Nazario’s reporting for this series was remarkable. She followed Enrique for part of his journey—from the U.S.-Mexican border to North Carolina—and reconstructed the rest. As part of her research into his experience, she rode seven freight trains, hitched a ride in an 18-wheeler and talked with migrants along the way.
The Times carefully accounted for Nazario’s reporting, giving a fairly detailed “Notes About Sources” with each installment. Papers seem more and more often to handle questions about sourcing this way—the “How do you know that?” challenges—in response to the sourcing scandals in recent years.
The series won more than a dozen awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing, the George Polk Award for International Reporting, the Grand Prize of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Guillermo Martinez-Marquez Award for Overall Excellence. The photographs that accompanied the story also won a 2003 Pulitzer.
Nazario has published a book, “Enrique’s Journey: The Story of a Boy’s Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with his Mother,” based on the series.
See also “Ethical Dilemmas in Telling Enrique’s Story” by Sonia Nazario in the Fall 2006 issue of Nieman Reports.
Read “Enrique’s Journey,” by Sonia Nazario