Analysis Of Elri's Journey By Sonia Nazario

The journey of a young migrant is illustrated through the book Enrique’s Journey, written by Sonia Nazario. With all the difficulties one migrant can face, the story is told through Enrique’s experiences. Traveling from Honduras to reach the United States. Living in the twenty-first century, Enrique’s experiences capture the difficulties migrants face in search to reach the United States living in the Americas.
Enrique was only 5 years old when his mother Lourdes left him in Honduras. Lourdes wanted to better herself and her children by going to the Unites States to seek opportunities. Honduras was a very impoverish country. The people who lived there usually lived in huts with no electricity or running water. The jobs were scarce and when

The rest travel alone. They are cold, hungry, and helpless…Some are killed.” Enrique’s knew the treacherous journey and after seven attempts Enrique’s was determined to find his mother in the United States no matter what the cost, he was determined to find her. On Enrique’s 8th journey Enrique knew how to use the railroad system to get through Mexico. “To evade Mexican police and immigration authorities, the children jump onto and off the moving train cars. Sometimes they fall, and the wheels tear them apart.”
For his mother Lourdes eleven years earlier Lourdes paid a smuggler to help her into the United Sates. “Lourdes and her smuggler cross Mexico on buses.” “Lourdes crosses into the United States in one of the largest immigrant waves in the country’s

with the help of his mother paying for the smugglers. Getting across the border had its own problems. “At 1 A.M. on May 21, 2000, Enrique waits on the edge of the water. “ “Across the Rio Grande stands a fifty-foot pole equipped with U.S. Border Patrol cameras. In daylight, Enrique has counted four sport-utility vehicles near the pole, each with antennas. Now, in the darkness, he cannot see any.” “It was a red Chevrolet Blazer with tinted windows that pulled up. These are the smugglers that his mother paid for.” “Every car must stop. “U.S. citizen?” agents ask. They check for documents. Enrique was able to get out of the car a mile and a half before approaching the Border Patrol.” Enrique walked in the dark ten minutes down the road away from the Border Patrol before the red blazer pulled up to get him back inside. Enrique was driven to Florida where his mother’s boyfriend picked him up and drove the rest of the way to North Carolina without any problems. “An estimate of 1.7 million children lives illegally in the Unites States, most from Mexico and Central America…One in four children in the nation’s schools is an immigrant. Or a child of an immigrant-a group whose numbers.” There is a growing influx of women and children one has to ask the question: “Is it good for the migrants themselves, for the countries they come from, and for the United States and its citizen?” “Immigrants will spend a huge amount of money from the