El Norte Compare And Contrast Essay

The book Enrique's Journey and the 1983 film El Norte allows us to compare and contrast how each treats the theme of reasons why people choose to migrate, migrants' dreams versus reality. The book and the film makes us rethink transnational lives in the Americas especially how and why they got here and gives us another perspective. In the film, peasants wanted to escape mindless labor and a murderous Guatemalan government leave for America in hopes for a better life. Reasons to immigrate could include better living conditions, jobs, money, healthcare, education and for their family. Both the book and the film shows us reasons why people choose to migrate and what they find out when they arrive to their destination. The book Enrique's Journey

helps puts a human face on current debates about immigration in the United States. The film describes the power of family and help us engage with others in discussions about this essential American subject that has been going on not just recently but for decades.

Immigration from Latin America has been happening for decades and the reason seems to always leave the situation people are in for a better one in America. The summaries of the book and the film show how similar they were in how immigration was necessary for the key people talked about.

Enrique’s Journey is a story of a Honduran boy looking for his mother, years after she leaves her family to find work in the United States and send back money because she realized that she could not provide for them. The bad thing is that Enrique does not know why his mother really left him and his sister which causes him to resent his mother’s decision and feels abandoned. Enrique turns to drugs and has low paying jobs to try and get buy. Enrique’s mother Lourdes finds that life in the United States is not what she expected. She finds low-paying jobs, and later becomes pregnant. She gives birth to her daughter and later loses her job, and becomes a prostitute. Later she finds steady work

and is able to send money back to Enrique and his sister. Enrique’s drug problems continue and he is later caught stealing his aunt’s jewelry to pay off his dealer. He is kicked out of his home and gets his girlfriend pregnant. Enrique then wants to journey to reunite with his mother. Enrique then begins his journey which included hanging on the sides and riding the tops of freight trains which was common but dangerous of migrants. Enrique describes his encounters with thugs, bandits, and corrupt police. Also among his struggles was dealing with the weather, lack of food and water and always on the move. The amazing part was that Enrique failed to reach the US/Mexico border and it took him eight attempts to get there. He eventually makes it to the border, contacts his mother who helps pay a smuggler to get him across the border. Enrique crossed the Rio Grande by using an inner tube. Later he is able to reunite with his mother in Florida. The sad part of the book is when Enrique realizes he had created a larger than life image of his mother and this new life and that all he had to do was to get to America and find his mother and all of his troubles would go away. Lourdes and Enrique begin to clash and resent each other and Enrique turns to drugs and alcohol to cope with his disappointment.
The movie starts with depicting a small town which has a real since of community and a family going about daily chores.

Also in the beginning, we saw a scene with what appeared to be a male in military clothing asking a young male questions about the whereabouts of someone or others and bribes the young male with money and brings up his family and it seems the young male gives in. Another scene appears to be at dinner and everyone in attendance is talking about the north, or America. They describe how it is better and even the poor have things they do not including toilets, cars and money. The ironic thing is that no one at dinner has been to the place they are describing but they have heard it from others who know someone who does or like the woman who was obviously an expert because she had some old Good Housekeeping magazines she has been reading for 10 years so she can be trusted with knowing what it is like. During dinner the head of the household leaves to go do something and from the film, the wife and the son appear nervous. As the father is leaving the son catches up to him and they talk briefly about why he is going and why it is important. He explains that they, his family and the community and others like them are poor and the rich are abusing them and treat them poorly and take advantage of them. He stated that they are taking advantage of the poor people and their land. He believes that there needs to be change and he is going to be a part of that change, no

matter how dangerous. It is at this point I see that earlier in the film, the young man being bribed by the male who appears part of the military might have been the father’s son and the son gave up information of where the father is going. Later, at the meeting where the father is talking with other men around a fire about future plans and acquiring guns for what appears to be some type of revolution of the peasants against the rich, or government. The military then surrounds them and ambushes them because they know of their meeting location. When the gun fire starts the son wakes up hearing it and grabs a machete and runs to where he knows his father is. When he arrives he finds his father’s head hanging from a tree. We learn the mother has disappeared and the son and daughter, Enrique and Rosa have hidden, and feel forced that they must leave. They plan on trying to go to America, they think, from the Good Housekeeping magazines. Their progress through Mexico as depicted in the film was hard, just like the book. They run into many struggles and hardships attempting to progress north. They ended up crossing the border through a storm drain pipe and had to crawl. They make it to Los Angeles, Enrique and Rosa enter the job market making low pay and are undocumented, but necessary now in America, used as cheap labor. America forbids it, yet requires it as a source of cheap labor. Like from the beginning of the film, Enrique's father told him that “the bosses cared nothing for a man, only for his strong arms” (El Norte).
The stories in the film and the book show where immigrants endure trough their journey and prevail by eventually getting to their destination but we also learn sometimes the image they had in their head about what will await them is disappointing. It takes a lot of determination to leave your homeland and start over again in a strange land but sometimes even if it doesn’t turn out like they assumed it would, they may still believe it is better than were they came from. The reality of illegal immigration has remained essentially the same over the years. The book and the film makes us rethink transnational lives in the Americas especially how and why they got here and gives us another perspective and reasons why people choose to migrate, migrants' dreams versus reality.