(CC BY 2.0)
Enrique’s Journey is a nonfiction that follows the harrowing expedition of teenaged Honduran Enrique to find his mother in the United States. Nazario painstakingly investigates every aspect of his journey, and documents his life as he grows and develops into a man. She also follows his immediate and extended family, and the people he left behind in poverty-stricken Honduras.
Nazario presents Enrique’s story with the objective deliverance of a journalist, simultaneously juxtaposed with the familiarity of a friend. What may appear preachy is actual fact: she backs up all of her horrible, lurid details with statistics and first-hand accounts. Readers care deeply about Enrique because we have followed him since he was a small child, and we want to see him succeed when the odds are stacked against him. We cheer when things go right, and groan when he suffers. We try to imagine the Hell he went through on top of the trains, but cannot because most readers have not been in a life-or-death situation, much less the constant peril of the journey. However, I am thankful that Nazario doesn’t go so far as to justify the problems he brings on himself, like his drug and alcohol addictions. She merely presents them as noteworthy points in his life, and allows the readers to decide for themselves whether his poor decisions are a result of his childhood or general weakness. That is true unbiased journalism.
I’m not a big reader of nonfiction because I prefer the escapist aspect of fantasy. I didn’t know what to expect going into this book because I am so poorly versed in nonfiction other than scholarly essays. Some of what I read was borderline unbelievable. The level of horror experienced on the trains exceeds any heinous act concocted by George RR Martin of Game of Thrones fame, who is notorious for writing excessive brutality into his novels. But Nazario provides the statistics that remind me that everything she says is completely true. It’s a grim reminder of a world I have never been part of, not only as an American-born child but also as someone from the North. We have immigrants, but nowhere near as many as those found in Texas or Arizona. I don’t want to call myself privileged because I think that’s a subjective concept that people irritatingly overuse and misinterpret, but suffice it to say I am glad I was born in the United States and not in a third-world country. I come from a working-class family, but I’ve never known the poverty experienced by Enrique and his family.
My last lingering thought dwells on Enrique’s state now. I wonder if Nazario shared any of the profits from this book with him and his family. If she pulled a Danny Boyle and didn’t adequately compensate her subjects (see the controversy surrounding Slumdog Millionaire), then I would consider her exploitative and unworthy of her Pulitzer. Other than that, I enjoyed the book for how much it made me think.
Below are some helpful links to gain further knowledge about the effect of undocumented immigration:
- The official website of the DREAM Act, one path to citizenship for undocumented people http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/issues/DREAM-Act
- Another account of the “death trains” that ferry undocumented children across Mexico: http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/06/05/318905712/riding-the-beast-across-mexico-to-the-u-s-border
- An examination on the effects of the 2006 Secure Borders Act: https://prospect.org/article/border-effect
- A running blog by a Colombian-born Venezuelan living in America: http://diaryofanillegalimmigrant.blogspot.com/
- A documentary about the vicious Mexican drug cartels: https://youtu.be/yHPizv8IxlM
- Recent statistics about the rate and origins of US immigration: http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states
- A mission statement by Catholic Relief Services: http://www.crs.org/countries/mexico
- The latest developments in US immigration policy: http://www.uscis.gov/news-releases
juliannereadssometimes 