Sonia Nazario's Enrique's Journey
I read Sonia Nazario’s Enrique’s Journey and put it on the side bar. It is this year’s choice by UNC Charlotte for first year students. I got sucked immediately into the book. Nazario focuses on motherhood, not only the reasons why mothers leave their children to come to the
For
This sort of beginning-to-end travel story reminded me of Eugene Nelson’s Bracero, a fairly obscure novel I stumbled across and greatly enjoyed, which depicted the travails of an indigenous man in
The first 100 pages focus on
A stooped woman, María Luisa Mora Martín, more than a hundred years old, who was reduced to eating the bark of her plantain tree during the Mexican Revolution, forces her knotted hands to fill bags with tortillas, beans, and salsa so her daughter, Soledad Vásquez, seventy, can run down a rocky slope and heave them onto a train (p. 105).
Then Enrique’s journey continues, including dealing with his own girlfriend and childm and the book pulls no punches. In particular, Nazario examines the negative repercussions of migration. The “promised land” is a very rough place, full of fear, drug and alcohol abuse, low wages, and uncertainty. But the book really zeroes in on motherhood. This is, really, a story about the choices mothers make (and the ending shows even more clearly what she thinks about it).
Very good book. Check it out.
3 comments:
Sonia, now formerly of the L.A. Times, was in Charlotte in fall 2006 to promote "Enrique's Journey" as part of the Novello book festival. Her chat was complemented by images from the Pulitzer-winning Times series. Needless to say, the whole presentation captivated the very diverse audience. I bought the book, but have not quite gotten around to it. She did mention there was some HBO deal in the works, but haven't heard about it since. Wonder how much different it would be from "Under the same moon"?
She'll be on campus in October to talk about the book. Also, her website says that HBO will indeed be making a 6 part miniseries about it.
I haven't seen Under the Same Moon, but as I wrote, I think the key difference with Enrique's Journey is its very critical look at motherhood. In many ways, that is more important than Enrique's journey itself.
I wanted to thank you for blogging about ENRIQUE’S JOURNEY and alert you that a new version, targeted to young readers, will be published August 27, 2013. The new version of the book is among the first non-fiction award-winning works to be written for younger readers -- junior high students and reluctant readers in high school -- and specifically aimed at complementing the national Common Core curriculum that requires teaching more literary non-fiction and that schools must adopt in the coming year. The original version is among the most read books in colleges – required reading for college freshman and a text that has helped facilitate discussion about one of the most critical issues of our time.
ENRIQUE’S JOURNEY is not just the story of a boy in search of his mother, or of one family's struggles to migrate to the U.S. It is the story of the 65,000 undocumented students that graduate each year from U.S. high schools, who must live in the shadows. And it is an issue whose magnitude and urgency has grown in the past year. While the overall apprehension of immigrants unlawfully entering the U.S. is at a 40-year low, the number of children coming alone and illegally is surging. In the last fiscal year, close to 14,000, twice as many as the previous year, were placed in federal custody. An equal number of Mexican minors were deported immediately. The numbers placed in federal custody are expected to nearly double again this year. These are young people who are fleeing poverty and forced recruitment into gangs. Many are coming in search of their mothers, much like Enrique.
Please feel free to reach out with any questions you have
about the new version of the book and what it will mean for students.
Contacts:
Sonia Nazario,
sonia@sonianazario.com
Jodie Hockensmith
(212) 782-9317
jhockensmith@randomhouse.com
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