Tue 29 Nov 2011
Prize-winning author Sonia Nazario visited UW-Whitewater on Nov. 28 and spoke to a brimming Young Auditorium audience about the power of determination. This human quality is most powerfully demonstrated in immigrants. She found that determination in the story of her own family’s odysseys between Argentina, Wisconsin, and Kansas. That inherited determination helped Ms. Nazario succeed as a journalist as well.
However, Ms. Nazario was to realize this determination is puny in comparison to the drive she found among young Central Americans pulled by a desire to re-unite with mothers who immigrated before them to the U.S. The valuable contribution that Ms. Nazario’s celebrated book Enrique’s Journey makes to our roiling debate over immigration is to humanize through one family’s story that flow of abandoned children to the U.S., a stream of as much as 48,000 per year and still growing even as overall immigration has declined.
Beyond the task of putting flesh and blood on the statistics, Nazario was also willing to add her own conclusions to the immigration debate. She is critical of the efforts of the U.S. to stanch the flow of immigration, both in terms of the harm it does to humans and its futility. “When we build 700 miles of fence, honestly, we do not understand this kind of determination,” she said.
Nazario also believes that mothers make a mistake, especially in the eyes of their own children, when they decide to leave their country and children to attempt to relieve economic misery with work in the U.S. She believes the best solution is to put resources and policy decisions toward the goal of improving those conditions in the home country. Money for border fences here, for example, would be more effective if spent in micro-loan programs in countries like Honduras that allow women there the minimal amount of security and nutrition needed to persuade them to stay put.
November 30th, 2011 at 2:25 am
Sonia Nazario Reflection
The presentation started with Sonia telling us about how her father was a biochemist who died when she was 13. Her family went from middle class, to the working poor with her father’s death because her mother had never gotten a good education. Her family returned to Argentina after his death only to be thrown into a dangerous and discouraging environment. Sonia remembers how she saw blood on the ground from journalists that were killed for trying to document what the government was doing to its people. Sonia says this is the time in her life when she decided she first wanted to become a journalist.
In her studies Sonia has found that four out of every five nanny’s in Los Angeles has left a child of their own back in a home country. These women are watching other children that are not their own, but must think of the pain of their own children whom which they almost can never see. Sonia found out that over 100,000 children come to the United States each year without any parents. Most of these children are searching for their parents who left a long time ago. To get a better understanding of what Enrique went through, Sonia took the journey personally twice on top of trains. She did have a card that let her not get arrested three times by the authorities, but one time she remembers being chased by a man on top of the train. She said she lived in fear of being robbed, beaten, and raped for many months after the trip, and needed therapy to get over it. Honduras has an unemployment rate of 44% which means only half the people living there even have a real job. 12% of Honduras has no schools, which could be some of the reason education is so scarce in the country.
Her aim was for people like ourselves to become more involved and help poor countries. Instead of building a 700 mile fence, that money could have been used to help develop other countries. One of the questions that occurred to me during her presentation was, how did she live with herself seeing other people around her starving and dying on the tops of these trains? Did she help when she could (give food and water)? This presentation relates to class because it describes events which hundreds of thousands of people do every year just to try and get into the United States from Latin America.
November 30th, 2011 at 7:56 pm
During her presentation, Sonia Nazario, a journalist for the L.A. times, and author of Enrique’s Journey, discussed the issue of immigration in the United States. Throughout her career as a journalist, Nazario has tackled social issues such as drug addiction, hunger, and immigration. The book Enrique’s Journey, a national best seller, explores more in depth all of these issues. According to Nazario, what inspired her to write about the story of a Honduran boy, Enrique, and the struggle to find his mother, who immigrated to the United States, was a conversation with an immigrant woman who cleans her house, María del Carmen Ferrez. Ferrez told Nazario about the journey that thousands of Latin American children make every year to the United States in order to reunite with their mothers. Ferrez also mentioned that she had left four children behind in Guatemala and hoped to someday be able to see them again. After doing further research on this journey, Nazario decided to write about it. She found Enrique and shadowed him for a couple of weeks in Nuevo Laredo. She mentioned that she never knew what determination really meant until she made the journey herself in an attempt to trace back Enrique’s exact steps. Nazario said that the saddest part of the journey is the moment when children finally reunite with their mothers. She discussed that the so-desired reunion never has a happy ending. In the eyes of the children, mothers make a mistake by leaving them; therefore, children feel hate and resentment towards their mothers. On the other hand, mothers think of their children as ungrateful.
According to Nazario, from a social justice point of view, there are winners and losers when analyzing the immigration debate. The losers, she thinks, are the young American teenagers who do not choose to pursue a college education. These high school graduates have to compete with undocumented immigrants for jobs such as construction, factories, roofing, etc. Nazario is critical of all three of the approaches taken by the United States Government in order to reduce illegal migration in the United States. She thinks that not only has it failed, but it has worsened the problem. She claims that increasing border patrol has been nothing but extremely expensive and has only made it harder for undocumented immigrants to leave the United States when they desire to. Increased border patrol, along with guest worker programs and pathway to citizenship has done nothing but damage the illegal migration from Latin American countries to the United States. Nazario suggests focusing our foreign policy around issues of immigration. Creating more jobs and giving loans to people in Latin America so they do not have the necessity to come to the United States should be a priority. Nazario encouraged students in Whitewater to visit her website and try to get involved with students from other universities in order to together help the thousands of children that, like Enrique, attempt to make this dangerous journey.
Nazario’s presentation relates to the main topics of our class in multiple ways. In class we have talked about poverty in Honduras, Enrique’s home country and one of the poorest countries in Latin America. According to Nazario, it is because of the poor education and scarce job opportunities that single Latin American women move the United States. Nazario argued that most single mothers would rather stay in their country and that their decision to immigrate to the United States is not an easy choice to make. We also learned about drug cartels and kidnappings in Mexico. Los Zetas, a famous drug cartel in Central America is mentioned in Nazario’s novel. Los Zetas target immigrants, usually children, as their victims and they do atrocities to them. They rape and rob immigrants who are making the journey to the United States, sometimes they even kill them. Kidnapping for ransom, which we talked about in the current events blogs, was explored by Nazario during her presentation. She talked about Los Zetas, who kidnap children who are looking for their mothers and then steal the piece of paper where children wrote their mother’s telephone number. After contacting their mothers and asking for ransom, gangsters make the decision of either letting the children go or murdering them.
One question that I have for Nazario is if she has gotten any offers to make a movie based on her book?
November 30th, 2011 at 10:05 pm
Sonia Nazario , the author of Enrique’s Journey, gave a presentation November 28th at Whitewater’s Young Auditorium. Her message stressed the power of determination as she spoke about immigration and her own personal journey to become a journalist.
Because of the results of the “Dirty War” in Argentina, at age fourteen Nazario decided to become a journalist. She felt driven to inform people of what was really going on. Eventually, Nazario and her family moved to Kansas, and then she progressed on to Williams College. Upon graduation, she was hired by the Wall-Street journal at age 21. Nazario claims that her success at such a young age came directly from her hard work and determination.
Nazario’s initial interest in Latin American immigration began when she found out her cleaning lady had left four children at home in Mexico. She didn’t understand how a mother could leave her children, so she felt compelled to investigate. This was the birth of her research. From here, Nazario’s research brought her to the realization of how many single mothers leave their children behind in hopes to provide more for them in America. Also, she explained how children long for their mothers, and will do everything it takes to reunite with them. She emphasized how there isn’t just one boy like Enrique, but millions of children. Millions of children and women face this treacherous journey. To anyone else, the danger of riding on top of trains, no shelter, gang violence, and corrupt law enforcement would be enough to stay, but not for these determined children.
One thing that stood out to me was that Nazario voluntarily made the journey herself. This makes her book and presentation all the more credible because she has seen it first-hand. As we have talked about in class, the drug cartels and gangs target immigrants. They usually beat them, rob them, and rape the women. As for Nazario, she even came close to being grabbed by a gang member. She illustrated how she had nightmares about being raped and had to go to therapy. On the other hand, Nazario also spoke about Christian Mexicans, the dominant religion in Latin America, who would make care packages and throw them to people riding on the trains.
In conclusion, Nazario believes the U.S efforts are ineffective to stop the flow of immigrants due to their resilient determination. She feels the best way to put an end to the problem is to improve the living conditions of the home country. This way, there would be some inspiration for families to stay together.
December 1st, 2011 at 12:33 pm
Sonia Nazario spoke to us about determination; her determination during her time at Williams College and in her journalism and Enrique’s determination to come to the United States to reunite with his mother. She gave us a brief version of her life story. Her family immigrated to the US from Argentina and at age 13, when her father suddenly died of a heart attack, her family returned to Argentina. This was during the Argentine ‘Dirty War’ where thousands were disappeared by the government; some of Sonia’s friends were among them. At 14, after seeing the blood of 2 journalists who disappeared she decided to become one herself so she could help tell the truth about things. After graduating from college she was hired by the Wall St. Journal and wrote mainly about women, children and Latinos relating to social justice issues. She used the “fly on the wall” technique of reporting where she would write about things as they were happening. She gave some statistics on illegal immigrants, for example, 51% of undocumented immigrants are women and children. She spoke of the fact that immigrants are more likely to stay in the US because of such tight border security. She also spoke of the extreme desperation of those that come illegally to the US. For example, the 44% unemployment in Honduras is one of the driving forces that compel those people to leave their home country.
The part of her talk I enjoyed most was when she recounted her story of how she got started in her research on kids like Enrique and her eventual trip south to experience some of what he went through. She asked her housekeeper if she wanted more children and found out that she in fact had 4 other children she left behind to come to the US to work. Being a mother, I completely identified with Ms. Nazario’s reaction to leaving one’s children. She said that she thought they were lousy moms for doing that and how impossible it was to imagine even doing that to your kids. I thought the same thing when I began reading her book, Enrique’s Journey. However, upon finishing the book my thoughts had completely changed from judgmental to understanding. I can understand the complete desperation that the mother feels, like she has no other choice. In countries like Honduras, they really don’t seem to have any other alternative. Seeing your children suffer is horrible, so going to the US to make money so they can have a decent life I’m sure looks like an amazing opportunity, one that cannot be passed up. Ms. Nazario said “it’s easier to demonize them than to try to understand them”. How are we supposed to address the problem of illegal immigration and attempt a solution if we don’t try to understand the reasons they come? I don’t think building longer and taller walls across the border is a very good attempt at trying to truly understand the problem. I admire that she offered some solutions to the immigration issue. Creating jobs in Latin American countries, micro-loans and promotion of education were some of her solutions. She also said that moms wouldn’t leave their kids if they were able to clothe, feed and send them to school. That doesn’t sound like too much to ask for to me.
December 1st, 2011 at 2:40 pm
Sonia Nazario visited Whitewater on November 28, 2011. Her visit was well very successful by bringing insight and a new perspective to many students who are not fully aware of the situations and topics in Central America. Through her book and presentation she informed us of the poverty and desperation of people in poverty stricken countries.
Her presentation began with her informing us of how she originally became interested in writing. The story was eye opening to me and provided readers with a realistic perspective to many of the topics we had mentioned in class. Although we have spoken of many wars in class I believe it is easy to distance ourselves from the reality and cruelty of these wars. Sonia’s family moved back to Argentina at the beginning of the “dirty war”. People who spoke up against the government were detained, tortured, or even killed. These people were her neighbors and friends. She explained of her fear of walking down the streets and one particular occasion walking by a blood spattered street. When Sonia asked her mother why the people had been killed her mother explained they were journalist speaking out against the government. From that moment on Sonia Nazario was determined to become a writer. From reading her book and listening to her presentation I don’t believe she is just a writer, I believe she writes for those who are unable to write or fear speaking out.
Enrique’s story shows the fear that immigrants have to speak out through out their journey and even in the United States. During Enrique’s journey, he along with other immigrants would face corrupt officers who would steal from them. They would also face gangsters who would brutally beat and steal from them. The immigrants had no outlet to turn to for the numerous injustices that would occur during their trip. However along the way as Sonia had mentioned their were also amazing people who would offer immigrants anything they had available. These people tended to be religious and doing the will of the Lord. Lastly when immigrants do get to the United States fear stays in their hearts. Mothers fear the well being of their children. Immigrants fear that they will be found and deported back; preventing them to provide food for their family once again.
Sonia wrapped up her discussion by informing us of the numerous good and bad aspects as far as immigration. The facts were both statistical in nature as well as emotional. From all the information she provided, to me, one thing was clear and that is taking everything into perspective there is no clear-cut answer to immigration, and it is ignorant and foolish to think otherwise. I also believe it showed me it is only ignorance to judge others given the opportunities we have in the United States.
I was aware of many of these topics including immigration, religion, and drugs from our class discussions. However, Sonia Nazario gave these issues a real life aspect that only a renowned writer has the capabilities taking their reader into journey they can only imagine.
December 1st, 2011 at 9:45 pm
Sonia Nazario’s event was quiet eye opening. Sure as I read the book I understood the idea of what Enrique has been through, but for some reason it clicked more, especially from hearing Nazario’s explanation of what she went to as she traveled through Central America just to get to the United States. Her speech really made me realize how lucky I am to be living here in the U.S., how much I should be thankful for my family staying together and what I have been given for as life so far. These poor children from Central America are completly poor and their parents, mainly mothers, leave them to go and make money to send back to their children who still live at in their home country.
Sonia Nazario explained how ever since her fathers death, from her family being poor, and seeing how the military was treating the people of Argentina, it made her an even more of a determined person. Seeing the journalists blood made Sonia realize that she wanted to be a journalist. As her carrer sparked, she heard a story from Carmen, which set off flames for Nazario. The determined writer first explained, once she heard Carmens story, she felt angry. As in how could Carmen leave her family back at home, especially when they needed her. While Sonia explained more about her travel and what she had to do to get through “Enrique’s Journey” to the United States, my eyes opened wide from being shocked. I was shocked from all the events that she put herself through, and what she saw on top of trains etc. I have a great deal of respect for Sonia Nazario and her determination as a person. While I was listening to her speak, I came up with the questions: “How was she not afraid of being taken by one of the ‘gangs’?” or “When she said she would go to a hotel and eat or buy food, would she share with the others who were in desperate need of food?” “Would she give some donations to families who needed it?”
Reading this book, talking about similar topics in class and hearing Sonia Nazario’s speech has really made me think and come to realize how lucky I am to have the life that I do, and has made me decide to help more people in need. People who don’t have money, who don’t have a family. So many people and their families go through so much just to live a better life here in the United States. It’s quite interesting to see people like Sonia Nazario taking matters into their own hands and putting themselves in to the Central American Immigrants shoes.
December 2nd, 2011 at 12:17 pm
Sonia Nazario Reflection
Sonia Nazario is a pulitzer prize winning author, and on Monday, UW Whitewater had the honor of hosting her lecture. She spoke of her determination as a child, witnessing injustice and government terrorism in the Argentinian Dirty War. She knew at a young age that she wanted to become a journalist and give a voice to the helpless.
Nazario went to Williams College in Massachusetts and became 1 of 5 latin american students on a campus of 2,000. She graduated with honors and became the youngest person ever to be hired at the Wall Street Journal, but she soon discovered that her determination was dwarfed by that of desperate latin american children. One day as she got ready for work, she asked her cleaning lady Carmen if she wanted to have any more children. Carmen responded that she had four more children back in Guatemala, and had left them to earn money in the United States. Nazario learned that this story was extremely common, and Carmen’s response became Nazario’s inspiration for Enrique’s Journey.
Nazario interviewed hundreds of children who made the journey to the U.S., and each story contained determination she had never imagined as well as gruesome details of the dangers of “la bestia”. She learned that not only are there robbers and thieves aboard the train, but corrupt police, gangs, and “la migra” who steal money and rape the women. And if the immigrants aren’t killed from these dangers, the train itself can be the most deadly force of all. Thousands of immigrants die or are maimed from the wheels of “la bestia” each year.
Nazario also spoke of people who dedicate their lives to helping immigrants. These people who live in the rural areas of Mexico are extremely poor themselves, and often barely have enough to get by. And yet, these people give the most. Whether it be tortillas, water, or even prayers, they do everything they can to make the immigrants’ journey a little easier.
Nazario learned that over 50% of illegal immigrants coming to he U.S. are women and children. While overall immigration numbers have gone down, the number of children immigrants continues to steadily increase. Nazario’s central idea was that we need to tackle these issues at the source, creating foreign policy that helps the families and economies of countries like honduras where 44% of the population is unemployed. She argued that the money being spent on border patrol would be much more efficiently spent on education and economic support.
In this class we have learned about the negative effects of colonialism and the devastating impact it has had on the majority of latin american countries. This issue seems extremely apparent when reading about the living conditions in countries such as Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico. However, with increasing globalization, human rights violations are being brought into the light by reporters like Nazario, and it is becoming possible for people as far away from these issues as Wisconsin to lend a helping hand. I was extremely inspired by this lecture as well as the book itself. Even one person can make a difference, and hopefully many more will become tuned in to this issue through Nazario’s writing.
December 3rd, 2011 at 12:32 am
This presentation focused on Sonia Nazario’s determination in life as well as the determination in the lives of Enrique and other children who risk it all on the journey to find their mothers. During most of Nazario’s childhood, her family was middle class and did pretty well financially, but all of that changed when she was 13 and her father died. Her mother had to work numerous jobs and Sonia had to find part-time work as a busboy in order to help support the family. Part of her childhood relates to our class in which we discussed poverty several times and it’s also something prevalent in “Enrique’s Journey.” After attending Williams College she attained a job for the Wall Street Journal (youngest person they’ve ever hired) and from there she went to work for the LA Times where she really began digging deeper into social issues for Latinos and Latin America. Like the beginning of the book stated, Nazario’s conversation with her maid Carmen began her focused study, research, and writing on the journeys of Latin American children to the United States to reunite with their mothers. During her presentation, she brought up some eye-opening statistics such as 100,000 children are coming to the U.S. per year without parents, 51% of the 11 million illegal immigrants are women and their children, and there is 44% unemployment in Honduras compared to 9% in the U.S. The topic of immigration was brought up numerous times in class, more in depth with our guest Jazmin Castellanos, so it was very informative hearing more statistics to go along with the information we learned in class. Nazario reiterated in her presentation (like she does in her book) that if these children are able to successfully finish the journey (most do not make it) that the reunions with their mothers is not happily ever after because of all the resentment the children have towards their mother for leaving, and the mother’s anger with the lack of gratefulness their children have for what she sacrificed. She was also able to give us a more recent update about Enrique, Lourdes and other characters from the book saying that they’re still together in the U.S. (Belky is still in Honduras), but Enrique has continued to struggle with drug addictions. Drugs were also a topic of discussion in class as well as during a presentation from Ellie Schemenauer when she presented drug trafficking to our class. Overall, it was a great presentation from the author that wrote the most interesting book I’ve read in my three years at UW-Whitewater.
One question I would have for Nazario: Would you ever consider running for some sort of political office (maybe as a senator) in order to bring greater attention to the material you write about?
December 4th, 2011 at 4:29 pm
Listening to Sonia Nazario’s speech I learned many things. Nazario learned first hand how corrupt the world really can be. Seeing blood on the pavement from two journalist who died because they stated the truth; determination then grew on Nazario to do the same. Nazario and a recent speaker to our class, Dr. Pilar Melero, had similar ideas. While Nazario wanted to report the truth, Melero is trying to uncover and portray the truth of how women actually helped during the Mexican Revolutionary War.
Although Nazario gave an overview of the book, her main point was describing the determination and willingness of children to give up everything to reunite with their parents. She explains how numbers of immigrants coming to United States have gone from men to women, and now an increasing number of children migrants. She describes how much their family has to be suffering for the mothers to leave their children. When the mothers leave, they tell their children they will only be away for one to two years; with stricter law enforcement, the women get stuck in the U.S. and end up staying seven to ten years. The children become deprived waiting for their mothers. They begin to think their mother doesn’t love them anymore. This is a big reason why the children are willing to go through great lengths to reunite. Every year there are more and more barriers, some of these include the Zetas, the Mara Salvatrucha gang, corrupt law enforcement and more enforcement on U.S. border. Even though it is becoming harder for the children to make it safely there is still an increasing number of children coming to the U.S.
Nazario is determined to find a way to stop the inflow of immigrants. She believes increasing law enforcement and building the border fence are inefficient and cost too much. She believes providing education and sending money straight to the countries will help families from having to leave. The subject of poverty is also shown through our class when we researched countries like Honduras. This is one of the poorest countries in Latin America and one of the largest numbers of immigrants leaving. With help provided directly to Honduras, immigrants less fortunate won’t have to leave.
A question I have to Nazario is by sending money straight to the source, what’s the chance corrupt government officials won’t just take the money and not help those who need it?
December 4th, 2011 at 7:11 pm
Sonia Nazario visited UW-Whitewater on November 28th to give a lecture in the Young Auditorium about the importance of determination, but most importantly, how determination pushes those mothers who come to the United States illegally leaving their children behind, which is the case of many Latin American mothers in countries such as Honduras.
To give us a better idea of this, Sonia Nazario talked about her book Enrique’s Journey and used as an example the life of Enrique who was only a kind when he decided to leave Honduras and go to the U.S. in search for her mother. In her story, Sonia said that she decided to take the same route Enrique did in order to understand how difficult and dangerous it is to cross the border illegally, and the risks that many children take in order to be with their mothers.
Sonia also showed us some pictures of her crossing the border. In those pictures we saw how children risk their lives on top of a train with no food, water or even cloth to remain warm when it is cold. However, she also showed us some pictures of other people in little towns where the train passes through give food to those immigrants on the train, which made me think about how people with noble hearts are willing to help others, even if that means giving away the only one tortilla they may have.
Among all points Sonia presented, the one I considered the most important is the irony of how those children left behind reproach their mothers for trying to give them a better future. Also, this lecture helped me to better understand the risks that people take in illegally crossing the border to the U.S. Is it possible to fix this? Is it possible to help those children to have a better future?
December 4th, 2011 at 8:38 pm
Sonia Nazario Reflection
On Monday night Sonia Nazario came to campus and shared about her insightful and poignant book Enrique’s Journey. She spoke about her childhood and determination in wanting to prove herself to family. She witnessed firsthand how people were killed for unveiling the truth about the corruption of governments during the dirty war. As a result of that experience she realized the immense power of words and devoted her life to becoming a journalist. She attended college at Williams in Massachusetts, where she was one of five Latinos on campus. After college she sought to make a difference by reporting on issues of social justice, poverty and women. She took a special interest in the issue of immigration and how it impacts the relationships of families across Central America. Her intention was to shed light on the situation and humanize immigrants, so that readers could truly understand their hardships. She shared several statistics that were really thought provoking. Four out of five live-in nannies still have at least one child that they left behind in their native country. She discussed how in families where mothers left their native countries to find work in the United States, disintegration of the family is very common. Approximately fifty one percent of those family units are composed of a woman and her children, without a significant male influence involved. In Central American countries, almost one in four children are either immigrants or the children of immigrants. She discussed how life in the United States is a lot more challenging than advertised because of the higher living costs. It ends up taking five to ten years on average before mothers can fulfill their promise by saving enough money to return to their native country. She evaluated the costs and benefits of mothers leaving their children behind to find work in the United States. In the majority of cases, mothers were able to afford more for their families with the cost of losing the love of their children. In her opinion, mothers make the wrong decision by coming to the United States, because by doing so they lose the most precious thing- their child’s love. Her goal is ultimately to keep immigrant families together. She suggests that microloans, foreign policy centered on helping families, promoting education (especially for girls), purchasing fair trade items and strengthening governments willing to attack corruption are all beneficial strategies for improving the well-being of Latin American communities. In order to be reunited with their mothers, children as young as seven years old make the perilous journey to the United States. Along the way thousands are beaten, raped, killed or deported back to their home countries. The Zetas are a prominent drug-affiliated gang known for their brutality. They often kidnap migrants and steal their possessions or call relatives to demand money. Although many take advantage of migrants during the journey, there are others who seek to help them. Many churches and individuals in Veracruz redeemed humanity by giving selflessly to those in need. After hearing from Sonia Nazario and reading Enrique’s journey I was wondering if there is a higher percentage of male or female children making the journey to search for their mothers in the United States. Many of the topics Sonia Nazario addressed in her talk are relevant to what we have been learning in class discussions. We have talked about how the legacy of colonialism is one of the major factors in the poverty of Latin America today. We also discussed how poverty is often characterized by children selling goods and working at a young age, families moving around a lot, instability, cramped living arrangements, lack of education, and increased crime rates. As seen with Lourdes’ life in Enrique’s Journey, there is a tendency for men to be less involved in family life. We spent a lot of time in class discussing the benefits of education and how the lack of education contributes to the corruption and problems within societies like Honduras and Guatemala. As a result, people in those areas often don’t know their rights or what they are fighting for.
December 4th, 2011 at 9:35 pm
Sonia Nazario
Sonia came in and talked about Her award winning book. She talked to use about her life as well as what she did to make the book along with her journey. The beginning of her life was very hard on her and her family as Her father died at a early age. After that Her family moved back to Argentina which there economy was not good people where getting murdered for trying to report what was happening as she saw blood at the home of two reporters. As well as her friends that where taking in and one was murdered. Just seeing the type of things she saw there inspired her to become what she became a reporter and report what is actually happening in the real world.
Sonia became very interested in writing about the dangerous adventure when she was talking to her nanny one morning and the nanny told her about her kids back home. First though that Sonia had was how could a parent leave her kids. She later did research into this and found out that most nannies have kids left behind and that most that cross the border are female. Which to me was very interesting as I would of thought that it would have been the other way around. She interviewed kids that took the journey to go find there moms in the USA. So after hearing the stories of the dangerous journey she has heard of. She took the journey twice seeing the gangs and at one incidence she had to run to get the conductor to help her.
The message she wanted to get out was the hardship that the immigrants go through and what the USA could do to help out like send them money to make schools so they have an education and know what they are fighting for. This has a lot to do with what we talked about the what other speaks have with women like when two of them said women have a major rule in the Latin American area. With women having a major part of the revolt. Women being the ones that are being used to get the drugs back America. Women have a major part in The Latin American history and this just proves it further. If I had one question I would ask do you think that it is going to get harder and harder to get to America and the journey going to get more dangerous as it goes along. I would hope not but from what it seems it is only going to get worse for them.
December 4th, 2011 at 9:57 pm
After reading the intriguing story of Enrique’s Journey, by Sonia Nazario, we got to hear from the author herself, learning of her background story, and more background information on the book. Sonia Nazario started out telling us of her childhood in Kansas of surprisingly being seen as the not-so-smart jock of the family. She liked to ride horses and was always athletic from the get-go. Later, when she was 13 years old, her father had a heart attack, causing the family to move back to Argentina, where they had originally migrated from. The problem was that they moved back to Argentina at one of the worst times, in which gangs were a problem and the economy was low. As Sonia aged, she tagged along with her boyfriend and went to a top news/reporter college called Williams. She was incredibly overwhelmed, for she was no top scholar and was only average in highschool at best. It took time for her to adjust, but the early death of her father always provided that inner strength for Sonia Nazario, providing much determination. She realized that none of the students surrounding her were that much smarter, just more prepared and organized. Ever since then she has been driven off of pure determination, and lead her to the success she has become. Sonia didn’t even have an idea how to write at the start of her career, but that never stopped her from being a successful writer and author over time.
Sonia Nazario then spoke to us more about the book and Enrique’s Journey. We learned more detailed information about Nazario’s risky and courageous journey on top of the trains, to relive a small fraction of what Enrique had to experience. Despite having a get-out-of-jail free card, the trip Nazario voluntarily took is still unbelievably courageous in my eyes. Sonia Nazario did not get by with no scares, for she was hauled to jail a few times, and even had a scary experience of being approached by the gangsters she tried so hard to avoid. She even experienced intense nightmares that gangsters would try to rape her, and had to get therapy for this. The Zetas were the #1 reason immigrants don’t ride the trains.
Two questions I came across were already addressed, but I wondered how often Sonia Nazario keeps in contact now days with Enrique and his family. Does she write to them? Visit him face to face? How do Enrique and his family feel about Sonia writing a book on Enrique? Are they honored? I also wondered, like another poster, was Sonia allowed to help others on the train when in desperate need?
The story of Enrique can relate to many topics we’ve come across in class. Gangsters from drug cartels we’ve learned from Ellie Schemeneaur, and immigration in general are heavily involved in Enrique’s journey, just of a different form and location. Gangsters and immigration is worldwide.
December 5th, 2011 at 10:20 am
Sonia Nazario’s presentation at UW-Whitewater last Monday was extremely interesting and eye-opening. Even if you hadn’t read her book, Enrique’s Journey, you would have come away with a much better understanding of women and children crossing the US border illegally. She started off her presentation by giving her life story and credentials. Nazario was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and moved with her family when she was very young to Kansas. This is where she grew up until her father died in her early teens. Her mother decided to move the family back to Buenos Aires, where, unfortunately, the so called “Dirty War” was taking place. The Argentine government’s complete silencing of all journalistic reporting throughout the country’s war was what gave Nazario the inspiration and push to become a journalist back in the US. She then went to Williams college where she graduated with honors and became the youngest journalist to be hired by the Wall Street Journal at age twenty-one. Throughout her career she became more and more interested in the immigration issue and began investigating the phenomenon of women and children making the long and dangerous journey north from Central America. Her main concern in her studies was the effect emigrating mothers had on their children that were left behind in their home countries. She made the same trip that one young boy, Enrique, made in order to meet up with his mother in the US. On the way she encountered numerous obstacles and dangerous situations, but she also saw the compassion and understanding of the people helping to make the trip more bearable. Overall, Nazario admits that since she had never been in the situation of these poor mothers who didn’t have enough to feed their children, she would never be able to fully understand the ability to leave them behind to emigrate to another country, but all in all she considers this process undesirable at best. The lasting effects this journey has on the children and families in general outweigh the benefits of the money that is sent home each month.
This presentation ties in perfectly with what we have been discussing in class this semester. The discussion of poverty in Latin America and the need to immigrate to the US played a huge part in Nazario’s lecture. The idea of women’s roles in Latin American society also played a big part in the lecture. Since the woman is primarily considered the center of the family, it goes without saying that there is a great amount of concern for the leaving of children behind in order to make a better life for them. If I were to ask Sonia Nazario one question after her lecture it would be, “How long do you think it would take to build up the Latin American countries’ economies if developed countries like the US sent microloans on a regular basis? Is this a realistic option?”
December 5th, 2011 at 2:50 pm
Sonia Nazario, a prize winning author for her book Enrique’s Journey, came to visit our campus and speak to us in the Young Auditorium about this book and about her experiences that got her where she is today. She became intrigued in this topic of immigration, poverty, and family separation mainly after speaking with her maid. This maid’s story of departure from her four children at home inspired her to do more research on the topic. This process included travelling the same dangerous journey that so many immigrants had attempted time and time again to get to the United States. After experiencing this journey she was able to use her impressive writing background, including graduating with honors from Williams College and working at the Wall Street Journal, which qualified her perfectly to depict the struggles of Enrique adequately.
She went into great detail of the immense determination that many children had in order to gain unification with their mothers; mothers often made the difficult decision to move to the United States in order to get money to support their families. She was able to learn about this first hand as she actually went on the path that Enrique encountered during his eight attempts. This was a very dangerous task that she agreed to perform and it nearly took her life. What she discovered while doing this was brutal attacks by gangs, risky travelling methods, and pure faith to make it. The shocking images that she had displayed showing the wounds or explaining the deaths of some children were eye opening. I never realized what lengths these children were willing to go on to just be with their mothers again.
The main reason that this separation between mothers and their children is occurring is due to poverty. Since poverty is such a massive issue in Latin American countries, it often leaves the mother no choice but to travel to the United States. We have often discuss in class how poverty is completely transforming the way Latinos live their life as they go to great measures to simply eat a meal each day.
After hearing her lecture on immigration issues and our discussions in class, Sonia made me realize that our government shouldn’t be wasting so much money on building a wall to keep immigrants out. With the determination that these children have (some continuing to try after nearly 27 attempts) a wall isn’t going to keep them out. Our government is simply wasting money and time with a project that will not be able to stop the strong will of these immigrants to come to America.
Sonia Nazario is an exceedingly respected author and I hope to read more about her experiences with immigration and how Enrique and his family continue to survive. She gave me a broader aspect on the idea of family and made me more appreciative for what I have, as well as opening my eyes to how our governments function.
December 6th, 2011 at 12:17 am
Sonia Nazario’s speech was very interesting. If you had read the book a lot of it was a review, but she still shed light on things that weren’t in the book. She talked about her own personal experience of moving from Argentina, where she was born to the United States. She lived in Kansas with her family until her dad died in her teens. Her mom then moved them back to her home town of Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was with her mom when she saw where two journalists were shot and killed by the Argentina government and this is when Sonia decided to become a journalist. She graduated from Williams College with honors and was hired by the Wall Street Journal at the age of 21. She was always interested in immigration issues. She focused on women and children that would emigrate from Latin America because she felt like they didn’t get recognized as much as the men. She wanted to see how much strain was put on the children when their mothers immigrated to the United States. To get the same experience that Enrique and Lourdes experienced on their journey she went on the same journey that they went on. She tried to make is as realistic as she could. She had a paper from the President that gave her permission to take this journey, which allowed Sonia to stay out of jail three times. Listening to what she had to say from her experience and talking with Enrique and Lourdes she gave us her view on the situation. She kind of hinted that we need to do more on helping the people from Latin America. She said that if we give loans directly to the people who need the loans, help their education, and improve their government.
In class we have talked a lot about Honduras and Latin America. We read Enrique’s Journey to be more informed before Sonia Narzario’s speech. We have talked about how drugs and gangs have been a huge influence on young children.
The question that I would have to ask Sonia Nazario is how long do you think it’s going to take for people to stop making the journey?
December 6th, 2011 at 10:54 pm
When Sonia Nazario spoke at the Young Auditorium she talked about her life, what made her want to write the book, and what she did to learn more about what Latin American children and mothers go through when trying to get to the United States. She started out her presentation by giving a little bit of background information about her life. She told us how her family migrated from Argentina when she was very young and how she was the jock growing up. When she was thirteen her father died forcing her and her family to move back to Argentina. When they got there it was a mess the government was killing people for no reason and if someone tried to get the news out of what was going on there they were killed also. One day when walking down the sidewalk she saw blood on the sidewalk outside of the house of two journalists and later learned that they were killed by the government for trying to spread the news of what the government was doing in Argentina. This is what inspired Nazario to become a journalist. When she returned to the United States she decided to go to Williams college with her boyfriend. When she got there she found out she was not prepared. This meant should would have to work extra hard to catch up to the other students. She says that her determination is what kept her going. When she graduated from Williams college with honors she then became the youngest writer to work for the Wall Street Journal. After she talked about her life she told the audience about what inspired her to write her book. The reason she wrote Enrique’s Journey was because her nanny told her how she left some of her children behind to come work in the U.S. and Sonia wanted to find out what conditions would make a mother even consider leaving her children behind. Nazario then went on to describe how she got the information to write her book and what she learned in the process. One question that came to my mind during the presentation was “Why do so many men leave their wives and children in Latin America?”. Sonia Nazario’s presentation related to some of the current events we did that were about gangs and kidnappings in Mexico.
December 6th, 2011 at 11:48 pm
Sonia Nazario made the trip to UW-Whitewater November 28th to speak to the audience about Enrique’s Journey, specifically about the determination so many immigrants possess. Throughout her presentation, the students were given such a great opportunity to hear a first-hand perspective of the poverty, hardships, and dangers immigrants faced in their journeys to America. As Nazario explained, she felt like her own determination throughout her life was nothing compared to the adversity immigrants dealt with.
Her presentation began with her enlightening us of how she originally became interesting in writing. In Argentina during the “Dirty Wars”, where people who spoke out towards the government authorities were captured and even killed, Nazario first felt impelled to do something. At only the age of 14, she walked past blood on the streets where two journalists were killed. She felt that the people deserved to know the truth and was determined to do so. From here, she moved to Kansas and then onto Williams College in Massachusetts. Nazario claimed that she had never written a paper over 3 pages before and wasn’t ready for this level of school, but she worked incredibly hard and eventually graduated with honors. Preceding graduation, Sonia was hired by the Wall Street Journal at the age of 21, making her the youngest person ever to be hired there. However, a discussion with her Latin American cleaning lady about how she left her kids in her home country to work in the U.S caught her attention. This was the motivation behind Enrique’s Journey.
Nazario gave us a detailed message regarding the process of immigration. With the poverty rates as they are and the disbanding of male roles in families, mothers are immigrating to the U.S to seek a higher income. They then send money back home to support their kids and eventually hope to be able to smuggle them to the U.S also. Like Enrique and millions of others, young immigrants are making a dangerous journey to reunite with mothers who left them behind. Nazario goes into detail of the dangers of the journey. Immigrants ride on trains, which prove to be fatal and injury prone. Gang members, which we have learned are prevalent throughout our class, are consistently posted up, looking to beat, rape and rob immigrants. They encounter corrupt police forces and risk the chance of being deported. They face the chance of starving for days with no shelter. All of these factors, which would make most reconsider the attempt to immigrate at all, do not phase the determination by these young people.
One thing that made Nazario even more credible was the fact she made the journey first hand herself. She rode on top of trains and traveled the same route Enrique did, but of course, there were still circumstances she could not mirror. Sonia described a time when she was grabbed by a man, most likely a gang member, but was able to bust lose. This incident resulted in nightmares for her and eventually therapy was needed to stop them. Nazario did encounter people who did what they could to help immigrants. She explained that Christian people made gift bags and threw them to passengers on top of trains and offered water for others.
Sonia Nazario came to learn that 50% of illegal immigrants coming to the U.S are women and children. Her bottom line conclusion was that mothers are doing more harm to their families by leaving. She feels that the improvements that need to be made should begin with improving living conditions in the home countries of Latin America.
December 7th, 2011 at 12:22 am
Sonia Nazario’s presentation was very eye opening. It was interesting to learn some of her life story and how she was inspired to write the book Enrique’s Journey. She talked about how her family came to the United States as immigrants and about how her father was a scientist and how he died when she was young and how after he died they returned to Argentina. She also talked about how bad the crime was in Argentina and how when she walked around town she always had to walk with a friend or another person. She told us about how she use to ride horses when she was younger and when she went to college she could barely write a paper and when she graduated from Williams college she graduated at the top of her class with honors and landed a job with the Wall Street Journal which was interesting. She also explained how in Latin America mothers leave there children with family members and they go to the United States for work in hope that the money they make will make their children’s lives better in hope of making more money. She also explained how some children will try and escape Latin America to get the united Sates just to reunite with their mothers. It was also neat listening to her tell us stories when she retraced parts of Enrique’s journey herself such as riding on top of trains across parts of South America and the dangerous encounters she had. Sonia also said she had a “get out of jail free card” for her journeys. I also thought it was neat how she stays in touch with Enrique and his family. So the question I have for Sonia after her visit to Whitewater is with how difficult and dangerous the journey is for immigrants trying to cross the border into the United States which has more border patrol agents since 9/11 is how does this influence immigrants decisions to try and cross into the United States?
December 7th, 2011 at 12:37 am
Sonia Nazario, the author of “Enrique’s Journey,” gave a presentation at the Young Auditorium November 28th. She spoke about her background, her life journey, her book, and the power of determination. When Sonia was 13 her father had a heart attack, forcing Sonia and her family back to their hometown in Argentina. At this time there were many economic and gang problems in Argentina. There was also corruption among the Argentinean government. Reporters were murdered for speaking out and having a voice and Sonia saw this and then decided she wanted to become a reporter. Her determination grew as she wanted to prove herself to her family and give a voice to the people who are afraid to speak up. For experience and research Sonia took Enrique’s journey on train tops twice. This speaks volumes about her determination and the lengths she’s willing to go to for her work in journalism. In her research she found that even though overall immigration has declined, the number of children attempting to make the journey to the United States has increased. The fact that children are making the grueling journey through Central American shows the strength of determination and emotions these kids have for their mothers who have left. Sonia talked about the effects of the mothers leaving their families and the problems this creates and how money should be used to help better people in their home country instead of using it to try and prevent immigration. Everything she talked about related heavily to class discussions. Such as the emotional problems caused when a mother leaves her family and the effects this leaves on the children. The mothers leave so they can send money back home to economically better their family because of the poverty their in. Sonia’s presentation was very moving and I was left with the question for her of, “Do you think the United States and other governments will provide aid and/or change current spending as to benefit the people in need back in their home countries to encourage them to stay instead of spending money to keep them out when they do leave?
December 7th, 2011 at 9:53 pm
Award winning author and journalist Sonia Nazario came to Whitewater to talk not only about her book, Enrique’s Journey, but about what led to the making of this book. She began by explaining that her father died when she was just a teenager, fueling her desire to work hard. Her inspiration to become a journalist came when while in Argentina, during the Dirty Wars, Nazario witnessed two dead journalists. During the Dirty Wars, the government often “silenced” journalists. After that, she attended college at Williams College and graduated with honors. She was hired right away by the Wall Street Journal when she was only 21 years old, the youngest person ever to be hired there. However, it was when she spoke with her maid did she become inspired and interested in the immigration and poverty in Latin America. To get the same feeling and experience as Enrique did, she rode on top of trains and traveled his same path. I can only imagine how frightening it must have been, knowing that gangs, such as the Zetas, and corrupt police officers were all around. But she did conclude that around 51% of Latin Americans who immigrate into the United States are mainly women and children. Many are driven to this stage, to abandon their children and families, due to the poverty in their own countries. I understand there is no easy right or wrong answer for the topic of immigration; however, I do wonder what her true perspective on it is?