The ability to move up north from southern countries of the United States is a really tough experience for all immigrants that want to have a better life. Immigrants tend to struggle in their journey due to checkpoints that tend to give them trouble and the sacrifices they make on the way up north. Humans heading up north usually are stopped by some special enforcement, gangs and cartels that surround the path to the north. A similar event and story due to these types of situations would be the book of Sonia Nazario; Enrique’s Journey, a novel about the journey of a Honduran citizen emigrating north to find his mother. Which also led to many changes in his life with starting a new family of his own and changing his lifestyle. Enrique started …show more content…
off with a strong mindset that he was headed to go see his mother. Many things stopped him on his way up north. He went through the el camion de lagrimas “bus of tears” a couple of times. He experienced all the torture they give the central americans that tend to move up north. The border of Guatemala and Mexico is a border similar to the United States/Mexican border, which does not give no right to central americans to keep moving north in their journey. Mexican authorities and citizens are fairly strict in not letting Guatemalans in their country. The struggle that Enrique had was harshly rough and his surroundings had no support in him because he entered Mexican territory. Enrique sacrificed so much money in his journey up north and failed more than six times which led to his stress. He began to seek drugs and abused them in a very unprofessional way. All the times he used drugs he would become a different man in who he was before. His girlfriend Maria Isabel saw all the changes that happened and she moved away from him. His own family he had left kicked him out of the house because he wasn't the same anymore. Enrique became violent and the environment around him was afraid of him, all the drugs affected him harshly. His depressants were used and he felt lonely, he felt weak with failure of not traveling north to see his mother. Abandonment is a huge theme that occurs in Enrique's journey, that leads to many difficulties and resentments. It all started when Enrique's mother Lourdes left him at the age of 5 to better his future by moving up north into the United States. He felt abandoned for the past years that he didn't have a mother. Calls that were sent to Honduras were useless to him because he just heard her voice and it began to be a bother to him. He missed his mother and she missed him and Bella the younger sibling. Later throughout the years of living with his father, Enrique’s dad tends to leave him and his sister to begin a new family with another soulmate. He felt even more left out and abandoned, once both his parents had left him alone. During his own depression he began to misuse drugs which began to be addicting to him, which also leads to everyone leaving him or kicking him out of their homes to better their own living environment. He then begins his own family with María Isabel when he moves up north in the United States. He realizes that María Isabel is pregnant in Honduras and once she gives birth to the baby, she tends to head up north with Enrique. Enrique didn't want to abandon his family like both his parents had done but it was no choice but to leave María Isabel and the baby. Once María Isabel is in the United States with Enrique they both have the right to send money to their baby like lourdes did when he sent money to Enrique. It all moves like a cycle in this family and abandonment is a big theme in which they all receive. During the book Enrique and his mother both have different perspectives in which they both have traveled up north into the United States.
Lourdes has had her own experience late back when Enrique was no older than 5 years old. She tends to sacrifice and leave her family behind in order for them to succeed in life themselves. Money is sent to her kids to see them in great shape with enough food, clothing and school supplies so that they can stay in school. Lourdes does not see the suffering of her kids that they are going through because they are not seeing their mother and their father has left them to begin another family. As lourdes has attempted her first journey up north, she tends to succeed to head up north with nothing stopping her. Women tend to have a faster way up north than men. An abundance of women let themselves free to any men that leads her way up north. As women head up north no cartel, mafia or gangster activity stops them towards their way to the United States. On the other hand, Enrique had struggled heading up north with all the checkpoints and failure that led him back to where he started. Not many mexican authorities love having southern countries travel through their country, which gives them the right to send them south of Mexico which is guatemala. Enrique has experience the bus of tears a huge amount of times knowing that men have trouble heading up north. Money and time was spent throughout the journey which still gave him the courage to still try to go see his mother like many other Central
Americans. How is feminism and child maltreatment connected with immigration and the journeys male and female take in order to end up in North America? How does immigration help out America? Immigration is an important global issue because everyone is emigrating to any nation around the world and the acceptance has to be everywhere, not just in America but in all nations. The book Enrique’s Journey has inspired me to ask my questions because it shows too much sexism which is the fact that men are not allowed up north so easily as women are. I asked them because there are a huge number of immigrants that have been separated for years due to the non-acceptance of immigration. Immigration can help out the north due to jobs that consider labor, like lourdes, she tends to have a babysitting job and a housekeeping job in which many Americans wouldn’t do. How is feminism and child maltreatment connected with immigration and the journeys male and female take in order to end up in North America? According to the book, there was various ways on how women were used and raped in order to move up north. They sold their own bodies to the cartels and to the gangsters in order to slide by to head up north on their journey. It was established that the illegal human trafficking used some sexual assaults to the young women that were headed to America. Lourdes was faithful to her family and she headed up north the right way and the cash she had to sacrifice to be up north. On the other hand, Lourdes saw domestic violence on her own journey and she saw the torture that women were going through if they did not have the cash to head of north. According to Valoy,”While 1 in 4 women in the United States experience domestic violence, immigrant women are 3 to 6 times more likely to experience domestic violence”, therefore women tend to leave society in which they experience all the domestic violence and receive a smaller chance in ending in the same harm. Children are also in the same foot steps of the female travelers and their journey to head up north. There are children being killed or raped meanwhile they are on the train up north. For most southern countries to head up north on the train, can cause caution on the parent and it is most definitely dangerous to send children this superior adventure. About seventy-five percent of southern children have left their country in order to find their mother. Enrique was fifteen at the time he began his journey and that’s approximately the age that all central americans start to realize that they have to head up north on the journey to see their mother. It is quite expensive to transfer children up north without the “coyotes/human traffickers” getting caught and sending the children to a special protection site where the border patrol has to lead them to(Nazario). On the way up north, Mexican authority or cartels tend to stop the immigrants for some sort of proof that they are mexican citizens or else they will have to bribe or pay some type of punishment. An abundance of these immigrants travel light with no money so they’re screwed and torture or rape is what comes next in situations like these. Women and children are affected by their journey to emigrate from their home country into the United States. It is harshly intense for children to enter the U.S without a visa or a parent. There is a huge number of children that tend to travel alone instead with a legal guardian protecting him or her. Out of all the immigrants that have entered the united states, there is an estimate of three-fourths that are women and children, in which the immigration system denies the equal opportunity and treatment(O’neil). Although children have a better protection system than female do, they tend to stay more in the United States than women. On the other hand, the protection system the immigration system has for children is huge for the sixty thousand Central American children that tend to move up north. The children are held at the border with care and are searched and surveyed if they are qualified to stay in the United States(O’neil). More commonly the mother’s have been living in the united states for the past years and as the children head up north from central america they tend to go missing from the debt they stay in for traveling light with not much of the money. Women leave their opportunity in the U.S to go find their missing children in mexico which have been enslaved, raped or killed(NOW). It goes the same for women if they are young, single, and married, they tend to rape and kill the women for not having enough money to pay the human traffickers to continue in their journey. The journey can be dangerous but it is a better cause for their future instead of being forced to join gangs or young females being forced to sleep with the gangsters. Central America has one of the most highest homicide rates in the world which is a reason why children and women tend to head up north to escape from their country and ask for help by America because that's where they seem to seek help. Many children and women lose lives and money due to the high amount of money being spent on the human traffickers. Trust is a huge subject in which the children and women have to care for to arrive to their destination safe with no problems throughout their whole journey. Although women have headed up north and only about fifty-one percent of immigrants are women, jobs are not given to most of them. They tend to look for illegal jobs that are hired to do some sort of house keeping, nanis, or some type of labor that is low pay(NOW). In some occasions the females stay home as housewives and just care for their homes and children, meanwhile when the husbands are working on some other work or they just get paid by the government. Work visas are rare for women immigrants to receive. Therefore the wage and profession in each job is what affects women in many ways due to the support they have to contribute in their lives. As these women work for their peace they also work for their visa’s and the chance to bring their families together that also want freedom. The struggle for these women to keep grinding for their goal is what motivates other women to head up north for a better life and a start to a new life. How does America help out
When it comes to analyzing the “banana massacre” scene in chapter 15, I found three narrative techniques the author used to describe this scene. Therefore, one can notice that this part of the book is the climax. As a result, one infers what the author is trying to say about Latin American history and politics.
On his eighth attempt, Enrique finally makes it to a camp by the Rio Grande. His mother pays a smuggler to bring him safely across the river without being caught by the U.S. border patrol. Finally, he is reunited with his mother whom he hasn't seen in over a decade. His expectation that being with his mother would solve all his problems was soon shattered. Lourdes expects respect for everything she has done for him but is met with only Enriques resentment for leaving him. They fight constantly. Enrique returns to using
In both the movie, La Misma Luna, and the newspaper series, Enrique’s Journey, migrants are faced with many issues. The most deadly and scarring issues all relate back to bandits, judicial police, and la migra or Mexican immigration officers. The problems that arise are serious to the point of rape, robbing, and beating. It is not easy crossing the border illegally and secretly, but the successful ones have an interesting or even traumatic story about how it worked for them.
Throughout Enrique’s many attempts at successfully making his way by train to the border between the United States and Mexico, he has encountered people who were more concerned with stopping and harming the travelers rather than ensuring their wellbeing. Therefore this imagery during the journey part of the novel helps to provide the reader with the sense that not everyone in Mexico is out to get the people who are trying to obtain a better
Meaning, this book would be perfect to teach students life lessons that are important. Three of the themes that are good life lessons are: family, perseverance and survival, and humanization and dehumanization. All of these are found throughout the whole book which makes them hard to forget. Family is shown throughout the book because when Enrique’s mom leaves, all Enrique wants to do is to be with her. A short summary from Litcharts.com explains why family is such a big theme throughout the whole book. “Enrique’s Journey, as its title indicates, is the non-fiction story of a 17-year-old boy’s struggle to travel across Mexico to the United States to reunite with his mother. The events depicted in the book are set in motion by an initial instance of abandonment: Lourdes’ difficult decision to leave Enrique and his sister Belky in Honduras, while she seeks work in the United States to send money back to her family.” This whole quote shows, even though it was a hard choice for Lourdes, it was the right one because it was to help her family. Another theme that was found in the book that is a good lesson is about perseverance and survival. Survival is a trait everyone has, but this book highlights its importance, especially on the trains. Litcharts.com says, “He gives himself a time limit that shows his perseverance and the gravity of his decision: he will make it to his mother even if it takes a year. Despite the dangerous circumstances jumping trains, facing corrupt policemen, immigration checkpoints and officers, bandits, and gangsters, Enrique persists.” This teaches the readers that it is important to push through every difficulty no matter what, and that it is highly significant to survive to achieve the goal. The last theme that is found in Enrique’s Journey that is a good lesson for readers is dehumanization and humanization. This theme is found
Enrique grows up pretty much an orphan living with his grandmother while his sister is put in a nice caring home. He is constantly being switched around from family to family and due to his drug problems, he is finally kicked out by his aunt for stealing her jewelry to pay off a dealer. The rich get richer and the poor stay the same is something that Enrique came to understand. He knew that in order to get out of this corrupt society he ...
The writing of Secret of the Andes is beautifully, descriptively and simply written by Ann Nolan Clark.
The push-and-pull factors in Enrique’s yearn for the U.S not only allows him to rediscover himself as an individual in a world of uncertainty, it also eliminates his constant fear of failing as a promising human being; in addition exhibits the undying hope of a desperate man found in hopeful migrants. In Sonia Nazario’s “Enrique’s Journey,” his mother’s trip streamed “emptiness” into the heart of a once comfortable child and left him to “struggle” to hold memories they shared. Enrique’s life after Lourdes’ departure triggered the traumatizing demise of his identity. He threw this broken identity away while facing many obstacles, nevertheless each endea...
For immigrants, reuniting with parents who left them is a huge problem in the U.S. Children who reunite with their parents after many years have a lot of problems with the parents. The parents and children tend to argue, the children have buried anger, and both have an idealized concept of each other. According to Los Angeles’s Newcomer School, a school for newly arrived immigrants which is referenced in Enrique’s Journey, a bit more than half of want to talk to the counselor about their problems. The main problem Murillo, the school’s counselor, says is mostly family problems. Murillo says that many parent-child meetings are all very similar and identical to each other. Some of the similarities are that idealized notions of each other disappear, children felt bitter before going to the U.S., and that many children have buried rage. Mothers say that the separations between them and child was worth it because of the money earned and the advantages in America. However, many children said that they would rather have less money and food if it meant their mothers would stay with them.
Enrique, someone who has hands on experience with this, went to the United States to find his mother and start a new life with her. Enrique was very sad leaving his old life behind. He had a girlfriend, Maria Isabel, whom he loved very much and later he found that Maria Isabel was pregnant with their daughter. Enrique knew that he left Honduras for a reason and he knew he had to deal with missing experiences such as his daughter’s important moments.Enrique accepted the obstacles he had to overcome by remembering that in Honduras his life was for the worse. In Honduras, money was scarce, life was sad, and his family depended on him to send money back to them by working in the United States.
The Northern and Southern colonies both had an influx of immigration. The Northern colonies’ economic success and religious freedom attracted many immigrants. People like the Germans immigrated to the Northern colonies in hopes of gaining a better economic standing through trade and commerce. “Most were fleeing economic distress, but some, such as the Mennonites, came to Pennsylvania because of William Penn’s policy of religious freedom …”(81). The influx of immigration to the North made the New England and Middle colonies extremely
migrants moved North to escape from Jim Crow and the disgrace in economic opportunities in the South, going North was seen to bring about a better living for individuals and families....
After reading The Book of the Unknown Americans, I realized how difficult immigrating to the United States can be. I am an immigrant also, so just reading the story makes me relate to many problems immigrants experience relocating to a different country. Immigrants often face many issues and difficulties, but for some it is all worth it, but for others there comes a point in time where they have to go back to their hometown. Alma and Arturo Rivera came to the United States to better their life, but also so that Maribel could attend a special education school. While Arturo had a job things had gone well for the family, but once Arturo lost the job and passed away the two of them had to go back because they felt that that was the best option for them. Reading this book made me realize how strong an individual has to be to leave their own country and relocate somewhere else not knowing if this will better your life or cause one to suffer.
The North had confidently been recognized as a manufacturing society. Labor was needed, although not necessarily slave labor. Immigration was an encouragement. Immigrants that were from European regions worked in factories, built the railroads in the North, and developed the West. Very little stayed put in the South.
Most freed slaves were quick to escape their old lives of being slaves. The Urban north offered job opportunities, a fresh start, and endless possibilities. The journey began in the late 1800’s with a man named Tom. Tom was a slave and married Martha, the child of a plantation cook, and plantation owner. The late 1870’s, Tom and Martha were free. The first thing Tom wanted to do was find his siblings because they had all been split up from slavery. This was a really hard task, being that their last names had changed, also due to slavery. Based on Everett Lee’s theory of migration, my family should have motivations for their migration; push and pull factors. The push factors are the reasons why my family left their home land, in this case Mississippi. The pull factors are the reasons why my family wanted to go to the new land, in this case the urban North. Lee’s theory also includes the intervening obstacles of migration, this will be the struggles that Tom and Martha faced while going