Jimenez, Francisco

Having come from Mexico to California ten years ago, fourteen-year-old Francisco is still working in the fields but fighting to improve his life and complete his education.

When his family has to move again a few days before Christmas in order to find work, Panchito worries that he will not get the ball he has been wanting.

Offers a look at a migrant family, detailing their daily life and the struggles they endured to build an existence on the small opportunities they were given.

These independent but interwined stories follow a migrant family through their circuit, from picking cotton and strawberries to topping carrots--and back again over a number of years. As it moves from one labor to the next, the little family of four grows into ten. Impermanence and poverty define their lives. But with faith, hope, and backbreaking work, the family endures.

Twelve stories tell of the almost unendurable journey most migrant campesinos undertake to find the American Dream.

Francisco Jimenez, the son of Mexican immigrants, describes the challenges he faced as a student at Santa Clara University in California in the 1960s.

Because he can only speak Spanish, Francisco, son of a migrant worker, has trouble when he begins first grade, but his fascination with the caterpillar in the classroom helps him to begin to fit in.

Having come from Mexico to California ten years ago, fourteen-year-old Francisco is still working in the fields but fighting to improve his life and complete his education.

Presents several intertwined stories of a family of Mexican American farm workers as they move from camp to camp, adding members to their family along the way.