Chicano Literature- Under the wire by Francisco Jimenez

 UNDER THE WIRE

About the Author

           Francisco Jimenez was born in 1943, Mexico. He emigrated with his family from Mexico to California. As a child he worked with his parents in the fields of California. "Under the wire" is the opening story among the twelve closely linked autobiographical stories of his The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child.

Summary

The main conflict in the book, The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child, revolves around Francisco’s family’s struggles to survive after illegally crossing the border into the United States.

The opening story, ‘Under the Wire,’ describes the family’s belief that a move to the U.S., even an illegal one, would be their only way to find consistent work. Living in a small Mexican village of El Rancho Blanco, situated in North of Guadalajara, where they had no electricity or running water, no education, and no prospects for a better life. The narrator got some seriously big dreams. When he was a kid in the late 1940s, he lived in Mexico in a town called EI Rancho Blanco. It was the time of poverty and food shortage were rampant in Mexico. Many Mexican people wants to move California for seeking better life. His family has been chatting about moving to California. They wanted to cross the border from Mexico to California for a better life as Migrant workers.

Francisco, the narrator and his whole entire family are stocked. The narrator’s Mama, Papa, and older brother Roberto all can’t wait to travel to California. Roberto gets extra amped up after visiting his cousin, Fito, in Guadalajara. Fito symbolizes a better quality of life that Francisco's family aspires to. "He didn't have to go to the river for water, sleep on dirt floors, or use candles for light."  Fito is Francisco's cousin who works in Tequila factory in Guadalajara. He has some modern amenities like house with electricity and running water. Roberto can’t wait to have those things too. Finally it’s time for the trip.

The narrator and his family hop on a train to California. While on the train, they chat about how California will be. Roberto says, " People there sweep money off the streets". His papa started laughing and said that there we will get better life than in Mexico.

The narrator has a nickname-it’s Panchito. Eventually the train reaches its destination Mexicali (the area just south of the California border). The narrator and his family call this area la frontera and they can’t wait to cross it. There is just one problem: a barbed wire fence patrolled by guards dressed in green uniforms with guns were armed on both sides of the fence. They have to cross the wire to the other side without being seen by them.. So they walk a super long way until they find an area where they can crawl under the fence. Papa pays a women to drive them in her car to Guadalupe, a coastal town where they are hoping to find work as laborers.

The next day, they meet some rice folks in the workers’ camp. The good news is that the camp foreman lends them a tent to sleep in, but the bad news is that they can’t start picking strawberries for another two weeks. And that’s a big bummer. So they spend the next two weeks while they wait to start work. Mama is a resourceful lady and she finds a way to cook outside on a stove she whips up herself, while Papa hunts for small wild animals like rabbits and birds for Mama to cook up.

"I wonder where the train comes from" Roberto and Panchito watch the train come by at noon every day, which they think is pretty fun. "See, it does come from California!". The conductor always waves at them, and once he even drops a brown bag full of fruits and candy out the window as a gift, which is actually pretty cool.