Sonia Nazario
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Enrique’s Journey: The Odyssey of Immigrants

President’s Lecture Series of Diverse Scholars
As journalist Sonia Nazario clung to the top of a freight train dubbed “the train of death” with a young Honduran boy named Enrique, she had little time to consider changing the world or winning prizes. Her chronicle of Enrique’s brave odyssey to reunite with his mother in the United States, first recounted in a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper series, later in her book “Enrique’s Journey” and now in an upcoming movie for HBO, is a gripping personal perspective on one of today’s most challenging and divisive issues: immigration.
In sharing the epic journey that thousands of immigrant children make each year to find their mothers in the United States, Nazario explores the perils modern day immigrants face. With a reporter’s eye on the truth, she humanizes the issue, posing new perspectives that fall on both sides, while offering ways to change the national dialogue on the influx of immigrants and the effects they have on the state of the nation.
A projects reporter for The Los Angeles Times, Nazario has spent more than two decades reporting and writing about social issues and garnering dozens of awards, including the George Polk Award for International Reporting and the Grand Prize of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards. Tackling hot-button issues such as hunger, drug addiction and immigration, she combines sensitivity with a sensible viewpoint on the subject matter.


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