enrique's journey theme

• Member Login
• Library Patron Login
• Get a Free Issue of our Ezine! Claim

Summary and Reviews of Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario

Summary | Excerpt | Reading Guide | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio

Enrique's Journey

• BookBrowse Review:
• Critics' Consensus:
• Readers' Rating:
• First Published:
• Feb 21, 2006, 320 pages
• Jan 2007, 336 pages

• Biography & Memoir
• History, Current Affairs and Religion
• Central & S. America, Mexico, Caribbean
• Contemporary
• Adult-YA Crossover Fiction
• Immigrants & Expats
• Latinx Authors
• Publication Information
• Write a Review
• Buy This Book

About This Book

• Book Club Questions

Book Summary

A true story from award-winning journalist Sonia Nazario recounting the odyssey of a Honduran boy who braves hardship and peril to reach his mother in the United States.

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 life to find the mother he loves.

The Boy Left Behind

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...

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

• "Beyond the Book" articles
• Free books to read and review (US only)
• Find books by time period, setting & theme
• Read-alike suggestions by book and author
• Book club discussions
• and much more!
• Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
• More about membership!

Media Reviews

Reader reviews, bookbrowse review.

Few would disagree that illegal immigration is a problem for the USA and for other Western countries, but it's all too easy to think of it as a statistical problem, not the human problem that it is. At the end of the day Enrique's Journey is not about illegal immigration or people stealing jobs from USA workers, it's about families, and the desperately hard choices that too many have to make... continued

Full Review (306 words) This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access, become a member today .

(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team ).

Write your own review!

Beyond the Book

Quick Facts (from Enrique's Journey )

• About 700,000 immigrants enter the United States illegally each year. In recent years the demographics have changed with many more single mothers arriving.
• Nearly three-quarters of the 48,000 children who migrate alone to "el Norte" through Central America and Mexico each year are in search of a single mother who has left them behind. According to the Department of Homeland Security, the median age of child migrants is 15; the majority are male; some are as young as 7 years.
• In Los Angeles, 82% of live-in nannies and one in four housecleaners are mothers who have at least one child in their home country.
• According to the Center for Immigration Studies, illegal workers donate $6.4 billion ...

This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.

Read-Alikes

• Genres & Themes

If you liked Enrique's Journey, try these:

We Are Not from Here

by Jenny Torres Sanchez

Published 2021

About this book

More by this author

Winner of the 2020 BookBrowse Award for Best Young Adult Novel A poignant novel of desperation, escape, and survival across the U.S.-Mexico border, inspired by current events.

A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves

by Jason DeParle

Published 2020

The definitive chronicle of our new age of global migration, told through the multi-generational saga of a Filipino family, by a veteran New York Times reporter and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist.

Books with similar themes

BookBrowse Book Club

Members Recommend

We'll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida

Discover the bestselling Japanese novel celebrating the healing power of cats.

Solve this clue:

K U with T J

and be entered to win..

Book Club Giveaway!

Before the Mango Ripens by Afabwaje Kurian

Both epic and intimate, this debut announces a brilliant new talent for readers of Imbolo Mbue and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

• study guides
• lesson plans
• homework help

Enrique's Journey Summary & Study Guide

Enrique's Journey Summary & Study Guide Description

Enrique's Journey is a tale of risk, courage, love and danger. Enrique's mother, Lourdes, leaves him and his sister, Belky, behind in Honduras in order to go to the United States. Lourdes leaves her children because she needs to make money to feed them and allow them to finish school.

Over the next several years, Enrique bounces from relative to relative. He begins sniffing glue and finds a girlfriend, Maria Isabel, who eventually gives birth to a daughter, Jasmin. All the while, Enrique dreams of following his mother to the United States. He loves her and misses her and he feels abandoned. Finally, at 17 years old, Enrique leaves Honduras to travel across Mexico on top of trains. Aside from the risks of jumping onto and off of moving trains, Enrique comes up against gangsters, bandits and corrupt law enforcement officials. Along the way, gang members beat him and he goes through periods of not being able to find enough food. He's deported several times across the Mexican border, but every time, he tries again.

Finally, Enrique makes it to Nuevo Laredo, which sits on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande. He can see Texas across the river -- as well as American immigration agents who will send him right back to Mexico if they catch him crossing illegally into the United States.

Enrique lives in Nuevo Laredo for weeks and works washing cars to earn enough money to contact his family in Honduras. He's lost his mother's phone number and has no way to find her without it. When he finally reaches his mother, she arranges to pay a smuggler to get Enrique to Orlando, Florida, where her boyfriend picks him up and drives him back to his and Lourdes' home in North Carolina.

During her years in the United States, Lourdes has given birth to a third child with a man who has since disappeared. She's moved from Los Angeles to North Carolina and she lives with her boyfriend, daughter Diana and six others in a trailer. Enrique and his mother are happy to see each other, but in time their relationship deteriorates. He still resents her for leaving and she's angry because she doesn't feel he's paying her enough respect. They fight often and eventually Enrique moves out on his own.

The family eventually moves to Florida. Enrique goes back to North Carolina for a while before moving back to Florida. He pays for a smuggler to bring Maria Isabel to the United States, and a few months later, they bring Jasmin to live with them.

Enrique can't shake his drug and drinking habits, which lead to his arrest and near deportation. His daughter testifies in a trial about a crime she witnessed and receives a U Visa, which allows her and her family to stay legally in the United States.

Author Sonia Nazario chose Enrique as her subject because he represents the typical teen making the trek from Central America to the United States in search of their mothers. Nazario's goal in writing the book was to discourage mothers from leaving their children and also to discourage children from following their mothers, due to the danger. The book explores the issues behind the mothers' need to leave in the first place and possible solutions. There aren't enough jobs in their home countries that allow them to provide the most basic necessities for their children -- food, clothing, shelter and school. Going to the United States to work and send money back home is the only solution they can think of.

Poverty is the main theme in this book. It is what drives the actions of almost all the players. Mothers, and in some cases fathers, leave their children because they need to find a way to feed them. There is a stark, sharp difference between the haves and have nots in Honduras and very few opportunities for those who have little to improve their financial situations. Women have to choose between staying with men who abuse them or cheat on them and leaving and not being able to care for their children. The situation often requires children to leave school in order to work with their mothers just so they can eat.

So the mothers leave and the children left behind live a slightly better life than their peers. But the children feel abandoned and they resent their mothers. Several times in the book, someone says that there is no replacement for a mother's love. However, the people who say this are people who didn't have to spend a significant or memorable part of their lives without enough food. Some even finished school and started their own businesses thanks to their mothers' money.

Poverty is also a large factor in young men joining gangs and attacking and robbing the migrants trying to get through Mexico. Local officials resort to the same behavior in order to give their own families a better life. It seems that all negative behavior is a consequence of someone not having enough.

Drugs play a vital role in Enrique's life from early on. The glue sniffing is his way of coping and he doesn't have the emotional tools to try anything else. His mother has left him and then his father chooses a woman over his own son. Enrique has a lot of pain and abandonment in his life, so he looks for an escape.

But even once Enrique is with his mother again, when he has a girlfriend and child he loves, he can't stop the drinking and drugs. He still holds onto his hurt and rebellious nature, and by now he has developed a physical addiction. While he languished on the banks of the Rio Grande, the glue sniffing helped him feel less hungry when he couldn't get food. That and alcohol helped him forget how helpless he often felt while trying to raise enough money to reach his mother and hopefully get a smuggler so he could get to the United States. When Enrique felt alone, the drugs were always there for him.

In the book's prologue, author Sonia Nazario compares her family's legal immigration from Argentina to the United States with the illegal immigration of the people who are the book's subject. Her experience was much different from her subjects'. Nazario's family arrived on an airplane and there was no danger in the move. In contrast, Enrique and his family risked their lives to get to the United States and lived in fear of deportation from the time they arrived.

Nazario explores many facets of illegal immigration. There are pros and cons both for the immigrants and the country they've moved to. United States citizens are divided about what they want to see happen with this issue. Some are for full amnesty, seeing the immigrants as an asset to the country. Others believe they are a drain and lawbreakers and are in favor of the immigrants being deported. Even the immigrants themselves can't agree on which is the right answer. At one point, Enrique says if he were a citizen, he wouldn't want illegal immigrants in the country, but then he changes his mind and says they provide a service the country's citizens can't or won't.

There are statistics to support both sides -- from the immigrants being particularly hard workers that are assets to businesses to the cost of educating them or providing them with public assistance because they make so little money. Regardless of whether the immigrants are good or bad for the United States, they continue coming. They need to do so in order to provide for their families back home. Lourdes says she likes the United States and will never return to Honduras. It's cleaner and safer in the United States.

Read more from the Study Guide

FOLLOW BOOKRAGS:

• Description
• Don Francisco Presenta
• Update on the Family
• María Isabel
• Young Adult Version
• Spanish Version
• Spanish Language Reviews
• Praise for Enrique’s Journey
• Reviews of Enrique’s Journey
• Articles about Author
• Articles by Author
• TV Interviews
• Radio Interviews
• Speech Videos
• Upcoming Events
• Past Events
• Speech Topics
• High School
• Middle School
• Enrique’s Journey Common Reads
• Counseling Guides
• How to Help Immigrant Students
• Work By & For Students
• Recommended Movies & Documentaries
• Journalism Instruction
• Interview with Facing History and Ourselves
• Questions for Discussion
• Media Coverage: Children and the Journey North
• Art Inspired by the Book
• Theatrical Play
• Photos of People Who Help
• Photos of Injured Migrants
• Get Involved
• Refugees at our Door
• Kids in Need of Defense [KIND]
• Hope for Honduras
• Esperanza para Honduras

Enrique’s Journey recounts the unforgettable quest of a Honduran boy looking for his mother, eleven years after she is forced to leave her starving family to find work in the United States. Braving unimaginable peril, often clinging to the sides and tops of freight trains, Enrique travels through hostile worlds full of thugs, bandits, and corrupt cops. But he pushes forward, relying on his wit, courage, hope, and the kindness of strangers. As Isabel Allende writes: “This is a twenty-first-century Odyssey. If you are going to read only one nonfiction book this year, it has to be this one.” Now updated with a new Epilogue and Afterword, photos of Enrique and his family, an author interview and more, this is a classic of contemporary America.

National Bestseller

Named one of the best books of the year by the  washington post ,  san francisco chronicle ,  miami herald , and  san antonio express-news., named the best non-fiction book of 2014 by  the latino author ., among the most chosen books as a  freshman or common read:  nearly 100 universities, more than 20 cities and scores of high schools nationwide have adopted  enrique’s journey  as a their freshman or common read. middle schools are now using a version adapted for young readers as their common read., published in august 2013: a new version of  enrique’s journey   adapted for young readers  for the 7 th  grade on up and for reluctant readers in high school and geared to new common core standards in schools. the young adult version was published in spanish in july 2015. new york city has made the ya edition part of its classroom curriculum., published in february 2014: a  revised and updated   enrique’s journey , with a new epilogue and photos., published in eight languages., recent updates.

“What Part of Illegal Don’t You Understand?” My Family’s Refugee Story Shows We Can Have an Immigration Policy that is Both Sane and Humane

My Family’s Refugee…

IT’S MONDAY: TIME…

Recent Appearances

Sonia’s tedx: solving illegal immigration [for real ], a journey towards hope – sonia speaks at kids in need of defense (kind) virtual event, buy enrique’s journey.

Enrique's Journey

39 pages • 1 hour read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 2

Chapters 3-5

Chapter 6-Epilogue

Key Figures

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

“I was struck by the choice mothers face when they leave their children. How do they make such an impossible decision? Among Latinos, where family is all-important, where for women motherhood is valued far above all else, why are droves of mothers leaving their children? What would I do if I were in their shoes?”

Nazario writes her Los Angeles Times series, the basis for Enrique’s Journey , after a conversation with her housekeeper Carmen. Nazario learns that Carmen left four children behind in Guatemala when she immigrated to the United States 12 years earlier. Nazario comes to understand that Carmen’s story is not unique. For many mothers in Central America and Mexico, supporting their children financially means abandoning them. Latinos view motherhood as integral to womanhood, making the decision particularly difficult.

“The letter helped me obtain permission to ride atop the trains of four companies that operate freight trains up the length of Mexico. That way, the conductor would know when I was on board. I would tell them to be on the lookout for my signal. I’d wear a red rain jacket strapped around my waist and wave it if I was in dire danger. I tried to have a source in each region I’d be in, including his or her cell phone number, so I could call for help if I was in trouble.”

Nazario’s approach to researching immigration is multipronged. She interviews migrants, aid groups, and others involved in illegal immigration, and undertakes the journey herself. Her direct experiences riding the trains lend authenticity and immediacy to Enrique’s Journey . This quote describes a letter Nazario obtains from the personal assistant to Mexico’s president asking that the authorities and police cooperate with her reporting. The letter helps keep Nazario safe by alerting conductors of her presence on the trains. It also keeps her out of jail three times.

“The boy does not understand.”

Featured Collections

Books on U.S. History

View Collection

Contemporary Books on Social Justice

Immigrants & Refugees

Inspiring Biographies

Politics & Government

Required Reading Lists

Enrique's Journey

By sonia nazario, enrique's journey summary and analysis of the boy left behind.

Lourdes has decided to leave Tegucigalpa, Honduras for the United States. She is frightened for her son, five-year old Enrique , but she does not hug him or say a word as he clutches her pant leg. She cannot take his picture with her because it will break her resolve, and Lourdes knows she must leave if she is to earn a decent wage with which to create a better life for herself and her children.

In Tegucigalpa, Lourdes can barely afford food and clothing for her two children, Enrique and his seven-year old sister, Belky . Lourdes is a single mother at twenty-four years old. She washes other people’s clothes in the river for money, and sells tortillas, used clothing, and plantains. Next to the Pizza Hut in downtown Tegucigalpa, she squats at the side of the road to sells gum, crackers, and cigarettes. Her future is bleak, and she knows she cannot afford to send her children to school past the third grade.

When she was seven years old, Lourdes saw images of New York City, Las Vegas, and Disneyland on the televisions at other people’s houses. The dream of living in America, so far from a two room shack made of wooden slates with no bathroom, is thrilling for her.

Like many other women of similar circumstances, she decides to embark on the dangerous journey north, to find work in the United States so that she might send the money to her children. She plans to leave for one year, and then to return home. She has asked her sister, Rosa Amalia , to care for Belky while she is gone, and expects Enrique's father to take care of him. Lourdes does not say goodbye to Enrique - it is too hard for her. Instead, she tells him something he will always remember: “Don’t forget to go to church this afternoon” (5). It is January 29, 1989, and Lourdes never returns.

The separation between mother and son dictates Enrique’s future. He will eventually set out after her, and become one of 48,000 children from Mexico or Central America who enter the U.S. illegally. Nazario details this phenomenon. Most children who travel north are looking for their mothers, while others seek work or are escaping abusive homes. Half of them travel with smugglers, and the rest go alone. Hunted like animals by gangs, bandits, and corrupt police, the children are often robbed, beaten, and raped several times. Some are killed. Setting out with little money and often only a tentative idea of where their mothers live, the children cling to the tops of freight trains. To avoid the Mexican and U.S. authorities, they jump from moving trains, and sometimes fall into the wheels.

Though fifteen is the average age for migrants, children as young as seven travel alone, using only their wits and determination to guide them. Their mothers often leave when they are young, and these migrants begin to idealize them, believing their mothers to be larger than life. “Finding them becomes the quest for the Holy Grail” (7).

Lourdes travels with a smuggler, and crosses into the United States during of the largest immigrant waves in U.S. history. She enters the country at night through a sewage tunnel, and makes her way into Los Angeles. Her plan is to go to Miami, but her smuggler abandons her at a Greyhound bus station. She waits three days for him to return, but hunger and desperation drive her to find a job at a factory. There, she sorts tomatoes for $14.00 a day. Eventually, she locates a friend of her brother in Los Angeles who helps her obtain a counterfeit Social Security card and a job. Working as a live-in nanny, she moves into a Beverly Hills home to care for a three year old who reminds of her Enrique. Her employers pay her $125 a week, and Lourdes is able to send money, clothes, and toys to her children in Honduras.

Back in Honduras, Enrique asks after his mother everyday, but she does not return. His father remarries and moves out to start a new family. Enrique is left in the care of his paternal grandmother, María Marcos, and eventually grows to hate his father. Belky is living with Rosa Amalia in a nicer part of town, and is able to attend school thanks to the money Lourdes sends. Although she loves the clothing and stuffed animals her mother has given to her, she is deeply distraught by her mother’s absence and finds comfort in befriending other young girls whose mothers have left.

The home Enrique shares with María Marcos is considerably less refined than that of Rosa Amalia. It is a four room hut built from wooden slates, with minimal electricity. There is no running water; the bathroom is a hole in the ground next to two large buckets used for bathing. Lourdes sends $50-$100 a month, but it is not enough for school supplies. Both Enrique and his grandmother work - she sells used clothing, and he sells tamales, spices, and plastic bags filled with juice.

Enrique makes a Mother’s Day card for his grandmother, and rarely speak to Lourdes anymore. They do not have a phone, and he can only speak to her when she calls their cousin’s home, but he is often not close enough to fetch when she calls. One year, Lourdes does not call at all.

Lourdes is struggling with her life in the U.S., and finds that the television images she once saw do not reflect reality. She now shares an apartment with three other women, and sleeps on the floor. An old boyfriend from Honduras, Santos , moves in with her and she unintentionally gets pregnant. Now working in a fish factory, Lourdes struggles through the pregnancy and a difficult relationship with her boyfriend. Santos does not take her to the hospital when she goes into labor; instead, he spends the night at a bar. She gives birth their daughter, Diana , and is only allowed to stay at the hospital for two days.

Two months after Diana’s birth, Lourdes is fired from her job at the factory. She gets a new job at a pizzeria and bar. One night, Santos punches her in the chest because he is jealous of her friendship with one of her male coworkers. A year later, Santos returns to Honduras with their savings of several thousand dollars to make investments. He squanders the money on a drinking binge and on a fifteen year old girl.

Santos does not return and, within two months, Lourdes is forced to give up her apartment and car. She rents a garage for $300 a month, where she and Diana share a mattress on the floor. The garage roof leaks, and slugs crawl onto their mattress. Diana grows ill, but Lourdes cannot afford medicine.

Lourdes becomes a fichera , a type of prostitute who gets bar patrons to spend money on drinks. Nine months later, she finds work cleaning offices and houses by day, and work at a gas station by night. She works ten hour shifts, and then picks up Diana from school and drops her off at a babysitter’s house. Lourdes sleeps one or two hours, then returns to work until two o’clock in the morning. She takes side jobs, working at a candy factory for $2.25 an hour. Lourdes is able to send money to Enrique and Belky again.

Furious about the new baby, Belky withdraws emotionally from her mother. When he can talk to her on the phone, Enrique continues to ask when she will return home. Around this time, Enrique has the idea to travel north in search of her. Meanwhile, Lourdes wants to become an American citizen and legally bring her children to the country. Unfortunately, she spends $3,850 on fraudulent storefront immigration counselors who steal her money.

One year, Lourdes promises to come home by Christmas. Enrique waits by the front door for her, but she never arrives. He asks his grandmother how Lourdes got to the United States and she replies “maybe…she went on the trains” (19).

Lourdes is afraid that returning to Honduras will prohibit her from ever returning to the U.S. She fears the smugglers (called coyotes) who are often alcoholics or drug addicts. Lourdes knows all too well of the dangers. One of her friends had paid a smuggler to bring her sister to Long Beach, California. In Mexico, the sister and others were put in a overloaded boat which capsized and killed most of them. They were buried in a shallow grave on the beach.

Children face particular danger if entrusted to smugglers. They are often abandoned and left to the care of the foster homes in Mexico or the United States. Pictures of these children are broadcast over the television in the hopes that someone will recognize them and bring them home again. Smugglers charge up to $3,000 per child, and sometimes as high as $6,000. To bring a child over by commercial air costs $10,000, and Lourdes does not have enough money to send for even one of her children.

In Honduras, Enrique begins to rebel. He hits other children and is suspended from school three times, though he does eventually complete elementary school. Now fourteen years old, he spends most of his time on the streets of Carrizal, playing soccer and refusing to sell spices. His grandmother beats him with a belt, but Enrique continues to misbehave. Upset but determined, Marìa Marcos asks Lourdes by letter to find Enrique a new home, since she is too old to take care of a rebellious youth. Lourdes arranges for Enrique to stay with her brother, Marco . Enrique likes the new arrangement and developments a strong relationship with his uncle.

A year passes, and Lourdes moves to North Carolina to work as a waitress in a Mexican restaurant. Away from the big city, she can save more money to hopefully bring her children to the U.S. She meets a house painter from Honduras, and they soon fall in love.

Enrique begins working for his uncle, washing cars and changing money on the Honduran border. Tragically, Marco and his brother Victor are killed during an exchange. To pay for their funerals, Lourdes sends all of the money she had saved to bring her children to America. Within days of Marco’s funeral, Enrique is forced out on the streets by his uncle’s girlfriend, who has no use for him.

Enrique next stays with his maternal grandmother, who shares her house with two of his aunts and four of his cousins. Enrique descends into a deep depression, and becomes introverted. He misses Marco terribly, and drops out of school. He begins to sniff glue, until his grandmother throws him out of the house. He is forced to live in a stone hut on their property; it has no electricity.

Soon after Marco’s funeral, Enrique meets and falls in love with María Isabel, who has also been shuffled from home to home during her youth. Enrique wants to have a child with María Isabel, so that they can start a family together and he will therefore never feel alone or abandoned again. Regrettably, Enrique develops a worse drug habit, sniffing glue from baby jars and smoking marijuana. His family tries to intervene, but he continues to spiral out of control. Enrique begins to hallucinate - he does not recognize his family, and once tries to throw himself off a hill. The family chooses not to tell Lourdes of his condition.

On his sixteenth birthday, Enrique makes his first attempt to ride atop the trains. He and his friend Jóse leave Honduras on a bus headed to Guatemala, which is near the Mexican border. They eventually cross into Mexico and board a freight train, but are robbed by police officers and then arrested. They are released, and then board another train. For the first time, Enrique jumps from car to car on the slow-moving train. He slips and falls, but luckily lands onto a padded surface. They are caught near Tierra Blanca in Veracruz, and again deported. He and Jóse sell coconuts for bus fare, and then return home.

Enrique sinks deeper into drugs, until he owes 6,000 lempiras (about $400) to his dealer. He does not have the money. The dealer threatens to kill his cousin if Enrique does not pay up. In desperation, Enrique steals jewelry from his Rosa Amalia, who then reports him to the police. When confronted, Enrique claims he was too high to know what he was doing, and warns the family that his cousin is in danger. Enrique's uncle then gets him a job at a tire store, where he earns $15 a week. Despite the pleas of both his family and Marìa Isabel , Enrique continues to use drugs. One day, he gets into a heated argument with his aunt, and hits her in the buttocks. His grandmother kicks him off of her property.

Marìa Isabel is urged to leave Enrique, but she loves him and thinks she is pregnant with his child. Enrique believes the only person who can help him is his mother, but he has no money for a smuggler, and he dreads leaving Marìa Isabel behind. Nevertheless, Enrique finally sells his belongings and says goodbye to his family and girlfriend. On March 2, 2000, with only $57, a change of clothes, and his mother's phone number written on a scrap of paper and inside of the waistband of his jeans, Enrique sets out for the United States.

Enrique’s Journey opens with a photo of a young Enrique looking sadly into the camera while wearing his kindergarten graduation gown and hat. His expression is somber, which sets the tone for the first few sections of the book, in which a young Enrique adjusts to life without his mother. It also implicitly establishes one of Nazario's main purposes: to consider how a child copes with harsh realities, of both poverty and perceived abandonment.

The chapter The Boy Left Behind includes many of the book's central themes - abandonment, family, and love. Lourdes has made the fateful decision to go to the United States to seek work so that she might send money, food, and clothing back to her two young children in Honduras. However, this decision has a myriad of consequences. What Nazario is most interested in here are the emotional consequences. Both Lourdes and the children must combat feelings of guilt and shame because of what poverty has led her to do. The book is powerful partly because it neither judges nor justifies Lourdes. Both potential decisions - to leave or to stay - can lead to terrible and heartbreaking consequences. Nazario is content to explore the issue, and to present both sides of the argument, and how each impacts family, love, and feelings of abandonment.

Enrique is established here as a protagonist, which is interesting considering that the book is primarily a work of journalism rather than fiction. However, it is an effective choice to set him up as a character with a clearly established goal. It creates a dramatic momentum summarized in the final question of the prologue, and which leads a reader to root for him as he undertakes this journey. While Nazario's book is based on reality and documented interviews, she nevertheless structures it with a dramatic shape - the character is put into a difficult situation in this opening chapter, and he decides to undertake a journey to improve his life.

The imagery in this chapter is striking. Lourdes's poverty is drawn with a myriad of specific details - for instance, at one point she sits next to a Pizza Hut, an American food chain, while Enrique rides a broomstick, pretending it’s a donkey. Marìa Marco’s home, a shack of wooden slats that she built herself, with no running water and little electricity, exemplifies not only the theme of poverty, but its visceral nature. Nazario's strength as a journalist serves her well as she establishes the reality of the challenges these families face.

Ironically, Lourdes's commitment to family produces a disintegration of the family. It is more than just her absence. Enrique's father leaves him to start another family, and both Enrique and Belky must confront their feelings of abandonment. Whereas Belky is able to compartmentalize and turn emotionally from her mother, Enrique seems to idealize her even as his emotional scars lead him to bad, harmful behavior. His disrepect towards the family that takes care of him only emphasizes how Lourdes's attempt to be a strong mother have in some ways hurt her son.

Nazario also explores the irony of the American promise. Symbols of the American dream - Disneyland’s magic castle, the lights of Los Vegas, the size of New York City - flutter in the background of Lourdes’s mind as she travels to the United States. The reality she faces is markedly different. Los Angeles is full of cruelty and poverty, all of which bite particularly hard since they are forced reminders of what she has left behind. And yet she is able to make money by embracing these aspects of American society. Again, Nazario makes no easy attacks, but is content to explore the irony of both sides.

The details on smugglers are particularly intriguing. Firstly, they are clearly expensive, a particular challenge considering their customers tend to be poverty stricken. Secondly, smugglers, especially those who traffic in children, are notoriously cruel, according to the United States Border Patrol. Smugglers, who often drink or use drugs on the journey, have been known to rape their charges, to leave them in the desert, at bus stations, or at the first sign of danger. Children who are abandoned by their smugglers now face the world alone; some die of exposure while others, luckily, are picked up by immigration officials and are taken to shelters. Although not an ideal situation, they are at leat safe.

Enrique's rebellion towards the end of the section provides the most in-depth manifestation of the abandonment theme. He is not only rebellious, but also mean. He makes a teacher cry, and hits other children. When he finally does turn inward, he is cruel to himself through his glue-sniffing. This behavior isolates him from others, and leaves him feeling that nobody loves him. His only possible reprieve is the mother he had idealized, the mother who the reader knows faces her own challenges. Though he leaves his girlfriend - who he believes might be pregnant with his child - it is clear that staying in Honduras will likely mean his end, whether by arrest or death. His journey has begun.

Enrique’s Journey Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Enrique’s Journey is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

WHAT IS ENRIQUE FORCCED TO DO UPON RINALY REACHING THE AMERICAN SIDE OF THE RIO GRANDE

In order to remain undetected, Enrique and the others must wait for an hour in a half in a freezing creek into which a sewage treatment plant dumps refuse.

Why is crossing the river so difficult?

For Enrique, crossing the river by himself is dangerous. He cannot swim and if he's caught, he will be deported.

They are put in detention centers and sent back. The detention centers ar cramped full of crooks and people that exploit them.

Study Guide for Enrique’s Journey

Enrique's Journey study guide contains a biography of Sonia Nazario, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Enrique's Journey
• Enrique's Journey Summary
• Character List

Essays for Enrique’s Journey

Enrique's Journey essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario.

• Criticism, Sympathy, and Encouragement: Depicting the American Dream in 'The Great Gatsby' and 'Enrique's Journey'

Lesson Plan for Enrique’s Journey

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Enrique's Journey
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Enrique's Journey Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for Enrique’s Journey

• Introduction

• Ask LitCharts AI
• Discussion Question Generator
• Essay Prompt Generator
• Quiz Question Generator

• Literature Guides
• Poetry Guides
• Shakespeare Translations
• Literary Terms

Enrique’s Journey

Sonia nazario.

Ask LitCharts AI: The answer to your questions

Looks like you're viewing this page on a mobile device. The Enrique’s Journey Theme Wheel is a beautiful super helpful visualization of where the themes occur throughout the text. They're only accessible on tablets, laptops, or desktop computers, so check them out on a compatible device.

The Theme Wheel visualizes all of Enrique’s Journey 's themes and plot points on one page.

How does the Theme Wheel work?

• Each wedge of the blue ring represents a chapter.
• Each row of colored boxes extending from a wedge represents a part of the chapter. The closer to the blue ring, the closer to the beginning of the chapter.
• The colors in each row indicate which themes are “active” in that part of the chapter.

The Theme Wheel is interactive.

• Themes : Hover over or tap any of the themes in the Themes and Colors Key to show only that theme. Click a theme in the Themes Key to lock it.
• Summary : Hover over or tap any row of colored boxes to read the summary associated with that row. Click the row to lock the summary.

• Quizzes, saving guides, requests, plus so much more.