In this astonishing true story, award-winning journalist Sonia
Nazario recounts the unforgettable odyssey of a Honduran boy who
braves unimaginable hardship and peril to reach his mother in the
United States.
When Enrique is five years old, his mother, Lourdes, too poor to
feed her children, leaves Honduras to work in the United States.
The move allows her to send money back home to Enrique so he can
eat better and go to school past the third grade.
Lourdes promises Enrique she will return quickly. But she
struggles in America. Years pass. He begs for his mother to come
back. Without her, he becomes lonely and troubled. When she calls,
Lourdes tells him to be patient. Enrique despairs of ever seeing
her again. After eleven years apart, he decides he will go find
her.
Enrique sets off alone from Tegucigalpa, with little more than a
slip of paper bearing his mother’s North Carolina telephone number.
Without money, he will make the dangerous and illegal trek up the
length of Mexico the only way he can–clinging to the sides and tops
of freight trains.
With gritty determination and a deep longing to be by his
mother’s side, Enrique travels through hostile, unknown worlds.
Each step of the way through Mexico, he and other migrants, many of
them children, are hunted like animals. Gangsters control the tops
of the trains. Bandits rob and kill migrants up and down the
tracks. Corrupt cops all along the route are out to fleece and
deport them. To evade Mexican police and immigration authorities,
they must jump onto and off the moving boxcars they call El Tren de
la Muerte–The Train of Death. Enrique pushes forward using his wit,
courage, and hope–and the kindness of strangers. It is an epic
journey, one thousands of immigrant children make each year to find
their mothers in the United States.
Based on the Los Angeles Times newspaper series that won two
Pulitzer Prizes, one for feature writing and another for feature
photography, Enrique’s Journey is the timeless story of families
torn apart, the yearning to be together again, and a boy who will
risk his life to find the mother he loves.
關於作者:
Sonia Nazario, a projects reporter for the Los Angeles Times,
has spent more than two decades reporting and writing about social
issues, earning her dozens of national awards. The newspaper series
upon which this book is based won the Pulitzer Prize for feature
writing, the George Polk Award for International Reporting, and the
Grand Prize of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards. Nazario
grew up in Kansas and Argentina. She is a graduate of Williams
College and has a master’s degree in Latin American studies from
the University of California, Berkeley. She lives in Los Angeles
with her husband. For more information, visit
www.enriquesjourney.com.
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