1. Victory by Stephanie Adams

2. Enrique’s Story Enrique’s mother left him in Honduras when he was 5-years- old. She left to go to the United States of America where she could get a better job and make more money to support herself and her two kids. Enrique felt like no one understood him, or even wanted him around. When he was 17-years-old, Enrique finally decided that he was going to go to the United States of America to find his mom. But there was one problem, he lived in Honduras and the safest way to get to America was with smugglers and Enrique didn’t have enough money to pay a smuggler to get him to America.The only way to get there without a smuggler was on the trains. The problem with that was that the trains are dangerous. People have died from falling off of the trains, although not everyone who dies from the trains actually falls off, some people are thrown off. The people who are thrown off are thrown off by gangsters.

3. The Gangsters and Enrique There are a lot of gangsters that ride on the trains, some stay in the towns that the trains stop at. The gangsters rob, beat, kill, and sometimes even rape people. These gangsters are Enrique’s biggest obstacle (if you don’t count the La migra but they don’t show up as often as the gangsters do). Enrique confronts the gangster obstacle by being brave and doing whatever he has to do in order to survive his “meetings” with the gangsters. In Enrique’s case, he just lets them beat him up instead of running away like a coward. This is the best picture I could find of something that represented gangsters beating up someone

4. Comparisons One example of someone facing a similar obstacle as Enrique is, a sailor facing a storm at sea. The sailors have to be brave, confident, and determined in order to survive through the storms. Another example of some one facing a similar obstacle as Enrique is, a soldier facing an al Qaeda cell in Iraq. The soldiers have to be brave, confident, and determined in order to survive the al Qaeda cells. (I don’t really know what an al Qaeda cell is, but my dad said that was a good comparison.)

5. The Similarities In order to overcome the obstacles they faced, all of these individuals had to be brave and put up with the situations that they were in instead of running away. For example, when Enrique is confronted by the gangsters, who usually carry machetes with them, he doesn’t run away from them. Instead of running away, he is brave and faces them.

6. To Be A Survivor In order to be a survivor, one must be mentally strong. Enrique isn’t physically strong, but he is metally strong. This characteristic becomes noticeable when he faces the gangsters and when he continually rides the trains so that he can get to his mom. In these situations, Enrique shows that he is brave, confident, and determined and it is these 3 characteristics that help him in his journey. The soldier and the sailor both face similar challenges. Their obstacles are very different from Enrique’s, but they are also similar because they are life or death situations. The sailor and the soldier both have to be mentally strong, just lke Enrique, in order to survive their obstacles.