The Gerber Institute for Catholic Studies at Newman University will present award-winning author and journalist Sonia Nazario in early October speaking on immigration. Nazario will present “Enrique’s Journey: A Perspective on Immigration” at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 8 in the Performance Hall of the De Mattias Fine Arts Center.
The lecture is based upon Nazario’s book Enrique’s Journey, a true story about a Honduran boy who travels through many hardships trying to find his mother, who left her starving family to find work in the United States.
Nazario has written about some of America’s most intractable issues, such as hunger, drug addiction and immigration. She has received multiple awards for her writing, including the George Polk Award for International Reporting, the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for the Los Angeles Times newspaper series upon which Enrique’s Journey is based.
Nazario was born in Argentina, but spent the bulk of her childhood in Kansas. She has been named among the most influential Latinos by Hispanic Business Magazine and a “trendsetter” by Hispanic Magazine due to her moving and inspirational work. In 2012, the Columbia Journalism Review named Nazario among “40 women who changed the media business in the past 40 years.”
Enrique’s Journey is a national best-seller, and was named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, People, The Miami Herald, and the San Antonio Express-News. It has been assigned as required reading for incoming freshman students at nearly 60 colleges across America.
Director of the Gerber Institute Jamey Findling, Ph.D. said he is very excited about bringing Nazario to the Newman campus.
“I hope audience members at Ms. Nazario’s presentation will come to see the immigration issue in a new light, as something far more complex than a mere political football in an election year,” he said. “The deep truth that the Catholic faith calls on us to remember above all else is that we are talking about human lives, we are talking about families, we are talking about children, like Enrique, who are suffering and vulnerable and desperate.”
The Gerber Institute for Catholic Studies was created to promote dialogue about Catholic thought and practice in many different areas, including educational, social, and cultural life. For more information on the Gerber Institute, visit www.gerberinstitute.org.
