Award-winning author Sonia Nazario is best known for her Pulitzer Prize–winning biography Enrique’s Journey. The book brings to life the very real and dangerous journey of a Honduran boy fleeing his home in hopes of finding his mother in America. In addition to the biography, Nazario has written countless articles informing readers of the dangers children like Enrique face. While the biography and the articles serve the same purpose and present the same ideas, they do so in different ways. You will be comparing and contrasting how Nazario informs her audience through a biography and an editorial. You may access the editorial here and the biography here.
Write a comparative essay in which you compare and contrast the way Sonia Nazario presents similar ideas in a biography and an editorial. Support your comparison with well-chosen, relevant, and sufficient evidence from both texts. Apply MLA guidelines to properly cite the evidence used in your essay. Be sure your essay uses formal and objective language.
Sonia Nazario, an award-winning author, has written a biography and an editorial that inform readers of the dangers children face when crossing the border into the United States illegally. While both works present similar ideas, they do so in different ways. The biography Enrique’s Journey tells the story of a Honduran boy making the dangerous journey to find his mother in America. In contrast, Nazario’s editorial “Refugees Risk Death to Reach U.S.” discusses the death toll of children crossing the border. Despite the different approaches, both pieces convey the idea that there is a humanitarian crisis at the US-Mexico border and it needs to be addressed.
Nazario’s biography emphasizes the danger and physical challenges that Enrique and other unaccompanied minors face when attempting to cross the border. She narrates the story using the phonetic technique, which allows the reader to experience the trip’s hardships firsthand. For instance, the biography states, “At some point, every child who makes this trip alone ends up here… its train tracks littered with children who have lost arms, legs, or suffered other crippling injuries after falling off.” Nazario’s use of imagery allows the reader to imagine the dangers that children face.
In contrast, Nazario’s editorial appeals to readers’ pathos by providing statistics on the death toll of children attempting to cross the border. She states, “More than 9,500 children have died attempting to cross into America.” By using numbers, she emphasizes the magnitude of the crisis and portrays it as a national problem. The statistics also serve as a call to action, urging Americans to address the crisis.
In both the biography and editorial, Nazario stresses that border officials’ inhuman treatment of minors is unacceptable. In the biography, she describes Enrique’s experience with border patrol: “They crammed them into a damp, dark cell, so small they could not stretch.” Similarly, in the editorial, she emphasizes the inhumane conditions of migrant detention centers. She writes, “Children are sleeping on concrete floors, without access to toothbrushes and showers.” Through both pieces, Nazario demonstrates that the treatment of unaccompanied minors in detention centers is inhumane.
In conclusion, Sonia Nazario conveys the idea that the US-Mexico border crisis is a humanitarian crisis that needs immediate attention, in both her biography and editorial. While the biography uses specific instances to highlight the dangers minors face, the editorial appeals to readers’ emotions by providing statistics. Both pieces, however, share a common goal of urging Americans to address the crisis and put an end to the inhumane treatment of minors crossing the border. Nazario’s works serve as a wakeup call to encourage humanity to take action before the number of deaths increases further.
Sonia Nazario's Approach to Informing Her Audience: A Comparative Analysis
In both her Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, Enrique's Journey, and her editorial, "The Children of the Drug Wars," author Sonia Nazario aims to shed light on the plight of Central American children fleeing violence and poverty in their home countries. Despite sharing this common purpose, Nazario's approach to informing her audience differs significantly between the biography and the editorial. In analyzing these two texts, it becomes apparent that Nazario adopts a more immersive and narrative style in the biography, whereas she employs a more argumentative and data-driven approach in the editorial. This essay will compare and contrast the way Sonia Nazario presents similar ideas in a biography and an editorial, focusing on her use of storytelling, her presentation of facts and data, and her ultimate goal in each type of text.
In Enrique's Journey, Sonia Nazario crafts a compelling and deeply moving narrative by focusing on the personal story of a single individual (Nazario). This intimate portrayal of Enrique's experiences allows readers to connect with the subject on an emotional level, as they follow the dramatic events, hardships, and triumphs of his journey. This narrative technique serves to humanize the issue, painting a vivid picture of the enormous risks and sacrifices involved in migration. By centering on Enrique's story, the biography effectively raises awareness and generates empathy for the thousands of other children like him.
Conversely, in her editorial, "The Children of the Drug Wars," Nazario adopts a more analytical approach, grounded in facts, figures, and statistics. She opens the piece by stating, "An average of 50 children a day flee a triangle of Central American nations and enter the United States illegally, unaccompanied by either parent" (Nazario). Throughout the editorial, she continually reinforces her argument by citing data drawn from various sources, including research studies, government reports, and firsthand accounts from migrants themselves. This data-driven approach allows the reader to grasp the scale, immediacy, and severity of the crisis confronting Central American children. While it may not offer the same depth of emotional connection as a biography like Enrique's Journey, the editorial's facts and figures lay the groundwork for a persuasive argument that is hard to ignore.
Another key difference between Nazario's biography and editorial lies in the main objective of each text. In Enrique's Journey, her primary goal seems to be to inform and raise awareness about the realities of child migration. Although Nazario does occasionally address larger policy issues, such as the impact of U.S. financial assistance on Central American economies, these discussions are often secondary to the central narrative of Enrique's journey (Nazario). In contrast, "The Children of the Drug Wars" has a more explicit agenda: Nazario calls for stronger policy responses from the U.S. government to address the crisis that she documents in the editorial. She offers specific recommendations, such as providing aid to Central American nations to reduce violence and poverty, and granting asylum to child refugees (Nazario). By adopting a more overtly persuasive tone in the editorial, Nazario moves beyond merely informing her audience to actively advocating for change.
In conclusion, although Sonia Nazario addresses similar themes and subject matter in her biography, Enrique's Journey, and her editorial, "The Children of the Drug Wars," the techniques she employs to inform her audience differ notably between these two forms of writing. While the biography offers a deeply personal and emotionally resonant story that serves to raise awareness, the editorial presents a more analytical approach, driven by facts and figures, and aimed at promoting tangible policy changes. Both texts are important in their own right, as they demonstrate the versatility and effectiveness of Nazario's journalistic efforts to shed light on the dangers faced by Central American children like Enrique.
Works Cited
Nazario, Sonia. Enrique's Journey. Random House, 2006.
Nazario, Sonia. "The Children of the Drug Wars." The New York Times, 11 July 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/12/opinion/sunday/the-refugee-children-of-the-drug-wars.html.