Pulitzer Prize-Winning Sonia Nazario to Discuss America’s Immigration Dilemma on 10/23 at 4:30 PM

Illegal immigration has been a divisive issue in political elections for the last decade. It is such a sticky issue because there is no clear answer as to the best way to address the 11.5 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the United States, or to prevent that number from growing even larger. While some of this illegal population is involved in crime or the ongoing drug war, an even larger portion consists of genuine, hard-working families trying to achieve the American dream.

Pulitzer Prize-Winner Sonia Nazario addresses this immigration dilemma in her acclaimed novel, Enrique’s Journey. She uses the book not only to tell the story of her own journey, but also to provide the reader with the real-life emotions attached to this issue. While discussing America’s immigration dilemma, Nazario proposes a new way to approach lowering illegal migration.

Sonia Nazario has spent 20 years reporting and writing about social issues, most recently as a projects reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Her stories have tackled some of this country's most intractable problems: hunger, drug addiction, immigration. To date, she is the youngest writer to have been hired by the Wall Street Journal. In 2003, her story of a Honduran boy's struggle to find his mother in the US, entitled “Enrique's Journey,” won more than a dozen awards, among them the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing, the George Polk Award for International Reporting, the Grand Prize of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Guillermo Martinez-Marquez Award for Overall Excellence. Expanded into a book, “Enrique's Journey” immediately became a national bestseller and won two major book awards. It was named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, People, The Miami Herald, and the San Antonio Express-News. It has been translated into eight languages and is now required reading for incoming freshmen at dozens of colleges and high schools across the U.S.

Please join us for Pulitzer Prize-Winning Sonia Nazario’s talk, “Enrique’s Journey and America’s Immigration Dilemma,” at Silsby 028 at 4:30 pm, October 23, 2012.

Students can RSVP online for a PoliTALK hosted dinner discussion with Ms. Nazario following the public talk.