Free Article Review About The Circuit Written By Francisco Jimnez

The story is about the Mexican immigrant family travel “the circuit” of crop harvesting jobs around California. The story reflects the extreme poverty and poor living conditions which the immigrant’s family was experiencing. The oldest son narrates the story explaining the disappointments they pass throughout to the hard work, constant movement, and seasonality of the job as well as the children having to skip school to work.
The theme of the story is the survival of the immigrant family in a foreign land. Use of imagery paints the theme. The speaker describes the structures and life in a dramatic way as to create the image that the family was truly experiencing hard situations. “The garage they were given was worn out and shattered by the years. The garage had no window; walls were eaten by termites, full of hole, and it was strained to support the roof. The floor was a dirt one and was populated by earthworms; it looked like a gray road map. With love, all the family members work to make sure that the family survives even of the hardest times so as to survive in the foreign land.
The story is narrated in August, a time the narrator relates to the time where braceros (laborers) moved after the strawberry harvest went down in the farms. It is a Sunday evening as the sun goes down, the narrator shows this when he says Ito left for home, “when the sun had tired and sunk behind the mountains.” Further, it is clear it is a Sunday because the narrator talks of Ito saying that, “that Sunday was the very last time I saw him." The speaker is telling his story to a fellow picker strawberry picker who was also from Jalisco in Mexico.
The speaker is the second born son of an immigrant circuit work around California; this is shown by the statement, “as we drove home, dad did not say a word to us. With both hands on the car wheel, he stared at the dirt road. My older brother, Roberto, was also silent.”
The Persona is compassionate with other people in their hard times, I did not want to look up and face him. I knew he was sad. He was not going to school today. He pities his elder brother because he would not attend school with him since he would be going to the farm harvesting. The persona had developed a cheeky personality as he pockets when going into the head teachers office, “I put my hands in my pant pockets and walked to the principal’s office.” The narrator is a hard worker, despite that his muscles aches due to harvesting he does not give up, he says, “this feeling went on in me every morning for days until my body finally got used to the work.” I would dress in harvesting uniform or at least a headgear clothes to portray that I am a hard worker. The hair should also be shaggy to display carefree attitude. Pocketing and bouncing while telling the story would help characterize a carefree attitude.
The performance will be in an open field near a strawberry farm near old ramshackle. The settings will enable the narrator to explain the life the immigrants are leading. The presence of crop fields is necessary to show time when the crop season has ended, and there is an inferior product in the farm. Scenic elements to be used include cardboard boxes, mattresses. These are seen in the story; the persona says that “Mama, you and the little ones sleep on the mattress.” The scene should have trees outside the shackles.
The shack will signify poverty in the family while cardboard boxes will show that the family is always on the move to new vineyards and that their life is fragile. A single mattress show that the family is poor; can afford enough beds and, therefore, the elder children and the father sleep under the trees outside. Chairs should be used to be used to symbolize the car the family is traveling. The chairs will indicate the presence of the family in a car as the traverse California areas in search of work.
The speaker is emotional; there are instances when the persona is disappointment due to particular occurrences. For example, “as we drove away, I felt a lump in my throat,” The speaker is also cheeky and displays a carefree attitude, this is shown when he says; “but when I opened the front door to our shack, I saw that all our family owned packed in cardboard boxes.”
The speaker is talking to the native citizens seeking to enlighten them of the hard conditions they pass through as they migrate from on farm to the other so as to make a living. Difficulties include constant migration, poor payments, poor housing, and disruption of their children’s education. By portraying difficulties in the transition from Spanish to English language, the persona shows the natives that the immigrants have difficulties in doing this. He constantly feels the need to speak in Spanish as opposed to English; his would help identify with the immigrant children who rarely have time to school. The persona says that, “finally, after struggling for some English words, I managed to tell the teacher that I wanted to enroll in the sixth grade.” This explains what the persona did when he was asked a question by Mr. Lema. If I could use non-verbal communication, I would use actions to facial changes to show disappointment or even shed tears to mean extreme sadness.
The speaker also wishes to seek sympathy in the native citizens who don’t realize the difficulties that the immigrant’s children go through in the hard life. The story is supposed to make the native citizens appreciate the migrants after knowing the sacrifices they make and a little reward they gain. The story would give the native citizens a reason to care for the immigrant kids after understanding the problems they face during “the circuit."
The natives made the immigrants go through hard life in terms of housing and remuneration. The narrator's mother says to the family, “we have work! Mr. Sullivan said that, we can stay there the harvesting whole season,” she said while gasping and directly pointing to an old garage near the farms stables.” the mother gasped due to disappointment after noticing that the shack they were given was in a sad condition. It had torn walls, no windows and was infested by insects. The story would change the native perspective and improve housing conditions and increase payments for crop harvest.