Sania
Nazario, Enrique’s Journey: The Story of
a Boy’s Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite With His Mother (Random House Trade
Paperbacks, NY, 2006).
Available
in hardcopy, paperback and audiobook and for Kindle and Nook.
Non-fiction
Recommended
by Dorinda Kauzlarich-Rupe
This
story was first published as a series in the Los Angeles Times, winning the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing. It
is a true story of one of the many youngsters who come from Central America (in
his case, Honduras) and enter the US illegally. It gives graphic detail of the
dangers these youngsters encounter on their trips, usually in search for their
mothers who had previously entered the US illegally in hopes of earning money
to send to their starving children back home. It is a harrowing, enlightening, heart-wrenching, honest
tale. Nazario first learned of the children who make these journeys when
her hired housekeeper brought her son to Nazario’s home and told Nazario his
story. She was smitten and, although fearful, decided to do extensive
research and document one child’s journey. For Nazario, that meant actually
following a youngster—making the trip he made and experiencing the same dangers
he confronted, including riding on the tops of trains and talking to those whom he encountered on the way, as well as interviewing him.
It is a very timely book in terms of current social, spiritual,
and political issues. It helps the reader understand the reasons for these
immigrations, as well as the real, sometimes deadly, dangers the immigrants
experience.
I highly recommend reading this book.
[Editor’s Note: There is a link to Nazario’s TED Talk on
immigration at http://enriquesjourney.com/.
© 2017
