Franklin Avenue

Reading assignment
The Los Angeles Times and staff writer Sonia Nazario won a Pulitzer Prize Monday for their extensive, really well done package "Enrique's Journey." The thoroughly researched, six-part series (which ran last year) explores the heartbreaking story of thousands of kids from Central and South America who have embarked on journeys to find their mothers in the U.S. Most don't make it. But they all face brutal conditions as they attempt to reunite with their moms, who left years before in the hope of making money in the U.S. to give their kids a better life. "Enrique's Journey" focuses on one teenager, who heads north on blind faith that he'll find his mother. It's a pretty good read. And you'll be impressed with how thoroughly Nazario sources the package.

Also, read [here] to find out how Nazario and photographer Don Bartletti found Enrique, followed his path and managed to avoid getting themselves into much trouble. Explains Nazario: "In the mid-1990s, I met a woman, a Guatemalan immigrant, who talked about how she and many other single mothers from Central America had come to the United States and left their children behind. She had been separated from her sons and daughters for 12 years. She talked about the immense heartache. When her teenage son came on his own to find her, I spoke with him about the journey, about the trains. I knew it was an important, untold part of the story of immigration to the United States."