The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child

Francisco’s family prepares to move again at the end of strawberry season. Francisco hates moving, though his little siblings think it is exciting. After their last 12-hour day of picking strawberries, Francisco helps Roberto load la Carcachita, Papá’s old Plymouth car, with the cardboard boxes that hold all their possessions. Papá helps Mamá carefully place her battered, but treasured, cooking pot full of beans on the car floor. They find work at Mr. Sullivan’s vineyard. Mr. Sullivan lives in a large white house. He lets the family live in a termite-eaten garage. There are holes in the walls, no windows, and earthworms on the dirt floor. The family works into the night to clean the house.

Papá, Roberto, and Francisco start work early the next day. When the school bus stops to let students off in the afternoon, Papá urges the boys to hide in the vineyard. He does not want trouble if the boys are seen as truants. Francisco is relieved when the grape harvest ends in November, and he can start sixth grade. Roberto, sadly, cannot start school until February, when cotton season ends.

Francisco, in halting English, enrolls in school and joins Mr.