Enrique's Journey

Sonia Nazario is an American journalist and author best known for her six-part series “Enrique’s Journey,” published in the Los Angeles Times in 2002, with photographs by Don Bartletti. The articles served as the basis for the book, Enrique’s Journey. As a social justice activist and a child of immigrants, Nazario was well-placed to write about migrants’ experiences in an enabling and compassionate manner. Her goal to humanize migrants prompted her to retrace Enrique’s travels through Mexico to the US.

The LA Times series won over a dozen national journalism awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing, the George Polk Award for International Reporting, and the Grand Prize of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. The book has been published in eight languages. Young adult versions in English and Spanish were released in 2013. Fifty-four colleges and universities nationwide have adopted Enrique’s Journey as compulsory reading for incoming students.

Enrique is the main subject of the book. He is a quiet Honduran child who is heartbroken when his mother abandons him at the age of five. The pain lessens over time, but Enrique never forgets his mother. As he grows older, he becomes more intent on trying to find her.