America's Immigration Dilemma: Valley Voices interview with Sonia Nazario

The boy that I wrote about didn't see his mom for 11 years, he was incredibly  lonely and had a part missing without his mother by his side.

On Tuesday, October 23, Pulitzer Prize-Winner Writer Sonia Nazario was on campus and discussed, "Enrique's Journey and the America's Immigration Dilemma." Her Pulitzer Prize-winning book Enrique’s Journey tells the gripping story of a boy from Central America who made a dangerous and illegal journey through Mexico on top of freight trains — a trip that Nazario herself took twice in researching the story. She gives us an inside look at a journey that thousands of Mexican and Central American children make every year.

The story is inspired by her housekeeper, whom when Nazario asked if she wanted to have more kids "went silent and explained to me that she left four children behind in Guatemala.... [She said] most days I could feed my kids once, maybe twice but at night my kids would cry with hunger and I didn't have anything to give them... [I told them] sleep face down so that your stomach doesn't growl so much."

Valley Voices had an in depth interview with Nazario. To hear more, visit the Valley Voices website.