Pulitzer prize winner visits UNCG

Sonia Nazario spent time in housing projects in Los Angeles chronicling drug addicted parents, and starving school children to write newspaper articles about their struggles. She clung to the top of freight trains through Central America and Mexico. Mexican gangsters chased after her, and she narrowly averted being caught in a shootout between a militia group and bandits in the Chiapas to tell a story about immigration. On Nov. 16, she came to speak to the UNCG community.

Students, faculty, and guests from all over the state packed the Sullivan Science Building's Mead Auditorium. Nazario spoke earlier in the day at the EUC, but addressed a larger crowd in the lecture hall. UNCG chose Nazario's book, "Enrique's Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with His Mother" as the 2009/2010 All Campus Read. Nazario, a journalist for twenty years, won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing based on her stories published about Enrique for the L.A. Times. Her speech focused on her book and the larger issues surrounding its characters and themes.

"In 2008, over 1300 pieces of legislature at both local and state levels were introduced, mostly to prohibit undocumented people from getting jobs, renting apartments, and going to school." Nazario said near the top of her lecture, "North Carolina is ranked ninth in states with the most undocumented immigrants". She went on to point out that the state ranked second in the amount of partnerships between local law enforcement and national immigration control. She quoted Johnston County's controversial Sheriff, Steve Bizzell who said the growing Latino population in the state was "breeding like rabbits". Nazario mentioned a few other facts and statistics, and speculated as to the root of the United States immigration problem as a way to introduce a more personal story, one related to her by her own housekeeper in California. The woman, Carmen, who cleaned her house twice a month, had four children that she had left behind in Guatemala and had not seen for 12 years. Nearly a year after Carmen related her story, her son made the journey to the United States, and reunited with his mother. This story intrigued Nazario, and she interviewed the boy. His story inspired her to find out more about kids like him, and tell their stories. "According to a USC study," she said "four out of five nannies in California, still have a child at home in Mexico or Latin America." She asserted that in the United States, many people think of illegal immigrants mostly as men, but statistically, more and more, they are women and children. Nazario wanted to find out what kind of desperation drives a woman to leave her family behind and come to America. "These women are faced with this choice, they can come to American so they can better provide for their children so they can study and eat well, or they can stay in their country, where they may only be able to feed their children once or twice a day and they will drop out of school around the third grade." Nazario said. According to Nazario, many of these woman leave with a promise to their children, "I will come back to you". The reality, she said, is that for many women who do make it to the United States, life is harder than they expected, and it is nearly impossible to bring their children here. Nazario paints a portrait of a generation of children living with older relatives, better off for their mother's labor in the United States, but lonely, depressed, and left wondering, "Does my mother still love me?" These are kids like Enrique, who Nazario met in northern Mexico.

Nazario documented the story he told her. She said he was 16 and on his eighth attempt to reach the United States. He had traveled 122 days and over 12,000 miles. He left Honduras with little more than the clothes on his back, and small slip of paper with his mother's phone number in North Carolina. He tells her that he, like so many other child immigrants, ride along the sides and top of the cargo trains running up Central America through Mexico. Nazario said that Enrique and his fellow travelers call the train "el tren de la muerte", "the train of death". In addition to the perils of the fast moving train, the young immigrants have to avoid corrupt Mexican police, roaming gangs of bandits, gangsters, and immigration officials. Many kids do not make it, crushed under the wheels of the train, murdered by bandits, or deported back home she said. To better understand what Enrique's journey must have been like, and better explain it to her readers, Nazario went to his home village in Honduras, and rode the trains herself. What she witnessed, she said, was a modern day odyssey, and a story of great cruelty and great kindness. "One thing that really surprised me was to see people that had just lost a leg and had barely healed, get back on the train and keep riding north." She mentioned "Can you imagine? You just had your leg cut off by this thing, and you just keep going, that surprised me, that kind of resolve.

Despite the constant threat of being mauled, beaten, robbed, raped, or arrested, a sense of camaraderie existed among the travelers she said, "People would share what little they had, or help them when they stumbled getting on the trains, even knowing that might mean they would both be deported back. They would just start over again." in Vera Cruz, Mexico the trains slow down a little to navigate several turns in the track. According to Nazario, families along the train route offer food and water to the immigrants on top of the trains. "These people can barely feed themselves," Nazario explained, "but they see helping these children as a duty linked to their Christian faith." Nazario admitted that her struggle was harrowing but still paled in comparison to what the children went through. "I knew if I couldn't take it anymore, I could always get off and stay in hotel, the train companies knew I was there, I had a letter from the assistant to the president of Mexico, people like Enrique did not have that".

Still, Nazario witnessed a lot of disturbing things on her journey, and pushed on through tough experiences. She suffered through bitter cold, got hit across the face by a branch as the train passed under it, and once was even chased by a gangster across the top of a moving train car. She had nightmares when she finally returned home. "I had a slight case of PTSD." Nazario explained that Enrique's story was not entirely unique, that 48,000 unaccompanied minors enter the United States every year according to Immigration Control Enforcement (ICE). This number is so large that 40 different detention centers just for unaccompanied minors have been constructed along the border of the United States and Mexico.

Nazario's talk Friday concluded with a discussion about the future of immigration reform. "For the last 30 years, political leaders have offered the same solutions" she said. Nazario referred to guest worker programs and increased border control. "These have all failed, and resulted in increased levels of illegal immigration". She explained. "Slow this flow, she said, "hit the source, we need foreign policy around creating jobs in these countries". At this, Nazario opened the floor for any comments or questions.

Pat Russian is a recently retired English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher at Jackson Middle School in Greensboro. "These are just the ones that make it here," she said, "we don't hear about the ones that don't". She went on to describe the difficulty young people have relating to parents that have been out of their lives for so long. "In schools today we're told to involve the parents, but time and again, the parents asked us for help, " she said.

Naaman Story and Katie Tester are Marketing students at UNCG. They came to hear Nazario's talk because immigration reform is something important to them. "It was interesting to get a different perspective," said Tester. Story had not planned on coming, but was glad he did. "It is a social issue I care about," he said. Magdalena, who preferred not to share her last name, is a freshman at UNCG. She is studying to be a nurse. When she was seven years old, she and her sister left Durango, Mexico, and entered the United States illegally. Eventually, she was able to get her documentation in order, and fulfill her dream of going to college. Like many students last summer, Magdalena read Nazario's book. She could not wait to hear Nazario talk. "When I read the book, I felt I could connect," she said.

Nazario shared that she is always pleased to see the reactions of those who have read her book. Many immigrant children especially find they can connect she said. "These students say that they don't read books about people like them, but this book told their story." She was also pleased that the book helped students who had not thought much about the immigration policy start conversations with friends and family. "A lot of students tell me that they had no idea there was a different point of view on the immigration issue," Nazario said "They say they were raised to think one way, and the issues raised in the book forced them to think about things differently."

A book signing followed Nazario's talk. People lined up to have their book signed, and continue to talk with Nazario, who happily answered questions, and conversed with interested fans. University Libraries, the English Department, the Lloyd International Honors College, the Human Rights Research Network, Housing and Residence Life and the Graduate Student Association sponsored Nazario's visit.