Book Musing: Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario

 

Enrique’s Journey

by Sonia Nazario

This book grew out of an amazing piece of journalistic investigating by Sonia Nazario. I am in awe of how Nazario reconstructed Enrique’s journey, traveling the way Enrique did for some of the journey, and interviewing so many people along the way. It enables her to relate the journey with authority and sympathy, while also addressing the painful realities for both the children and mothers.

Enrique is only a child when his mother, Lourdes, leaves Honduras to work in the United States so she can send money back for her two young children. She felt it was her only choice in order to feed them and enable them to go to school.

“Though many mothers expect the separation to be short, typically it lasts six to eight years, says Analuisa Espinoza, a Los Angeles Unified School District social worker who specializes in immigrants.” (Enrique’s Journey)

Women almost have to leave in order to support their family. Part of the problem is that in Central America, the factories only hire the young women who can work hard and fast. They stop hiring by the time a woman turns thirty. “The children’s clothing store Maria Isabel works at won’t hire women older than twenty-three.” (Enrique’s Journey)

Without his mother’s guidance, Enrique does not make it through school and his life goes downhill, devolving into sniffing glue and then other drugs. He tries numerous times to better his life. When an Uncle takes him in, life is good for a bit, but then his uncle is killed and his aunt throws him out. As a teen, he decides the best thing to do is go North to find his mother.

“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.” (Enrique’s Journey)

They deify them - they are all powerful, benevolent, loving, instead of real people. The children think, if they can just reach their mother, then everything will be okay again. They will feel safe and loved and cared for again.

“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.” (Enrique’s Journey)

Lord of the Flies anyone?

“But the separation of children and parents has lasting negative consequences in these Latin American countries. Many of the 36,000 gangsters in Honduras come from families in which the mother has migrated north, says Zamora.”

Isn’t that what the gangs often are, in effect? And then there’s the human trafficking. Then, once those who make it to the U.S. get here, how do they find their mothers?

“I began to believe that no number of border guards will deter children like Enrique, who are willing to endure so much to reach the United States. It is a powerful stream, one that can only be addressed at its source.” (Enrique’s Journey)

One Honduran teenager Nazario met had been deported back to Guatemala twenty-seven times. Still, they keep coming, trying again and again, if they don’t die along the way.

These kids suffer through gangs who rob and hurt them, police who do the same, and immigration workers intent on sending them back. There’s also the people of the country they are passing through who are mostly antagonistic at the beginning of the journey though more helpful in the last leg of the journey. Then there’s the dangers of riding the train itself, the possibility of falling off, or into the wheels, and being maimed.

“The Red Cross estimates that every other day in Chiapas alone, a migrant riding the freight trains loses an arm, leg, hand, or foot. This estimate does not include people who die instantly.” (Enrique’s Journey)

Obviously, Enrique is only one of many young people traveling North to enter the United States illegally, but I believe that if this book can help us understand the motivations, commitment, and problems these young people face, ultimately, it will help us in more than one way. We can have sympathy for these people and what they are suffering through and it can help us figure out ways to decrease the need for immigration.

I was struck by how the people in Mexico look down upon the people coming from Central America, just as so many Americans look down on both of them.

“The people of Chiapas [Mexico] are fed up with Central American migrants. Central Americans are poorer than Mexicans, and here they are seen as backward and ignorant. People think they bring disease, prostitution, and crime and take away jobs.”

There are many moments of people recognizing the humanity of others though, which is heartening. The most moving parts for me were when Mayor Carrasco makes sure that Enrique is cared for after he is attacked and almost dies, and when people are coming out of their homes to throw food and clothes to migrants on the train.

Enrique is stunned by the generosity of a woman and child who throw him six rolls of bread. “Riding trains through the state of Chiapas has taught him to expect the worst from people. But farther north, in the states of Oaxaca and Veracruz, he discovers that people are friendly. In many places throughout Veracruz, people give. Sometimes twenty or thirty people stream out of their homes along the rails….” (Enrique’s Journey)

Once he arrives in the U.S. and finds his mother, things are supposed to be great, right? But when a parent is deified, instead of seen as a human, it can be a big letdown when reality sets in. Soon the resentments boil to the surface. Enrique resents her leaving him, and Lourdes resents his anger, feeling she has sacrificed a lot for him.

One thing that struck me was how undocumented immigrants live outside the law because they don’t dare report crimes against them. That allows crime to thrive, against them and against citizens.

In doing further research on the topic of illegal immigration, the American Immigration Council points out how immigrants who come out of the shadows, in this example DACA recipients, benefit society through increased buying power and paying taxes too. That seems like a benefit to all of us. (https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/deferred-action-childhood-arrivals-daca-overview)

According to the Pew Research Center, in 2017 there were approximately 10.5 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-findings-about-u-s-immigrants/  )

It seems like an insurmountable problem, and yet, the end of the book and Nazario’s web site show how progress has been made already in Enrique’s home country, what is working, and help us see where we can help.

Enrique is returned to Honduras 7 times, attacked, starving, and wearing two left shoes in the end. So many times he could have died, but he didn’t give up. If he is typical, you can’t keep them out. So, what do we do instead?

“…in the United States, many immigration experts have concluded that the only effective strategy for change is to improve the economies of immigrant-sending countries, so people will not want or need to leave.”

People do not undertake a journey like this one unless they are desperate.

Unfortunately, though this book touches on corruption in government and policing, schooling, and many issues that are influencing the flood of migrants to come North, one thing I didn’t really see was how climate change is affecting migration. Perhaps because the book was written in 2012 and that issue has really become much more discussed only since then. It is clearly an exacerbating issue to the problem as storms intensify due to warming ocean temperatures.

This was an eye-opening book that I highly recommend.

 

Further reading on undocumented immigration to the U.S.A..

https://immigration.procon.org/ - “Should the Government Allow Immigrants Who Are Here Illegally to Become US Citizens?” Britannica ProCon.org

https://www.history.com/news/the-birth-of-illegal-immigration  - “The Birth of Illegal Immigration” History

https://cis.org/Historical-Overview-Immigration-Policy - “Historical Overview of Immigration Policy” Center for Immigration Studies

http://enriquesjourney.com/about-the-family/update-2/ “Enrique’s Journey” Sonia Nazario

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-migration-central-america/ - “Climate Change Driving Migration in Central America” CBS