A Smores About Enrique's Journey
by Hanson Nguyen
Summary
Hold onto your tears cause this one's a real sad story. The story is about Enrique's pre-adult years where he faces many hardships without the comforts or support from his mother. His mother, Lourdes leaves him and her sister behind in order to pursue a life in America. The reason being there is little economic opportunity that will support her family. Enrique is then entrusted to his grandmother while Lourdes sends money to them from where she worked(Isn't enough since Enrique still had to work. However, He misses his mom and wonder when she is coming back. Every year she would call saying that she'll visit him during the holidays, but never comes. As years pass, this begins to anger him and thus begins his life of rebellion. It's a downhill slope here for Enrique. He begins to become disruptive in his classes causing quite an uproar. After elementary school, his rambunctious personality only began to escalate even more. His grandma, becomes disappointed in him and wonders why she is doing this to her. Enrique's reply was "you're not my mom". However his grandma still loved him and when she was at the age where she might be able to support Enrique anymore, she sent him to live with his Uncle Marco. Around this time, Lourdes acquired a higher paying job and is now living with a house painter from Honduras. Although Enrique still misses him, he begins to grow attach to Uncle Marco and enjoys his life there. Marco was a fairly rich man whose occupation is a money changer. He treated Enrique with as much attention as their son, sometimes more. Unfortunately, Enrique's Uncle reached his end when a group of robbers shot and stole his money. His brother was also included in this incident. Lourdes then uses her money that was saved for bringing her kids to America for Marco's funeral. Quite weird for her to pay since I thought Marco was rich. Perhaps it isn't really orthodox to have a dead person pay for his funeral in this culture(or any culture?). Anyways Enrique was quickly kicked out by Marco's girlfriend. Now moving again, Enrique moves in with his grandmother on his mother side. Apparently it was his first home and it is tightly packed. His school life was no more as he never returned. Now begins a life of sniffing Elmer's glue. As pathetic as it sounds, he moves onto real drugs rather quickly and started purchasing marijuana( who would have thought Elmer's glue to be a gateway drug). High as a kite, he begins a lifestyle that brings huge shame to his family. One day, his friend suggested freight train riding as a form of entertainment. He was either really high too or life in Honduras was extremely boring. I'm guessing it's the first one. Of course, they were caught and quickly deported back to his family. His reputation only gotten worse when he owes money to a Marijuana dealer threatening to kill his sister who was actually a cousin. What better way to pay back the debt then to steal from your own poor family. It was a new low for him and again, he was caught for his crimes. Enrique one day, decided that the only way to solve his problems was to find his mother. He says his goodbyes and begins his real journey(Only a few cared about him leaving since he was such a punk).