The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child

In the late 1940s, Francisco, nicknamed “Panchito,” is around four years old. He lives with his Papá, Mamá, and older brother Roberto in El Rancho Blanco, a small village north of Guadalajara, Mexico. The family is poor: They have no electricity, and they get water from a nearby river. They work hard selling the milk from their cows. Roberto envies their cousin, Fito, who works in a factory in the city, and lives in a nicer house. Papá wants to take the family across la frontera to California, where he believes life will be better.

One day, the family packs a single suitcase and boards a train headed north to Mexicali. The two-day train ride is loud and bumpy. Francisco is initially scared, then impatient. Roberto is excited, believing Fito’s declaration—based on a movie—that everyone in California is rich.

A barbed wire fence separates Mexico from California. It is guarded by la migra, the immigration police. Papá leads the family miles out of town, where they shimmy under the fence. Papá pays a woman to drive them to a field worker camp near Guadalupe, where they will work picking strawberries. A camp worker, Lupe Gordillo, brings them groceries and the camp foreman loans them a tent to live in.