“Enrique’s Journey” is a story of the struggle of a young man who has been abandoned by all parental and potential guardians throughout many times in his life, this continued cycle of neglect caused Enrique to idealize the United States and the mother who abandoned him. Throughout the novel, Enrique is thrown into many hardships constant reminders of the current life he has and why he looks at the United States as this utopia. Enrique constantly shows the trauma the cycle of abandonment has caused him; he fears being alone and aims to find his mother, the one person who he believes to be this idyllic woman. This picturesque image of his mother and the United States is shattered when he arrives, seeing the true state of the country and mother he admired so much. …show more content…
He lived his life as a nomad; he was shuffled around from one family member to another. This life of never feeling welcome, never having a home caused him to grow up to a rebellious teenager, someone with trauma that stemmed from never feeling fully welcome. When he first experienced abandonment was when he was five years old, when his mother left Honduras for the United States, “Where is my mom?” This sentence is the main reason why he went on the expedition the initial abandonment caused him to grow up with longing for the mother that left him. This longing gave him hope but this sense of longing for the mother that had long abandoned him was also the cause of his flawed perception over the United States. “We’ll have to leave the baby behind.” In the end much like the cycle of poverty, Enrique followed and passed along the torch to his daughter, who he left behind. The cycle that for so long haunted him, is now once again in motion, this time in the form of his