Enrique's Journey post #2- seeing all sides of the equation

While listening to Enrique's story and all of the hardships he has gone through, the author has done a good job of writing objectively, without taking sides in the heartbreaking relationship between Enrique and his mother. In portraying the tense relationship of mother and son and the realization that they don't know each other anymore after so many years of being separated, the author shows both sides of the argument. "Then reality intrudes. The children show resentment because they were left behind. They remember broken promises to return and accuse their mothers of lying...The mothers, for their part, demand respect for their sacrifice: leaving children for the children's sake" (pg 191). The relationships between children whose parents, particularly mothers, have gone to the United States in an attempt to make a better life, and those parents is twisted and complicated. The readers must ask themselves if it is really such a crime for the desperate mothers to risk everything in an attempt to brighten the future of their children. Meanwhile, the abandonment and depression that the child feels once their parent is gone must be observed. It is very difficult to take sides in a situation like this, and the author has done a decent job of delving into what becomes of all those involved, not just the parent and child but also those who sheltered the child after the biological parent had left, and the siblings and friends of the child. Towards the beginning of the book, the author discusses the drug addiction and rebellion that Enrique experiences after what he felt was abandonment by all those around him, making it easy for the reader to see his mother as the criminal.  However, she also describes the hardships that Lourdes faces once in the United States, the reader is provided with an insight into the other side of the equation. In Enrique's Journey, all sides make mistakes, all sides feel pain and, in some ways, all sides are heroes.