Illissa Mestas
Freshmen Seminar
September 11, 2011

Enrique’s Journey

Have you ever thought of how much suffering the immigrants go through just to reach a better life? Well I for one have never thought about it until I read Enrique’s journey. The perseverance and hope in these people is something that you just cannot wrap your head around. It the unconditional love they have for their family members that they try to find or the ones that they try to care for at home. Reading this book has opened my eyes up to realize that I have a very good life. You really never know how much you have until it is all taken away from you and with these immigrants; they try to search for it their whole lives.
I dreaded the thought of having to read this book, one, because I don’t like to read and two, I thought it was going to be a boring historical book. As I read the first couple chapters I began to realize that I could not set the book down without knowing what happened next. I started to love this book that I didn’t even want to read in the first place. It took me on an emotional roller coaster because of its reality. Now that I have read it all I don’t see how you can’t like the book because I thought it was amazing and one more step to showing the world what immigration has become. What amazes me the most about the book is that it is a true story and based on many peoples lives. The tearjerker is how Sonia actually traveled the same route Enrique did just to see what he went through. Reading this book has also made me become more grateful for the life and parents that I have. I’m sure that if everyone would read this then more people would understand their reasoning for trying to come into the United States. All they want is to have a better life for themselves and love ones. As American’s we are not allowing them to do this because of all our laws and impossible ways to gain a citizenship. This country is made up of immigrants from all over the world, especially Japan, China, African Nations, South American and Central American countries. As I started to interview my parents I began to understand the political and law enforcement view of immigration. My parents, both being Police Chiefs deal with this issue more than any other profession. My first question to my parents was how they feel about the immigration issues facing the United States today. My mom told me that she feels immigration is very political and as a moderate republican she believes that it should be a federal issue. My dad feels that the vast majority of the immigrant come here on visas and once they expire they just stay here illegally. He said that the biggest issue is that Americans want cheap labor and the recent illegal immigrants are willing to do this work for low wages. As we all know already, my dad pointed out that the countries that most immigrants come from are those who are very poor and cannot provide a livable wage for their citizens, so they come to the U.S. My mom agrees with the issue on low paying jobs going to many immigrants, she states that if they are able bodied they should work to help their family just as they came here to do. Being supported by welfare and not working if you can is a method of stealing from the U.S., which ultimately causes high volumes of anger being put toward immigrants. Both my parents believe that if they are willing to work hard for their money and stay out of trouble and not be involved in the drug trade then they should be able to live here. Most of these immigrants we see in our everyday lives as our farmers, hotel maids, cooks, construction workers, house cleaners and maids for the natural born Americans. These jobs are the ones that most Americans prefer not to do. They said that the majority send money back to their families or send enough to have their families come to the states. When I asked my parents about the Arizona Law