Immigration is a significantly relevant topic in modern politics, debate, and everyday life conversations. Although, many people do not have an insight to the obstacles, complications, and effects that people who migrate experience. Sonia Nazario's novel, Enrique’s Journey, greatly portrays this insight of immigration through the journey of a boy named Enrique. Through the themes of perception versus reality and abandonment, Sonia reveals the real hardships that many other young immigrants and their families undergo as a result of chasing the American dream.
Many immigrants, predominantly coming from Mexico and Central America, migrate to the U.S to escape the continuous cycle of poverty that they experience and in hope attempt to seek a brighter future for themselves and their families. Lourdes, Enrique’s mother, independently sets on a journey to America to do just so. At a young age, Lourdes’s dream of living in America was shaped by the vibrant images on television that she would see of Los Angeles, New York, and Disneyland. These images, entirely in contrast to the childhood shack that she had lived in, were engraved in her mind as she migrated to the U.S. Although, once Lourdes attempts to become situated in the U.S, her struggling reality collides with the delightful perception that she held of America. Lourdes begins to realize that Los Angeles is full of poverty and cruelty as …show more content…
The various aspects of immigration are undeniably arduous for those that experience migrating to the U.S in search for better lives. Enrique’s Journey properly portrays and gives insight to these difficulties, such as abandonment and reality conflicting with one’s perception of how America is portrayed to be. Through the story of Enrique’s journey, the reader receives a different perspective that is not normally portrayed in the media and surface of