The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child
Francisco Jimenez
Houghton Mifflin Co., 1999
ISBN 0-395-97902-1, 144 pages

Description
This honest and powerful account of a 1940s Mexican-American family’s journey to the fields of California -- to a life of constant moving from strawberry fields to cotton fields, from tent cities to one-room shacks, from picking grapes to topping carrots and thinning lettuce. Seen and told through the eyes of a boy who longs for an education and the right to call one place home, this semi-autobiographical story is one of survival, faith, and hope. It is a journey that will open hearts and minds.

About the author
Francisco Jimenez immigrated with his family to California from Tlaquepaque, Mexico. As a child he worked in the fields of California. He received both his master’s degree and his doctorate from Columbia University and is now chairman of the Modern Languages and Literatures Department at Santa Clara University. He lives in Santa Clara, CA, with his wife and three children.

Reflection and Discussion Questions

1. What did you learn about the experience of Mexican-American migrant farmworkers of the 1940s? What did you learn about the European-American landowners?
2. How different would this book be if it were about migrant farm workers of Mexican descent today?
3. How would these stories be different if they were told from the eyes of the father in the story? From one of Francisco’s teachers? From one of the landowners?
4. What stereotypes are there about Mexican-Americans? Mexico? Migrant farm workers?
5. What are some examples of racial prejudice in this story?
6. What are some examples of power in this story? How is it used?
7. There is great controversy in many communities about "English only" education. What are the arguments about it? Who is making the arguments? Who has power in these arguments and how are they using this power? What do you think about the "English only" debate?
8. What do you know of migrant farm workers in your community? Of Mexican-Americans? How could you find out more? What do the Mexican-Americans in your community express as their needs (if they are heard in your community)?
9. This book is for adults and children. If you were giving this book as a gift to a child what would you want the child to know about the book and how young a child would you give this book to?
10. In the section about the author, Jimenez talks about being given The Grapes of Wrath as a teenager and realizing it was the first book he had read to which he could relate. What are the stories of your cultural heritage and when did you read them? What stories are the children in your community being asked to read these days and does it relate to their cultural heritage? What values does this book share in its telling? Are these Unitarian Universalist values? How would you and folks from your congregation greet migrant farm workers such as Francisco’s family if they showed up in church? How is this book helpful in unlearning racism?
11. What questions do you still have that you would like the group to discuss?
12. What do you still wish to know more about and will explore on your own?
13. What did you like most and least about the book?
14. What did you feel and what did you learn about yourself?