With a high grade point average, there was hope. In the meantime, Panchito continued to work hard at school. His English needed much improvement, but math was his best subject. C In reading the story of the Joads, he was able to relate his life to something that he was reading. The story of migrant life was part of American history. He loved school and began to participate in school activities whenever he could, and when he ran for student body president, he won!
In the middle of his second semester of his senior year, when his classmates were excited about going to college, Mr. Penney called him into his office to ask about his college plans. The man was astounded to hear that the boy had no plans to go to college. I have to help support them,C said Panchito. Through the help of Mr. Penney, the boy with a grade point average of 3. Francisco Jimenez, an immigrant from Mexico, and son of a hard-working field worker, received his B.
In addition to his being a member of many influential organizations, this formerly undocumented person has won many awards, including a Woodrow Wilson fellowship and a National Defense Foreign Language fellowship More recent awards include being named Teacher of the Year for Santa Clara County in , the Professor Cedric Busette Memorial Award, for outstanding contributions to ethnic studies in , and a host of others.
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Edit Close. Sign Up Log In. Dashboard Logout. It was John Steinbeck. He inspired me in his novel The Grapes of Wrath because I could connect to the book. The Joad family in The Grapes of Wrath were migrant workers, just like my family. After writing books for adults, what made you write for children? I didn't have any particular audience in mind when I began writing The Circuit.
However, from the start I decided to relate stories from the point of view of the child. In writing the stories, I could hear the child's voice; I could see through his eyes and feel through his heart. I hoped it would be of interest to children and adults. I was very surprised and delighted and grateful when it received so much recognition in the field of children's literature. In writing Breaking Through , the sequel to The Circuit , I relayed the experiences I had when I was in high school from the point of view of the teenager I was then.
My hope is that children, as well as young adults, as well as adults, will enjoy reading the book. Did you have to change it a lot to make it fit as part of a book instead of just a story? The story became fairly well known and reprinted in many textbooks of English literature. In the first story I describe the experience of crossing the border from Mexico into California, hoping to leave a life of poverty behind, starting a new and better life.
We crossed the border without documentation illegally. We did not have the financial means to obtain the permit or the visa. We crossed the border illegally into the United States, and went back to Mexico - so that's the circuit.
The title also refers to the circular migrant way of life. Since your books are autobiographical, that means that all the characters are real people. My question is: have any of those people read your books, and what did they say about the way you portrayed them?
All the characters in The Circuit are members of my family. Most of the characters in Breaking Through are also members of my family. All of them appreciated my writing their story because they felt that their story was the story of many, many families who experienced the migrant way of life and many families who are experiencing that same life today.
When you write, do you ever feel like bending the truth so that you don't have to tell everyone about something really embarrassing or something really painful that happened to you? Good question. My writing is autobiographical and the experiences that I write about took place many years ago; it's clear that I could not remember all the details that I include in my work - those details I had to invent. Ninety percent is based on reality, and ten percent I had to invent.
For example, in cases where I could not remember exact words, I created dialogue and description to capture my impressions and reactions to particular events and experiences. Besides relying on the power of memory, I used other valuable resources to write my books. I interviewed family members and looked through family photographs and documents, including deportation papers, which I obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
I also obtained my junior high and high school records and visited some of the places where we lived in migrant-labor camps. Through the Freedom of Information Act, any American citizen can request information gathered by the United States government that may relate to any citizen. In other words, through the Information Act, I had the right as an American citizen to request all the documentation that the immigration officers who deported us gathered from us at the time we were deported.
Have you written for young adults? Yes, I believe The Circuit as well as Breaking Through are being read by young adults as well as by children.
I suppose that Breaking Through would appeal more to young adults because the narrator myself is a young adult experiencing the things that I describe in the book. In Breaking Through , I describe the experiences I had as a teenager, as a young adult. So those experiences might be similar to experiences of other young adults. Your words in La Mariposa seem very poetic.
Do you also write poems? I have written poetry, but I have never published it. I write poetry for personal satisfaction, but I have never published it. In the book La Mariposa , you mentioned that art was your favorite time at school and you earned a first prize award for your butterfly drawing. How come you didn't illustrate this book yourself? Have you illustrated any of your own books? It was John Steinbeck. He inspired me in his novel The Grapes of Wrath because I could connect to the book.
The Joad family in The Grapes of Wrath were migrant workers, just like my family. Fairy tales. The Cinderella story gets a new setting in this original fairy tale.
Adela is also a male name in Ethiopia.
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