Book Analysis: Enrique's Journey

America is known as the land of the free. People from other countries want to obtain this human right; they immigrate from far and wide to reap the benefits and be able to send money home to support their families. The struggles and hardships they endure to find this freedom is often forgotten about when it comes down to reach their goals. This is shown in the book Enrique’s Journey, written by a Los Angles Times reporter, Sonia Nazario who explores the struggles one Honduras boy finds himself faced with on the journey to find his mother. Due to poverty many families overlook the complications of illegally crossing the border into the United States and suffer the repercussions. The repercussions are the dangers surrounding the illegal nature

of crossing the border, finding work once they arrive illegally; in addition to not being able to follow through with their intended goals of supporting their families back home.The long, torturous journey to take a chance in crossing the border into the United States offers many hardships. As humans our instincts bring us to where there is food, water, and shelter; all things needed for survival. Illegal immigrants just like Enrique, aren’t given those necessities so easily instead they are forced to deal with other surrounding locals who live near the borders in the areas where the illegal immigrants halt. In the book, Enrique makes sure to hide from the locals with every town he makes a pit stop in; in fear they will only give him more trouble. The majority of the locals despises these individuals and will go as far as ratting them out to the police which will then lead them to being escorted back to their hometowns or where they originated from. As stated by Sherman in the article "Surge in Child Immigrants Stresses Support Network, “The kids are coming from the same places as usual —Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico — and they offer the same range of explanations: they made the trek to look for parents already in the U.S.; they're seeking economic opportunity to send money home; they want to escape violence or abuse.” All of these illegal immigrants just the same as Enrique are willing to go on this journey engaging with danger with the possibility of finding their parents, or simply to allow themselves the chance at a better life as well as opportunities. In today’s society finding work is hard enough for the citizens; imagine being an illegal immigrant. Being an illegal immigrant entails having no form of identification, which is required by most jobs.

In addition to that comes with the struggle of finding shelter once making it into the United States to ensure that they look presentable when getting ready for a job interview or if they scored the job, the job itself. In Enrique’s Journey, Lourdes, his mother finds work by becoming a nanny to a little girl when she first arrives to California. She later moves onto becoming a waitress after moving away once too many immigrants make their way into California. The only jobs she was able to succeed with required little to none questioning on her settings and personal information that more entailed occupations require. Many legal citizens find themselves very angered with the fact that illegal immigrant’s may be taking their job positions. As stated by Martell, an illegal immigrant who resides in the United States, "We are human beings, we are not criminals, and we are not aliens and we cannot just stay silent" (O’Neil). What the locals and citizens living in the United States don’t seem to grasp is the fact that these illegal immigrants are people, similar to themselves who’s only intentions are to give themselves or their families a better life in the promise land. With the idea of sending money back home to their families they must secure a

job.

Things don’t always turn out the way people hope for, no matter how hard these individuals try to work towards their goals. In Enrique’s case, his mother and him are considered two of the lesser immigrants that are able to obtain everything they wished for: jobs, shelter, money, and the opportunity given by the promise land. However, not every illegal immigrant is as lucky or fortunate. Without finding work, there leaves no possibility to send money home, which is the very reason, these illegal immigrants comes out to the United States in the first place. The illegal immigrants will be forced to stay in the United States by themselves unless planning to sneak back into their countries. Many of them reflect on their childhoods and find it hard to not feel guilty when they know what conditions their other family members are enduring. "Not having food to eat every day and seeing your mother struggling -- seeing your mother struggling to provide food, that's one of the sad memories I have from Mexico," a tearful Ibanez told CBS News (Shaban). Countless amounts of illegal immigrants can relate back to Ibanez, only holding terrible memories of the conditions they were once used to dealing with: no money, no shelter, no food, and now not being with their families.
An illegal immigrant to come to the United States, the land of the free and opportunities, in hopes of further benefitting their families, must tolerate many sacrifices. It’s not as easy as it may seem to acquire a job, and follow through with the original plan of sending money back home to their families. Many things may not go according to plan, leading them down a road where their original plans can’t be accomplished. The obstacles that appear either small or big both will still result in loss of determination and sometimes failure.