Nazario Lecture

Today, November 16, I attended a Lecture by Sonia Nazario on her novel, Enrique’s Journey. Her book focused on the journey of a young boy from Honduras to the United States to reach his mother. The boy, Enrique, took the dangerous journey in desperation to be with his mother who left him at a young age. Sonia Nazario reenacted Enrique’s travels on the top of trains and wrote this mind altering book.

Nazario first was inspired to write this novel when she had asked her Latino house keeper a question about her children. Nazario learned that this women had made the trek to the United States illegally to provide for her children and, unfortunately, had to leave her children with the promise that she would be home in a couple of years. Nazario started with this question about how a woman, a mother, could sacrifice being with her children. She could not see what could be so horrible or difficult in life that a woman would have to make that kind of decision. Nazario learned that in some Latin countries, there are places where people are so poor that they would only be able to feed their family one small meal a day, their children would not be able to attend school past the third grade, and their children would be put to work to sell items on the streets or pick through garbage for sellable items. Thats a very sad life for a young child and these mothers didn’t want to see that life for their children. These nurturers’ that travel to the United States illegally, would rather suffer and endure the terrifying and dangerous trek than let their child starve.

In Nazario’s novel, I was able to put my feet in not only Enrique’s shoes, but also his mother’s shoes. I’m more understanding of the reasons people live here illegally. This countries illegal immigrants travel from suffering hard economic conditions and they are left with one choice, to cross the United States boarder.