The Socratic Circle in Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario

I believe the Nazario decided not to finish the story when Enrique reunited but instead the chronicles of after because she wanted the reader to experience the true story of kids reuniting with their mothers/fathers. Because Nazario included this, the story becomes more emotional through the ending. For example, in the text, it states ““Belky always got more from you, ” he says. If he was destitute, he had no one nearby who could help. “How could I ask you for anything?” he asks Lourdes. “I would go a year without talking to you. ” He tells her he wanted to study, he just didn’t want to have to beg his mother for the money. “Belky is going to be a professional. Look at me, ” he says. Enrique tells Lourdes her biggest mistake was getting pregnant a year after arriving in the United States. “You shouldn’t have gotten pregnant until you knew your existing kids were okay, ” he says. Why did she continually promise to return for Christmas and then never show up?

Once she knew he was in trouble sniffing glue, he asks her, how could she stay away? “You left me, abandoned me, ” he tells her. “You forgot about me. ” Nothing, he tells her, was gained by their long separation. “People come here to prosper. You have nothing here. What have you accomplished?” If she had stayed in Honduras, he would have turned out better. “I wouldn’t be this way if I had had two parents. ” A true mother, he tells Lourdes, isn’t the person who carries you in her womb. It is someone who raises and nurtures you. “My mother is my grandmother María, ” he tells her. He warns Lourdes that she has no right to give him advice. “You long ago lost the right to tell me what to do, ” he says. Then Enrique lands the most hurtful blow. He tells Lourdes he plans to leave her and return to Honduras in two years. “I’m not going to do the same as you — stay here all my life. ”” This is an example of a fight between Enrique and Lourdes, about the money she sent to him. This example is reasoning for the terrible relationship Enrique had with his mother, after he arrived.

I think the meaning of the statement “a powerful stream that can only be addressed at its source” means I think the author is using a metaphor of a stream or river to describe the power of immigration from Mexico. The author feels that to engage in the huge issues involved, governments must go to the source of the stream beginning in Mexico. Here one can find all the reasons, potential fears and dreams that power this stream of people flowing into America. In the text, it states, “María Enriqueta Reyes Márquez, thirty-eight, of El Campesino El Mirador, climbed up to the cross. She says she could see that a bullet had splintered a bone in the girl’s arm. “It’s as if they were hitting a dog, ” she recalls, her eyes brimming with tears. “They treat dogs better than that. They don’t punish criminals, but they beat up these poor folks. Why? Why?”” Or, another good example is, “The police gave chase. Townspeople say the officers began to shoot.

One bullet hit a Honduran girl, seventeen or eighteen years old, in the arm. She was eight months pregnant and said it was because she had been raped by a policeman in Chiapas. ” These make sense as evidence to support this because these shootings or people getting raped or even people dying of either hunger or food, only stops when people stop trying to exceed the border. This is why the author used the words “. . that can only be addressed at its source. ”