Rider selects book for 2016 Shared Read

Enrique's Journey has been chosen for the 2016-17 academic year's Shared Read Program. The nonfiction book by Sonia Nazario, based on her Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism, will serve as a launching point for further discussions on numerous topics, including the challenges of immigration, the impact of global poverty, and the importance of empathy and hope amidst dire circumstances.  

The book focuses on the immigrant experience from the perspective of a young boy searching for his mother 11 years after she leaves her family to find work in the United States. His journey from Honduras to the U.S. atop freight trains takes Enrique through a dangerous world of corrupt police and thieves while also requiring him to maintain his hope and reliance on strangers to bring him closer to his lost mother. The decorated writer Isabel Allende compared the book to a "21st-century Odyssey."

"The book provides a very insightful and detailed look at what it's like for people to try to survive despite facing huge obstacles and desperate times," says Associate Dean of Student Affairs Ira Mayo. "It tells the story of the immigration experience from a point of view we don't often see."

As part of their summer orientation, all first-year students will receive a free copy of the book, which will be used by faculty in the Rider Classroom Experience, a component of orientation that introduces incoming first-year students to the expectations of college faculty. Additional copies of the book will be made available to the community on a first-come, first-served basis.

The book first began as a series of articles published in Los Angeles Times, and then grew from there. Nazario, a longtime journalist, has written extensively about the Latino experience. Enrique’s Journey won a 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-Márquez Award for Overall Excellence. 

This is the third year that Rider has offered a Shared Read Program, an initiative started by Academic Affairs and Student Affairs that aims to introduce students to Rider University’s learner-centered mission. Last year, students read Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy. In a visit to campus, Stevenson electrified an audience of hundreds of students, faculty, staff and community member while speaking about race and inequality related to the justice system. During the first year of the program, students read The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. The author also visited campus and delivered a frank and inspiring lecture about overcoming her unusual family circumstances. Throughout the year, students explored issues brought up in the memoir, such as poverty and homelessness.

A committee comprised of faculty, staff and students helped to select the final book after reading and discussing several others nominated by members of the Rider community. They read with an eye toward considering the issues addressed in each selection, as well as how these themes could be applied to courses across the curriculum and lead to additional programming.

"Ultimately, the committee was moved by the drama and emotion of the stories documented by Nazario," says Anne Law, director of special projects for the Provost's Office. "We felt that this was timely and would provide a wonderful opportunity for discussions of politics, immigration, children's rights and family."

For more information or to share your ideas about the Shared Read program, please contact Anne Law at [email protected] or ext. 5436.