Francisco Jiménez,
Breaking through.
Houghton Mifflin, 2001

Breaking through is the sequel to Francisco Jiménez acclaimed The Circuit. This second novel based on Jiménez’s won life experience begins in Francisco’s fourteenth year with his deportation from Santa Maria, California, to Mexico. This ten years of worry are over – it is actually happening. He is distraught; he’ll have to leave school, and what will happen to his family? They journey together to Mexico, where they wait, hoping to be granted immigrant visas. When they are, the family rejoices, but they separate anyway, with Francisco and his older brother returning to Santa Maria and the rest of the family going to Guadalajara to stay with relatives while the father finds a healer to relieve the pain in his back. When the family reunites in California in the spring, Francisco rejoices.

In Jiménez’s description of his family life, work, and school experience, we see a boy who is determined to be good and do well. We witness his respect for his father even as he chafes under his demand for unquestioning obedience. We observe the closeness between Francisco and his brothers, and the comfort provided by his mother’s love. We watch a young man who struggles to do homework after working all day to feed his family, a young man whose eventual academic achievement takes him away from his family but not, we trust, from their love.

What is truly remarkable about this book is the joy that springs from its pages. The family is extremely poor, but they work hard and love one another. Francisco encounters prejudice, but he also engenders respect. He comes up against obstacles and then finds a way around them. His hope and his love for his family shine through his words as he tells his own lived version of the great American dream.

Lee Galda
Fall 2001