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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does Belky react to her mother's disappearance?
(a) She is glad she is gone.
(b) She is devastated, but she knows she should be thankful to her mother for being willing to go.
(c) She does not even notice.
(d) She is angry.

2. How did most of the immigrants Nazario talked to make it to the U.S.?
(a) They took an airplane.
(b) They road the top of trains.
(c) They drove.
(d) They took a bus.

3. Where does Enrique sleep after the doctor is finished with him?
(a) He sleeps at the doctor's house.
(b) He sleeps under a tree.
(c) He sleeps on the concrete floor of the police command post.
(d) He sleeps in a villager's home.

4. At the beginning of Chapter 2, what happens to Enrique?
(a) He arrives in America.
(b) He gets a job in Oaxaca, Mexico.
(c) He goes back home.
(d) He wanders into Las Anonas bleeding and hurt.

5. What is the youngest child Enrique has encountered on the trains?
(a) 9.
(b) 7.
(c) 11.
(d) 5.

Short Answer Questions

1. How many Central American immigrants get help from a smuggler?

2. Who is the doctor that sees Enrique in Chapter 2?

3. What happens to Lourdes when she arrives in Los Angeles?

4. Why do many Honduran mothers pull their children from school?

5. Enrique's grandmother writes a letter to Lourdes. What does it say?

Short Essay Questions

1. Where is Enrique's family from? How is this setting described?

2. What does Sonia Nazario learn about her housekeeper that leads her to write this book?

3. How is Enrique treated by Carlos Carrasco when he arrives in his town in Chapter 2?

4. With whom does Enrique stay at the cemetery in Chapter 3? How is this individual described?

5. Discuss the genre of this book. How is that genre presented stylistically?

6. How is the theme of family disintegration illustrated through Maria Isabel in Chapter 2?

7. How old is Lourdes when she leaves her children? Why does she leave them?

8. Why is Chiapas referred to as the beast by the migrants?

9. What advice does the doctor give Enrique in Chapter 2?

10. Why has Enrique not traveled in the company of gangsters on his current trip in Chapter 3?

(see the answer keys)

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