Starred Review for Publishers Weekly (Thu Apr 28 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

Soon to be turned into an HBO dramatic series, Nazario's account of a 17-year-old boy's harrowing attempt to find his mother in America won two Pulitzer Prizes when it first came out in the <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">Los Angeles Times. Greatly expanded with fresh research, the story also makes a gripping book, one that viscerally conveys the experience of illegal immigration from Central America. Enrique's mother, Lourdes, left him in Honduras when he was five years old because she could barely afford to feed him and his sister, much less send them to school. Her plan was to sneak into the United States for a few years, work hard, send and save money, then move back to Honduras to be with her children. But 12 years later, she was still living in the U.S. and wiring money home. That's when Enrique became one of the thousands of children and teens who try to enter the U.S. illegally each year. Riding on the tops of freight trains through Mexico, these young migrants are preyed upon by gangsters and corrupt government officials. Many of them are mutilated by the journey; some go crazy. The breadth and depth of Nazario's research into this phenomenon is astounding, and she has crafted her findings into a story that is at once moving and polemical. Photos not seen by <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">PW. <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">(Feb. 28)

ALA Booklist (Wed Feb 01 00:00:00 CST 2006)

An estimated 48,000 children illegally enter the U.S. each year from Mexico and Central America in search of mothers who left them behind for economic opportunities to help lift them out of poverty. Journalist Nazario, who has written about immigration issues for two decades, puts a human face on that statistic by following Enrique's journey to find his mother. Enrique was five years old when his mother, Lourdes, came to L.A., where a series of low-paying jobs defeated her plan of returning to her children. At 17, Enrique sets out to find her. Nazario traveled more than 1,600 miles, half of it atop trains, to experience some of the danger and fright suffered by these children and adolescents. She also details other perils, including gangsters, rapists, hunger, loneliness, and border patrols. This is a harrowing odyssey that depicts one young man's attempts to reunite with his mother and the social and economic issues involved in illegal immigration.

Kirkus Reviews

An expanded version of Nazario's Pulitzer Prizewinning articles, originally published in the Los Angeles Times , about the harrowing journey hopeful immigrants take from Central America through Mexico into the U.N.EWSLUGS The twist on this familiar story is that in recent years, a growing number of America's illegal immigrants are women. to feed and clothe their children, they leave their homes in Honduras or Guatemala and head for a better life in el Norte. Once in America, Mami sends back as much money as she possibly can and promises to return to her children as soon as she builds up a nest egg. But low-paying jobs as nannies or maids don't allow the women to save much, so immigrant mothers don't return home for years, if ever. Their children, too young to understand the heartbreaking calculus of economics and maternal self-sacrifice, feel abandoned. Some of them eventually undertake the pilgrimage through Mexico and across the border, hoping to reunite with their mothers. Nazario's account focuses on Enrique, left in Honduras by his mother Lourdes when he was six. Eleven years later, he decides it is time to find her. He must avoid immigration offices, who would send him back home, and the gangsters who regularly steal from, rape and even murder migrants. Enrique risks his life, riding through Mexico on the roofs of what child migrants call El Tren de la Muerte (the Train of Death). Enrique makes it to North Carolina, but he and Lourdes are in for an emotional shock. During the long years of separation, mother and son have idealized one another; their reunion exposes resentments that have festered over the years. This portrait of poverty and family ties has the potential to reshape American conversations about immigration.

School Library Journal

Adult/High School-Seeking to understand why Latina single mothers leave their children to come to the U.S., and why many children undertake the hazardous journey to reunite with them, Nazario traced one family's story. Enrique was determined to find his mother, who left him in Honduras when he was five. At 16, after seven attempts to make it to Texas, robbed by bandits or police, beaten, jailed, and deported again and again, he finally reached the Rio Grande and earned enough to call her. She sent him money to pay a "coyote" to smuggle him across the border and the two were reunited, but they are strangers now, their relationship strained. Meanwhile, Enrique's girlfriend in Honduras bore his child. Ultimately, she joined him, leaving their three-year-old daughter behind. Mothers leave their children to send back money for better food, clothing, and schooling, yet years of separation strain family ties. The author retraced Enrique's journey by traveling on top of trains, hitchhiking, taking buses, facing the dangers the teen faced. Photographs and interviews with him, family members, other children, and those who provide aid along the way document the hazards of migration. Descriptions of rapes, beatings, and jailing of immigrant children and accounts of those who suffered loss of limbs falling from freight trains are graphic and disturbing. But no one can doubt the authenticity of this reporting.-Molly Connally, Chantilly Regional Library, Fairfax County, VA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.