ENGL 5444: Childhood in Culture
Dr. Sigler

The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child

Francisco Jiménez

1. What are some of the ways that Panchito’s family tries to cope with their extreme poverty? What kinds of things do they do to help themselves feel less vulnerable and more independent?
   
2. What are some of the ways that they attempt to create a sense of home for themselves, despite effectively being homeless?
3. The stories frequently interject painful reminders of this family’s poverty, of how hard they have to struggle. What are some of the details the author uses to show this?
   
4. What kinds of experiences does Panchito have in school? What kinds of things (positive and negative) does he learn in the various classrooms he visits?
   
5. The story "Inside Out" introduces the symbol of the butterfly (la mariposa), which reoccurs throughout the book. What idea(s) does Jiménez use this symbol to represent?
   
6. The stories are also—as the title suggests— about the family’s continual and necessary movement from place to place. What effects does this continual upheaval seem to have on Panchito?
   
7. The title story was originally written in Spanish, and its Spanish title was "Cajas de Carton" ("Cardboard Boxes"). Why might Jiménez have originally chosen the title “Cardboard Boxes”? Why do you think he decided to change the title, and name the collection The Circuit? What is the significance of that term? What are some of the ways in the stories that we the family living their lives in a “circuit”: a pattern that can be circular, closed, difficult to break?

This collection of stories about the same character (whose name is Francisco, but whose family calls him Panchito) is based on the author's own experiences as a child in a migrant farmworker family from the ages of five to fourteen. Jimenez has said that he wrote the stories "to chronicle part of my family's history, but more importantly, to give voice to a sector of our society that has been largely ignored. Through my writing I hope to give readers insight into the lives of migrant farmworker families and their children, whose backbreaking labor picking fruits and vegetables puts food on our tables. Their courage, their hopes and dreams for a better life for their children and their children's children, give meaning to the 'American dream.' Their story is the American story.”

If you're curious about what happens to Panchito and his family at the end of The Circuit, here's a bit of information on the sequel, Breaking Through:
"At the age of fourteen, Francisco Jiménez, together with his older brother Roberto and his mother, are caught by la migra. Forced to leave their home, the entire family travels all night for twenty hours by bus, arriving at the U.S. and Mexican border in Nogales, Arizona. In the months and years that follow, Francisco, his mother and father, and his seven brothers and sister not only struggle to keep their family together, but also face crushing poverty, long hours of labor, and blatant prejudice. How they sustain their hope, their goodheartedness, and tenacity is revealed in this moving sequel to The Circuit."