Enrique's Journey (The Young Adult Adaptation) by Sonia Nazario

Author:Sonia Nazario [Nazario, Sonia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-98315-2
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2013-08-27T00:00:00+00:00

THE MOMENT

Friends at camp warn Enrique against crossing the Rio Grande by himself. It’s a treacherous trek from the moment you step into the river. There are whirlpools below the water, ready to take you under, and Border Patrol helicopters skimming above the water, whipping up high waves that toss you around.

His campmates tell Enrique he needs a guide, someone who knows the route ahead.

And when you make it across the river into the United States, they warn, walking across Texas alone is out of the question. Without a guide, it is easy to get lost and wander in circles in the sameness of the brushlands. The trek to San Antonio takes seven or eight days, in desert heat of up to 120 degrees, with rattlesnakes, cactus needles that cut you, saucer-size tarantulas, and wild hogs with tusks. Some migrants, dehydrated and delirious, commit suicide.

Some are shot by Texas ranchers as they try to beg or steal food or drink. Ranchers have become increasingly riled by immigrants who trespass. Some ranchers sit on their front porches with pistols in their laps. Most immigrants are good, they say, but the bad ones pack drugs, break into your place, and steal things.

On the Texas side of the river, the Border Patrol agents are skilled and dogged. In 2000 alone, the year Enrique was trying to enter the United States, 108,973 migrants were caught near Laredo. As Enrique prepares to make his attempt, the Border Patrol has been on a hiring frenzy. In all, the government has hired more than 5,600 additional agents since 1993 to expand its forces along the southern U.S. border. Agents are equipped with helicopters, night-vision goggles, thermal imaging that picks up body heat, and sensors that detect footsteps along immigrant trails. They move the sensors constantly, so smugglers and migrants don’t know where they are buried.

At supper at the San José church, Enrique meets men who have been deported by border agents. One man who snuck through the desert alone hasn’t eaten in five days. When he arrives at the church, his brown shirt, torn to shreds by cactus, hangs in pieces on his body. His arms are cut up and bleeding, pricked with thistles and thorns. He is caked with mud. The bottoms of both feet are covered by huge yellow blisters and his toenails have turned black. He had to kill five rattlesnakes as he walked. He begs for a glass of water and a shower.

Everything Enrique hears makes him terrified of snakes and scorpions. In the Texas desert, snakes come out to hunt at night, when it is cooler. That is when migrants are on the move. They fumble forward in the dark, afraid to use a flashlight. Some rely, instead, on superstitions: Take a pregnant woman with you, and the snakes will sleep as you pass by. Put three peppercorns under your tongue for good luck. There are copperhead snakes, coral snakes, cottonmouth snakes, and the blue indigo snake, so long and fast it can kill a rattlesnake.

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