Poverty In Enrique's Journey By Sonia Nazario

Poverty is a crippling situation which can stagnate the development of individuals. Insufficiency in a society can affect persons in more ways than one. Those experiencing a substandard way of living may not be able to obtain quality education which can cause a lack of sufficient employment. Lower paying jobs will more than likely not include quality health insurance for the employee. Without a healthy lifestyle, one cannot lead a productive life. Undoubtedly, the circumstance mentioned above can become a vicious cycle, occurring over and over again because needed resources may not be available and the empowerment of poorer individuals is not accessible. A drastic measure such as emigrating from another country without close family members

Enrique is the central character of Enrique’s Journey authored by Sonia Nazario (2007, 2014). Enrique’s journey is a touching account of the repercussions of an economically distressed society and the effects that this circumstance has on the citizens of Honduras. Enrique is five years old when his mother Lourdes is forced to leave Tegucigalpa, Honduras to the United States where she believes she has a better opportunity of earning an adequate amount of money to support Enrique and his sister Belky. As years pass, Enrique becomes more disheartened and decides to take the dangerous trip of traveling North to be with his mother. Lourdes believes that being apart from Enrique and Belky is a better alternative than raising them in destitute conditions. In 2000, Enrique formalizes his plans of exodus and begins his lengthy and dangerous trip to the

As a child, he is burdened with worry for his mother because she is not near him for many formidable years of his life. He is troubled by a perceived lack of love from his father, grandmother, and many members of his family still residing in Honduras. Enrique experiences the pressures of living within a low economic status when Lourdes is unable to send a sufficient amount of money for his livelihood. In later years, Enrique uses drug use as a coping mechanism and cannot release the stronghold that drugs have in his life so much so that he still uses drugs today. Enrique is also plagued with the increasing violence in his area. He describes how he is afraid if his drug dealer because he is known to have .57 magnum (Nazario, 2007, 2014). Because of the absence of Lourdes, Enrique has bouts where he is angry at Lourdes and treats her in an aggressive manner “Lourdes Pineda at Eckerd College” (Nazario, 2016).
According to Kirst-Ashman and Hull (2015), communities can be regarded as a system with various individualities. These communities have smaller systems within the whole. The social structural perspective is a theory that takes an in-depth look as to how these subsystems can affect an individual or a group. It is important to view how certain structures can empower or disempower the persons within the community. In short, the individuals and the structures within it work in conjunction with one another and