy, San Francisco, CA 
Fletcher High School Cambridge AICE Program, Jacksonville, FL 
Social Justice Humanitas Academy, San Fernando, CA 
Marquette University High School, Milwaukee, WI 
Mamaroneck High School, Mamaroneck, NJ 
Johnson High School, San Antonio, TX 
Nazareth Academy, LaGrange Park, IL 
Pebblebrook High School, Mableton, GA 
Olympian High School, Chula Vista, CA
Saint John's Preparatory School, Collegeville, MN 
Miller Middle School, Durango, CO 
Durango Middle School, Durango, CO 
Escalante Middle School, Durango, CO 
James Denman Middle School, San Francisco, CA 
James Lick Middle School, San Francisco, CA 
The Benjamin School, North Palm Beach, FL 
Chapter 1


The boy does not understand.

His mother is not talking to him. She will not even look at him. Enrique has no hint of what she is going to do.

Lourdes knows. She understands, as only a mother can, the terror she is about to inflict, the ache Enrique will feel, and finally the emptiness.

What will become of him? Already he will not let anyone else feed or bathe him. He loves her deeply, as only a son can. With Lourdes, he is openly affectionate. “Dame pico, mami. Give me a kiss, Mom,” he pleads, over and over, pursing his lips. With Lourdes, he is a chatterbox. “Mira, mami. Look, Mom,” he says softly, asking her questions about everything he sees. Without her, he is so shy it is crushing.

Slowly, she walks out onto the porch. Enrique clings to her pant leg. Beside her, he is tiny. Lourdes loves him so much she cannot bring herself to say a word. She cannot carry his picture. It would melt her resolve. She cannot hug him. He is five years old.

They live on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa, in Honduras. She can barely afford food for him and his sister, Belky, who is seven. She’s never been able to buy them a toy or a birthday cake. Lourdes, twenty-four, scrubs other people’s laundry in a muddy river. She goes door to door, selling tortillas, used clothes, and plantains.

She fills a wooden box with gum and crackers and cigarettes, and she finds a spot where she can squat on a dusty sidewalk next to the downtown Pizza Hut and sell the items to passersby. The sidewalk is Enrique’s playground.

They have a bleak future. He and Belky are not likely to finish grade school. Lourdes cannot afford uniforms or pencils. Her husband is gone. A good job is out of the question.

Lourdes knows of only one place that offers hope. As a seven-year-old child, delivering tortillas her mother made to
wealthy homes, she glimpsed this place on other people’s television screens. The flickering images were a far cry from Lourdes’ s childhood home: a two-room shack made of wooden slats, its flimsy tin roof weighted down with rocks, the only bathroom a clump of bushes outside. On television, she saw New York City’s spectacular skyline, Las Vegas’s shimmering lights, Disneyland’s magic castle.

Lourdes has decided: She will leave. She will go to the United States and make money and send it home. She will be gone for one year—less, with luck—or she will bring her children to be with her. It is for them she is leaving, she tells herself, but still she feels guilty.

She kneels and kisses Belky and hugs her tightly. Then she turns to her own sister. If she watches over Belky, she will get a set of gold fingernails from el Norte. 

But Lourdes cannot face Enrique. He will remember only one thing that she says to him: “Don’t forget to go to church this afternoon.”

It is January 29, 1989. His mother steps off the porch.

She walks away.

“¿Dónde está mi mami?” Enrique cries, over and over. “Where is my mom?”

His mother never returns, and that decides Enrique’s fate.

As a teenager—indeed, still a child—he will set out for the United States on his own to search for her. Virtually unnoticed, he will become one of an estimated 48,000 children who enter the United States from Central America and Mexico each year, illegally and without either of their parents. Roughly two thirds of them will make it past the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Many go north seeking work. Others flee abusive families.

Most of the Central Americans go to reunite with a parent, say counselors at a detention center in Texas where the INS houses the largest number of the unaccompanied children it catches. Of those, the counselors say, 75 percent are looking for their mothers. Some children say they need to find out whether their mothers still love them. A priest at a Texas shelter says they often bring pictures of themselves in their mothers’ arms.

The journey is hard for the Mexicans but harder still for Enrique and the others from Central America. They must make an illegal and dangerous trek up the length of Mexico. Counselors and immigration lawyers say only half of them get help from smugglers. The rest travel alone. They are cold, hungry, and helpless. They are hunted like animals by corrupt police, bandits, and gang members deported from the United States. A University of Houston study found that most are robbed, beaten, or raped, usually several times. Some are killed.

They set out with little or no money. Thousands, shelter workers say, make their way through Mexico clinging to the sides and tops of freight trains. Since the 1990s, Mexico and the United States have tried to thwart them. To evade Mexican police and immigration authorities, the children jump onto and off of the moving train cars. Sometimes they fall, and the wheels tear them apart.

They navigate by word of mouth or by the arc of the sun. Often, they don’t know where or when they’ll get their next meal. Some go days without eating. If a train stops even briefly, they crouch by the tracks, cup their hands, and steal sips of water from shiny puddles tainted with diesel fuel. At night, they huddle together on the train cars or next to the tracks. They sleep in trees, in tall grass, or in beds made of leaves.

Some are very young. Mexican rail workers have encountered seven-year-olds on their way to find their mothers. A policeman discovered a nine-year-old boy near the downtown Los Angeles tracks. “I’m looking for my mother,” he said. The youngster had left Puerto Cortes in Honduras three months before. He had been guided only by his cunning and the single thing he knew about her: where she lived. He had asked everyone, “How do I get to San Francisco?”

Typically, the children are teenagers. Some were babies when their mothers left; they know them only by pictures sent home. Others, a bit older, struggle to hold on to memories: One has slept in her mother’ s bed; another has smelled her perfume, put on her deodorant, her clothes. One is old enough to remember his mother’s face, another her laugh, her favorite shade of lipstick, how her dress felt as she stood at the stove pattingtortillas.

Many, including Enrique, begin to idealize their mothers. They remember how their mothers fed and bathed them, how they walked them to kindergarten. In their absence, these mothers become larger than life. Although in the United States the women struggle to pay rent and eat, in the imaginations of their children back home they become deliverance itself, the answer to every problem. Finding them becomes the quest for the Holy Grail.

CONFUSION

Enrique is bewildered. Who will take care of him now that his mother is gone? Lourdes, unable to burden her family with both of her children, has split them up. Belky stayed with Lourdes’s mother and sisters. For two years, Enrique is entrusted to his father, Luis, from whom his mother has been separated for three years.

Enrique clings to his daddy, who dotes on him. A bricklayer, his father takes Enrique to work and lets him help mix mortar. They live with Enrique’ s grandmother. His father shares a bed with him and brings him apples and clothes. Every month, Enrique misses his mother less, but he does not forget her. “When is she coming for me?” he asks.

Lourdes and her smuggler cross Mexico on buses. Each afternoon, she closes her eyes. She imagines herself home at dusk, playing with Enrique under a eucalyptus tree in her mother’s front yard. Enrique straddles a broom, pretending it’s a donkey, trotting around the muddy yard. Each afternoon, she presses her eyes shut and tears fall. Each afternoon, she reminds herself that if she is weak, if she does not keep moving forward, her children will pay.

Lourdes crosses into the United States in one of the largest immigrant waves in the country’s history. She enters at night through a rat-infested Tijuana sewage tunnel and makes her way to Los Angeles. There, in the downtown Greyhound bus terminal, the smuggler tells Lourdes to wait while he runs a quick errand. He’ll be right back. The smuggler has been paid to take her all the way to Miami.

Three days pass. Lourdes musses her filthy hair, trying to blend in with the homeless and not get singled out by police. She prays to God to put someone before her, to show her the way. Whom can she reach out to for help? Starved, she starts walking. East of downtown, Lourdes spots a small factory. On the loading dock, under a gray tin roof, women sort red and green tomatoes. She begs for work. As she puts tomatoes into boxes, she hallucinates that she is slicing open a juicy one and sprinkling it with salt. The boss pays her $14 for two hours’ work. Lourdes’s brother has a friend in Los Angeles who helps Lourdes get a fake Social Security card and a job.

She moves in with a Beverly Hills couple to take care of their three-year-old daughter. Their spacious home has carpet on the floors and mahogany panels on the walls. Her employers are kind. They pay her $125 a week. She gets nights and weekends off. Maybe, Lourdes tells herself—if she stays long enough—they will help her become legal.
Copyright © 2006 by Sonia Nazario. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
“A remarkable feat of immersion reporting . . . [Gives] the immigrant . . . flesh and bone, history and voice . . . The kind of story we have told ourselves throughout history, a story we still need to hear.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Compelling . . . Nazario doesn’t pull any punches.”—Dallas Morning News

“A meticulously documented account of an epic journey, one undertaken by thousands of children every year . . . [Nazario] covers both positive and negative effects of immigration, illuminating the problem’s complexity. . . . In telling Enrique’s story [she] bears witness for us all.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Compelling . . . drama, pathos, and [the] hot topic of illegal immigration.”—The San Diego Union-Tribune

“Astounding . . . I am unaware of any journalist who has voluntarily placed herself in greater peril to nail down a story than did Nazario.”—Steve Weinberg, former executive director of investigative reporters and editors, The Baltimore Sun
 
“A story of heartache, brutality, and love deferred that is near mythic in its power.”—Los Angeles Magazine

“[Enrique’s Journey] personifies one of the greatest migrations in history. . . . Much of the book is a thriller . . . a 12,000-mile journey worthy of an Indiana Jones movie.”—The Orange County Register

“Riveting . . . expert reporting . . . Nazario puts a human face upon a major issue. . . . The breadth and depth of [her] research is astounding.”—The Plain Dealer

“A heart-racing and heart-rending trip.”—The Daily Nonpareil

“A story readers won’t soon forget.”—Tu Ciudad

“Gripping . . . astounding . . . viscerally conveys the experience of illegal immigration from Central America . . . [Nazario] has crafted her findings into a story that is at once moving and polemical.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“This portrait of poverty and family ties has the potential to reshape American conversations about immigration.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Insightful and beautifully written and sheds a great deal of light on the horrific journeys immigrants risk to find a better life. Highly recommended.”—Library Journal

“This is a harrowing odyssey that depicts one young man's attempts to reunite with his mother and the social and economic issues involved in illegal immigration.”—Booklist

“Gripping, heroic and important, Enrique's Journey captures the heart. Most Americans or their forebears came to the United States from other countries. They experienced difficult journeys and wrenching family separations-all in the hope of finding a better life in this new land. Enrique's story is our story, beautifully told.”—Edward James Olmos
Sonia Nazario has spent 20 years reporting and writing about social issues, most recently as a projects reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Her stories have tackled some of this country’s most intractable problems: hunger, drug addiction, immigration.

She has won numerous national journalism and book awards. In 2003, her story of a Honduran boy’s struggle to find his mother in the U.S., entitled “Enrique’s Journey,” won more than a dozen awards, among them the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing, the George Polk Award for International Reporting, the Grand Prize of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and the National Assn. of Hispanic Journalists Guillermo Martinez-Marquez Award for Overall Excellence.

Expanded into a book, Enrique’s Journey became a national bestseller and won two book awards. It is now required reading for incoming freshmen at dozens of colleges and high schools across the U.S.

In 1998, Nazario was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for a series on children of drug addicted parents. And in 1994, she won a George Polk Award for Local Reporting for a series about hunger among schoolchildren in California.

Nazario has been named among the most influential Latinos by Hispanic Business Magazine and a “trendsetter” by Hispanic Magazine.

Nazario, who grew up in Kansas and in Argentina, has written extensively from Latin America and about Latinos in the United States. She is now at work on her second book. She began her career at the Wall Street Journal, where she reported from four bureaus: New York, Atlanta, Miami, and Los Angeles. In 1993, she joined the Los Angeles Times. She serves on the advisory boards of the University of North Texas Mayborn Literary Non-fiction Writer's Conference and of Catch the Next, a non-profit working to double the number of Latinos enrolling in college. She is also on the board of Kids In Need of Defense, a non-profit launched by Microsoft and Angelina Jolie to provide pro-bono attorneys to unaccompanied immigrant children.

She is a graduate of Williams College and has a master’s degree in Latin American studies from the University of California, Berkeley. In 2010, Nazario received an honorary doctorate from Mount St. Mary's College. View titles by Sonia Nazario

Educator Guide for Enrique's Journey

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Classroom Activities for Enrique's Journey

Classroom activities supplement discussion and traditional lessons with group projects and creative tasks. Can be used in pre-existing units and lessons, or as stand-alone.

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About

In this astonishing true story, award-winning journalist Sonia Nazario recounts the unforgettable odyssey of a Honduran boy who braves unimaginable hardship and peril to reach his mother in the United States.

When Enrique is five years old, his mother, Lourdes, too poor to feed her children, leaves Honduras to work in the United States. The move allows her to send money back home to Enrique so he can eat better and go to school past the third grade.

Lourdes promises Enrique she will return quickly. But she struggles in America. Years pass. He begs for his mother to come back. Without her, he becomes lonely and troubled. When she calls, Lourdes tells him to be patient. Enrique despairs of ever seeing her again. After eleven years apart, he decides he will go find her.

Enrique sets off alone from Tegucigalpa, with little more than a slip of paper bearing his mother’s North Carolina telephone number. Without money, he will make the dangerous and illegal trek up the length of Mexico the only way he can–clinging to the sides and tops of freight trains.

With gritty determination and a deep longing to be by his mother’s side, Enrique travels through hostile, unknown worlds. Each step of the way through Mexico, he and other migrants, many of them children, are hunted like animals. Gangsters control the tops of the trains. Bandits rob and kill migrants up and down the tracks. Corrupt cops all along the route are out to fleece and deport them. To evade Mexican police and immigration authorities, they must jump onto and off the moving boxcars they call El Tren de la Muerte–The Train of Death. Enrique pushes forward using his wit, courage, and hope–and the kindness of strangers. It is an epic journey, one thousands of immigrant children make each year to find their mothers in the United States.

Based on the Los Angeles Times newspaper series that won two Pulitzer Prizes, one for feature writing and another for feature photography, Enrique’s Journey is the timeless story of families torn apart, the yearning to be together again, and a boy who will risk his to find the mother he loves.

Selected by the following Community Reads programs:
San Diego, CA 2007 
Yuma, AZ 2008 
Glendale, CA 2008 
Santa Fe Springs, CA 2009 
Saint Peter, MN 2009 
Laredo, TX 2009 
Memphis, TN 2010 
Denver, CO 2012 
Davis, CA 2013 
Watsonville, CA 2013
Wyoming, MI 2014 
Bakersfield, CA and Kern County, CA 2014 
Rhinelander, WI 2014
Naperville, IL 2015 
Peoria, IL 2015 
Nantucket, MA 2015 
Lakeville, MN 2015 
East Lansing, MI 2016

Selected for Common Reading at the following colleges and universities:
Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN 
Indiana University, Kokomo, IN 
College of Mount St. Joseph, Cincinnati, OH 
University of Missouri, Kansas City 
Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg 
Notre Dame de Namur University, Belmont, CA 
Rockhurst University, Kansas City, MO 
Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, CA 
Southwestern College, Chula Vista, CA 
Henderson State University, Arkadelphia, AR 
Edgewood College, Madison, WI 
University of North Carolina, Charlotte 
Peace College, Raleigh, NC 
Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID 
University of North Carolina, Greensboro 
Central College, Pella, IA 
Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff 
Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, MN 
Florida Southern College, Lakeland, FL 
Bluffton University, Bluffton, OH 
Baldwin-Wallace College, Berea, OH 
Fort Lewis College, Durango, CO 
University of South Carolina, Aiken 
Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA 
John Carroll University, University Heights, OH 
University of California, Santa Barbara (University-wide read) 
Santa Barbara City College, CA 
Texas A & M, College Station, TX 
Allegheny College, Meadville, PA 
Hawai'i Pacific University, Honolulu 
Arcadia University, Glenside, PA 
Chandler-Gilbert Community College, Maricopa County, AZ (Common Read) 
Fullerton College, Fullerton, CA (Common Read) 
Moorpark College, Moorpark, CA (Common Read) 
Bunker Hill Community College, Boston, MA (Common Read) 
Cumberland County College, Vineland, NJ (Common Read) 
Millersville University, Millersville, PA (Freshman Read) 
California Lutheran University, Thousand Oaks, CA  (Freshman Read) 
Meredith College, Raleigh, NC (Common Read) 
Jacksonville University, Jacksonville, FL (Freshman Read) 
Lasell College, Newton, MA (Common Read) 
Metro State College, Denver, CO (One Book Read) 
George Fox University, Newberg, OR (Common Read) 
University of Wisconsin, Whitewater 
University of Wisconsin, Madison (Go Big Read Program) 
SUNY College at Old Westbury (Freshman Read) 
Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, MO (Common Read) 
Adams State College, Alamosa, CO (Common Read) 
North Seattle Community College (Winter Read) 
Rosemont College, Rosemont, PA (First Year Connections Seminar Read) 
University of Richmond, Richmond, VA (Summer Read for Juniors) 
Loyola University Chicago (Freshman Read) 
Newman University, Wichita, KS (Community Read) 
Nassau Community College, Garden City, NY (Common Read) 
Cabrini College Radnor Township,PA (Summer Read) 
University of Wisconsin, La Crosse (Common Read) 
Hesston College, Hesston, KS (Common Read) 
Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, North Adams, MA (Summer Read) 
College of Wooster, Wooster, OH (Common Read) 
Metropolitan Community College, Omaha, NE (Diversity Matters Book Series) 
Manhattan College, New York, NY (Common Read) 
Cedar Valley College, Lancaster, TX (Common Read) 
College of Saint Mary, Omaha, NE (Common Read) 
Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, FL (Campus Read) 
University of La Verne, La Verne, CA (One Book, One University) 
Holy Names University, Oakland, CA (Campus-wide Common Read) 
California State University, Bakersfield (Common Read) 
Utah Valley University, Orem, UT (Freshman Read) 
Ramapo College of New Jersey, Mahwah, NJ (Common Read) 
Birmingham Southern College, Birmingham, AL (Common Read) 
Catawba Valley Community College, Hickory, NC (Common Read)
Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX (Common Read)
East Carolina University, Greenville, NC (Common Read)
Wingate University, Wingate, NC (Freshman Read)
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (Common Read)
Missouri State University, Springfield, MO (Freshman Read)
Rider University, Lawrenceville, NJ (Common Read)
Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA (Freshman Read)
Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI (One Book, One Community)
University of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA (Common Read)
Pierce College, Woodland Hills, CA (One Book, One Campus) 

Selected for Common Reading at the following K-12 schools:
Brother Martin High School, New Orleans, LA 
Northern Valley Regional High School, Demarest, NJ 
Northern Valley Regional High School, Old Tappan, NJ 
Academy of the Holy Angels, Demarest, NJ 
Bay Shore High School, Bay Shore, NY 
Challenge Early College High School, Houston, TX 
Santa Monica High School, Santa Monica, CA
La Jolla Country Day School, La Jolla, CA 
Middletown N.J. High School 
Wheeling High School, Wheeling, IL 
Burlingame High School, Burlingame, CA 
Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical School, Bourne, MA 
St. Ignatius High School, Cleveland, OH 
Putnam County High School, Eatonton, GA 
Hudson High School, Hudson, OH 
Santa Ana High School, Santa Ana, CA 
Animo Venice Charter High School, Venice, CA 
Banning High School, Wilmington, CA 
Hayfield Secondary School, Alexandria, VA 
Los Alamitos High School, Los Alamitos, CA 
Bishop Mora Salesian College Preparatory High School, Los Angeles, CA 
Lakeview High School, Chicago, IL 
John Muir High School, Pasadena, CA 
Cheverus High School, Portland, ME 
North East Independent School District, San Antonio, TX 
La Salle High School of Yakima, Yakima, WA 
Huntington High School, Huntington, NY 
Marian High School, Omaha, NE 
Mercy High School, Omaha, NE 
Elk Grove High School, Elk Grove, IL 
Notre Dame High School, San Jose, CA 
Desert Mirage High School, Thermal, CA 
Los Angeles Leadership Academy, Los Angeles, CA 
Keansburg Public Schools, Keansburg, NJ 
White Plains High School, White Plains, NY 
North East Independent High School, San Antonio, TX 
O'Fallon Township High School, O'Fallon, IL 
Academy of Education and Empowerment at Carson High School, Carson, CA 
Manheim Central High School, Manheim, PA 
Woodrow Wilson High School, Washington DC 
Conner High School, Hebron, KY 
North High School, Sioux City, IA 
Colorado Academy, Denver, CO 
Incline Village Schools, Incline Village, NV 
St. Mary's School, Raleigh, NC 
Jack C. Hayes High School, Buda, TX 
Dobyns-Bennett High School, Kingsport, TN 
Esteban E. Torres High School, Los Angeles, CA 
Northern Valley High School District, NJ 
Jackson School District, Jackson, NJ 
Round Rock High School, Round Rock, TX 
Andover eCademy, Andover, KS 
Christian Brothers High School, Sacramento, CA 
Haverford High School, Havertown, PA 
Gates County High School, Gatesville, NC 
Niles North High School District 219, Skokie, IL 
University School of Milwaukee, Milwaukee, IL 
Environmental Science and Technology High School, Los Angeles, CA 
Harpeth Hall School, Nashville, TN 
Johns Creek High School, Johns Creek, GA 
Lake View High School, Chicago, IL 
Watchung Hills Regional High School, Warren, NJ 
Atlantic Technical Center High School, Margate, FL 
Kellam High School, Virginia Beach, VA 
Chatham High School, Chatham, NJ 
St. Raymond High School for Boys, Bronx, NY 
Immaculate Conception Academy, San Francisco, CA 
Fletcher High School Cambridge AICE Program, Jacksonville, FL 
Social Justice Humanitas Academy, San Fernando, CA 
Marquette University High School, Milwaukee, WI 
Mamaroneck High School, Mamaroneck, NJ 
Johnson High School, San Antonio, TX 
Nazareth Academy, LaGrange Park, IL 
Pebblebrook High School, Mableton, GA 
Olympian High School, Chula Vista, CA
Saint John's Preparatory School, Collegeville, MN 
Miller Middle School, Durango, CO 
Durango Middle School, Durango, CO 
Escalante Middle School, Durango, CO 
James Denman Middle School, San Francisco, CA 
James Lick Middle School, San Francisco, CA 
The Benjamin School, North Palm Beach, FL 

Excerpt

Chapter 1


The boy does not understand.

His mother is not talking to him. She will not even look at him. Enrique has no hint of what she is going to do.

Lourdes knows. She understands, as only a mother can, the terror she is about to inflict, the ache Enrique will feel, and finally the emptiness.

What will become of him? Already he will not let anyone else feed or bathe him. He loves her deeply, as only a son can. With Lourdes, he is openly affectionate. “Dame pico, mami. Give me a kiss, Mom,” he pleads, over and over, pursing his lips. With Lourdes, he is a chatterbox. “Mira, mami. Look, Mom,” he says softly, asking her questions about everything he sees. Without her, he is so shy it is crushing.

Slowly, she walks out onto the porch. Enrique clings to her pant leg. Beside her, he is tiny. Lourdes loves him so much she cannot bring herself to say a word. She cannot carry his picture. It would melt her resolve. She cannot hug him. He is five years old.

They live on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa, in Honduras. She can barely afford food for him and his sister, Belky, who is seven. She’s never been able to buy them a toy or a birthday cake. Lourdes, twenty-four, scrubs other people’s laundry in a muddy river. She goes door to door, selling tortillas, used clothes, and plantains.

She fills a wooden box with gum and crackers and cigarettes, and she finds a spot where she can squat on a dusty sidewalk next to the downtown Pizza Hut and sell the items to passersby. The sidewalk is Enrique’s playground.

They have a bleak future. He and Belky are not likely to finish grade school. Lourdes cannot afford uniforms or pencils. Her husband is gone. A good job is out of the question.

Lourdes knows of only one place that offers hope. As a seven-year-old child, delivering tortillas her mother made to
wealthy homes, she glimpsed this place on other people’s television screens. The flickering images were a far cry from Lourdes’ s childhood home: a two-room shack made of wooden slats, its flimsy tin roof weighted down with rocks, the only bathroom a clump of bushes outside. On television, she saw New York City’s spectacular skyline, Las Vegas’s shimmering lights, Disneyland’s magic castle.

Lourdes has decided: She will leave. She will go to the United States and make money and send it home. She will be gone for one year—less, with luck—or she will bring her children to be with her. It is for them she is leaving, she tells herself, but still she feels guilty.

She kneels and kisses Belky and hugs her tightly. Then she turns to her own sister. If she watches over Belky, she will get a set of gold fingernails from el Norte. 

But Lourdes cannot face Enrique. He will remember only one thing that she says to him: “Don’t forget to go to church this afternoon.”

It is January 29, 1989. His mother steps off the porch.

She walks away.

“¿Dónde está mi mami?” Enrique cries, over and over. “Where is my mom?”

His mother never returns, and that decides Enrique’s fate.

As a teenager—indeed, still a child—he will set out for the United States on his own to search for her. Virtually unnoticed, he will become one of an estimated 48,000 children who enter the United States from Central America and Mexico each year, illegally and without either of their parents. Roughly two thirds of them will make it past the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Many go north seeking work. Others flee abusive families.

Most of the Central Americans go to reunite with a parent, say counselors at a detention center in Texas where the INS houses the largest number of the unaccompanied children it catches. Of those, the counselors say, 75 percent are looking for their mothers. Some children say they need to find out whether their mothers still love them. A priest at a Texas shelter says they often bring pictures of themselves in their mothers’ arms.

The journey is hard for the Mexicans but harder still for Enrique and the others from Central America. They must make an illegal and dangerous trek up the length of Mexico. Counselors and immigration lawyers say only half of them get help from smugglers. The rest travel alone. They are cold, hungry, and helpless. They are hunted like animals by corrupt police, bandits, and gang members deported from the United States. A University of Houston study found that most are robbed, beaten, or raped, usually several times. Some are killed.

They set out with little or no money. Thousands, shelter workers say, make their way through Mexico clinging to the sides and tops of freight trains. Since the 1990s, Mexico and the United States have tried to thwart them. To evade Mexican police and immigration authorities, the children jump onto and off of the moving train cars. Sometimes they fall, and the wheels tear them apart.

They navigate by word of mouth or by the arc of the sun. Often, they don’t know where or when they’ll get their next meal. Some go days without eating. If a train stops even briefly, they crouch by the tracks, cup their hands, and steal sips of water from shiny puddles tainted with diesel fuel. At night, they huddle together on the train cars or next to the tracks. They sleep in trees, in tall grass, or in beds made of leaves.

Some are very young. Mexican rail workers have encountered seven-year-olds on their way to find their mothers. A policeman discovered a nine-year-old boy near the downtown Los Angeles tracks. “I’m looking for my mother,” he said. The youngster had left Puerto Cortes in Honduras three months before. He had been guided only by his cunning and the single thing he knew about her: where she lived. He had asked everyone, “How do I get to San Francisco?”

Typically, the children are teenagers. Some were babies when their mothers left; they know them only by pictures sent home. Others, a bit older, struggle to hold on to memories: One has slept in her mother’ s bed; another has smelled her perfume, put on her deodorant, her clothes. One is old enough to remember his mother’s face, another her laugh, her favorite shade of lipstick, how her dress felt as she stood at the stove pattingtortillas.

Many, including Enrique, begin to idealize their mothers. They remember how their mothers fed and bathed them, how they walked them to kindergarten. In their absence, these mothers become larger than life. Although in the United States the women struggle to pay rent and eat, in the imaginations of their children back home they become deliverance itself, the answer to every problem. Finding them becomes the quest for the Holy Grail.

CONFUSION

Enrique is bewildered. Who will take care of him now that his mother is gone? Lourdes, unable to burden her family with both of her children, has split them up. Belky stayed with Lourdes’s mother and sisters. For two years, Enrique is entrusted to his father, Luis, from whom his mother has been separated for three years.

Enrique clings to his daddy, who dotes on him. A bricklayer, his father takes Enrique to work and lets him help mix mortar. They live with Enrique’ s grandmother. His father shares a bed with him and brings him apples and clothes. Every month, Enrique misses his mother less, but he does not forget her. “When is she coming for me?” he asks.

Lourdes and her smuggler cross Mexico on buses. Each afternoon, she closes her eyes. She imagines herself home at dusk, playing with Enrique under a eucalyptus tree in her mother’s front yard. Enrique straddles a broom, pretending it’s a donkey, trotting around the muddy yard. Each afternoon, she presses her eyes shut and tears fall. Each afternoon, she reminds herself that if she is weak, if she does not keep moving forward, her children will pay.

Lourdes crosses into the United States in one of the largest immigrant waves in the country’s history. She enters at night through a rat-infested Tijuana sewage tunnel and makes her way to Los Angeles. There, in the downtown Greyhound bus terminal, the smuggler tells Lourdes to wait while he runs a quick errand. He’ll be right back. The smuggler has been paid to take her all the way to Miami.

Three days pass. Lourdes musses her filthy hair, trying to blend in with the homeless and not get singled out by police. She prays to God to put someone before her, to show her the way. Whom can she reach out to for help? Starved, she starts walking. East of downtown, Lourdes spots a small factory. On the loading dock, under a gray tin roof, women sort red and green tomatoes. She begs for work. As she puts tomatoes into boxes, she hallucinates that she is slicing open a juicy one and sprinkling it with salt. The boss pays her $14 for two hours’ work. Lourdes’s brother has a friend in Los Angeles who helps Lourdes get a fake Social Security card and a job.

She moves in with a Beverly Hills couple to take care of their three-year-old daughter. Their spacious home has carpet on the floors and mahogany panels on the walls. Her employers are kind. They pay her $125 a week. She gets nights and weekends off. Maybe, Lourdes tells herself—if she stays long enough—they will help her become legal.
Copyright © 2006 by Sonia Nazario. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Praise

“A remarkable feat of immersion reporting . . . [Gives] the immigrant . . . flesh and bone, history and voice . . . The kind of story we have told ourselves throughout history, a story we still need to hear.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Compelling . . . Nazario doesn’t pull any punches.”—Dallas Morning News

“A meticulously documented account of an epic journey, one undertaken by thousands of children every year . . . [Nazario] covers both positive and negative effects of immigration, illuminating the problem’s complexity. . . . In telling Enrique’s story [she] bears witness for us all.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Compelling . . . drama, pathos, and [the] hot topic of illegal immigration.”—The San Diego Union-Tribune

“Astounding . . . I am unaware of any journalist who has voluntarily placed herself in greater peril to nail down a story than did Nazario.”—Steve Weinberg, former executive director of investigative reporters and editors, The Baltimore Sun
 
“A story of heartache, brutality, and love deferred that is near mythic in its power.”—Los Angeles Magazine

“[Enrique’s Journey] personifies one of the greatest migrations in history. . . . Much of the book is a thriller . . . a 12,000-mile journey worthy of an Indiana Jones movie.”—The Orange County Register

“Riveting . . . expert reporting . . . Nazario puts a human face upon a major issue. . . . The breadth and depth of [her] research is astounding.”—The Plain Dealer

“A heart-racing and heart-rending trip.”—The Daily Nonpareil

“A story readers won’t soon forget.”—Tu Ciudad

“Gripping . . . astounding . . . viscerally conveys the experience of illegal immigration from Central America . . . [Nazario] has crafted her findings into a story that is at once moving and polemical.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“This portrait of poverty and family ties has the potential to reshape American conversations about immigration.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Insightful and beautifully written and sheds a great deal of light on the horrific journeys immigrants risk to find a better life. Highly recommended.”—Library Journal

“This is a harrowing odyssey that depicts one young man's attempts to reunite with his mother and the social and economic issues involved in illegal immigration.”—Booklist

“Gripping, heroic and important, Enrique's Journey captures the heart. Most Americans or their forebears came to the United States from other countries. They experienced difficult journeys and wrenching family separations-all in the hope of finding a better life in this new land. Enrique's story is our story, beautifully told.”—Edward James Olmos

Author

Sonia Nazario has spent 20 years reporting and writing about social issues, most recently as a projects reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Her stories have tackled some of this country’s most intractable problems: hunger, drug addiction, immigration.

She has won numerous national journalism and book awards. In 2003, her story of a Honduran boy’s struggle to find his mother in the U.S., entitled “Enrique’s Journey,” won more than a dozen awards, among them the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing, the George Polk Award for International Reporting, the Grand Prize of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and the National Assn. of Hispanic Journalists Guillermo Martinez-Marquez Award for Overall Excellence.

Expanded into a book, Enrique’s Journey became a national bestseller and won two book awards. It is now required reading for incoming freshmen at dozens of colleges and high schools across the U.S.

In 1998, Nazario was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for a series on children of drug addicted parents. And in 1994, she won a George Polk Award for Local Reporting for a series about hunger among schoolchildren in California.

Nazario has been named among the most influential Latinos by Hispanic Business Magazine and a “trendsetter” by Hispanic Magazine.

Nazario, who grew up in Kansas and in Argentina, has written extensively from Latin America and about Latinos in the United States. She is now at work on her second book. She began her career at the Wall Street Journal, where she reported from four bureaus: New York, Atlanta, Miami, and Los Angeles. In 1993, she joined the Los Angeles Times. She serves on the advisory boards of the University of North Texas Mayborn Literary Non-fiction Writer's Conference and of Catch the Next, a non-profit working to double the number of Latinos enrolling in college. She is also on the board of Kids In Need of Defense, a non-profit launched by Microsoft and Angelina Jolie to provide pro-bono attorneys to unaccompanied immigrant children.

She is a graduate of Williams College and has a master’s degree in Latin American studies from the University of California, Berkeley. In 2010, Nazario received an honorary doctorate from Mount St. Mary's College. View titles by Sonia Nazario

Guides

Educator Guide for Enrique's Journey

Classroom-based guides appropriate for schools and colleges provide pre-reading and classroom activities, discussion questions connected to the curriculum, further reading, and resources.

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Classroom Activities for Enrique's Journey

Classroom activities supplement discussion and traditional lessons with group projects and creative tasks. Can be used in pre-existing units and lessons, or as stand-alone.

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Additional formats

Other Books by this Author

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