The Circuit, by Francisco Jimenez, is about Francisco and his life immigrating from Mexico to the United States. Francisco’s family located themselves in California where they migrated throughout the state depending on work. His family was impoverished as they had no home and only had different tents and free places to stay when the father found work. The father went between picking cotton and picking strawberries mostly and earned his money by the pound. When Francisco was old enough he started to go with the father and brother to help earn money for the family. Francisco and his older brother, Roberto, did part-time schooling which interrupted their learning quite a bit, but they were in poverty so everyone in the family who was able had to work to make money. Francisco would start back earlier than Roberto would. When Francisco first started …show more content…
Before there were laws in place, immigrant students did not receive the education they deserved mostly because the teachers would try to make the classroom an English only room. This was exemplified when Francisco started school and found a friend who spoke Spanish. When the teacher overheard them speaking Spanish in class she screamed at them to only speak English. Not only did Francisco get in trouble for speaking his native language but the friend also stayed away from him after that so they would not get in trouble. This is an example of student to teacher discrimination. Another impactful discrimination however is student to student. This is where the students in the classroom either leave out the ESL student or bully them for any differences they notice. Francisco experienced this first hand. When the students picked teams to play, Francisco was always last to be picked because he was the smallest child and could not speak English. This kind of discrimination causes extreme barriers in the classroom and isolation for the ESL