Character Analysis: Enrique's Journey

Nicole Garavito
Mrs. McGee
H English 9
15 September 2015
La Familia
In “Enrique’s Journey”, by Sonia Nazario a young boy from Honduras, sets out to reunite with his mother, Lourdes, that abandoned him when he was just five years old. Lourdes leaves to the United States, in hopes to find a better job as an immigrant and to better provide for her family. After many years of suffering without his mom, he travels through Central America to the United States in order to finally reunite with her. He finds his mother beginning to move on as she has a little daughter, named Diana. They run into problems of resentment. Will they be able to finally be a family? Sonia develops this theme of family by using specific facts and characterization. Importance

of family overcompasses money and focusing on that would help guide them towards achieving one of life’s most important virtues, happiness.
Lourdes’s abstinence has an affect on Enrique.

“Donde esta mi mami?” Enrique cries, over and over where is my mom?” (Nazario 5). Enrique repeats these words again and again as his mother leaves headed for the U.S. These words represent the depth of abandonment Enrique felt and shows the effect Lourdes's choice had on her family. This one, difficult decision to leave her family for money, will destroy her family. As readers, we witness how this hard decision could have been the wrong one as the helpless, five-year-old would have to live without her. Lourdes starts to feel guilty about her decision and just reminds herself, that this sacrifice was necessary and her children will understand this. Tragically, Enrique doesn't understand what he did to make his mother leave. Enrique and Lourdes both suffer from this decision, as Lourdes greatly misses her children, and Enrique desperately misses his

mother.
Lourdes’s actions start to take a huge negative impact on Enrique. We see this when, “To Enrique, this is another rejection. First his mother, and his father, and now his grandmother.” (Nazario 25). His father abandons Enrique to start a new family, making Enrique feel such a strong sense of loneliness, he turns to drugs rebels. The rest of Enrique’s family disowns Enrique because of his rebellion. Lourdes’s sacrifices to leave, so Enrique would be successful almost seems pointless, because without her guidance Enrique ends up ruining the opportunities she tried to give him by leaving him. Even though, Enrique has all this needs meant; clothes, food, school supplies, he doesn’t attend school and spends time smoking because he doesn’t have his mother there with him. Everything Lourdes has sacrificed, was for nothing because Enrique drops out of school to go look for her at the age of 15. Many years, of severe abandonment build up determine his actions of leaving to look for her, risking his life, to fill up the void that only she could fill, in his heart.

When Lourdes and Enrique are finally reunited as a ‘family’ they still run into some issues.

“He tells Lourdes she didn’t care enough about her children to stay with them in Honduras. He berates Lourdes for leaving him with a father she knew was irresponsible “(Nazario 197). Even when Enrique travels all this way to be with his mom, he is still not able to forgive her for leaving him and thinking money could replace her presence. Enrique travels to the United States because he believes, by being with her this will automatically undo all the damage. The sad reality, is Enrique and Lourdes have become strangers to each other. Lourdes hardly called and when she did there were never answers that would satisfy Enrique. This is why when they finally meet each other, they have conflicts because they don’t understand each other. This is because Lourdes has missed out on Enrique’s entire childhood. Enrique and Lourdes are both upset; Enrique because it didn’t meet the perfect family expectations that he had fantasized in his head for all these years, and Lourdes would see her children as not being appreciative of all that she did. These wounds will be lifelong, meanwhile money is only temporary and can come and go as time

passes.