The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child

Reading Check and Short Answer questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

“UNDER THE WIRE,” “SOLEDAD”

Reading Check

1. The family in “Under the Wire” lives in a rural community just outside of what city?

2. When the family in “Under the Wire” reaches the border between Mexico and California, how many suitcases do they have between them?

3. In “Soledad,” what is the type of crop that the narrator’s family is tasked with harvesting that day?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. In “Under the Wire,” before the family crosses the border from Mexico into California, what are the narrator’s and his family’s general beliefs about the state of California? Do they believe it to be a “good” place or a “bad” place?

2. “Soledad” is the Spanish word for loneliness. Why do you think the book’s second chapter is titled as such?

Paired Resource

“After a Rural California Hospital Closes, Farmworkers Pay the Price”

• This article published by PBS NewsHour covers gaps in healthcare access and other complicating factors for Central California’s farmworkers.
• This article shows, from the context of health care limitations, The Challenges of the Immigrant Experience for migrant farmworkers. It helps highlight unexpected limitations that might be waiting for the narrator and his family in California.
• Consider what is shared about the migrant experience of healthcare in the article. How might healthcare practices in California serve to alienate migrant families? How might they lead to grief? How might knowing these things ahead of time have influenced the perspectives the narrator and his family initially had of California?

“INSIDE OUT,” “MIRACLE IN TENT CITY”

Reading Check

1. Why does the narrator feel at home in the classroom, compared to the tent where his family sleeps in “Inside Out”?

2. Why does Mrs. Scalapino award the narrator a first-place ribbon in “Inside Out”?

3. The narrator’s family lives in a tent city on the outskirts of the Sheehey Strawberry Farm, which is located in the rural part of what California city?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Particularly in “Inside Out,” how does the language barrier alienate the narrator from his classmates?

2. What is the “miracle” in the story “Miracle in Tent City”?

Paired Resource

“Walking to America with the Migrant Caravan”

• This video shows the firsthand experiences of migrants—many of them teenagers—fleeing Central American for the US.
• Around 2:11, this video shows an example of a “tent city,” as described in this section of the book. More broadly, the video touches on themes of The Challenges of the Immigrant Experience and The Value of Family (e.g., at 1:20, a boy named Mario describes wanting to come to America to help his relatives).
• Why do you think these migrants chose to come to the US in a caravan? What struck you about their experience? How is it similar to the narrator’s experience? How is it different?

“EL ANGEL DE ORO,” “CHRISTMAS GIFT”

Reading Check

1. As seen in “El Angel de Oro,” how do the migrant families in Corcoran kill time while waiting for the rain to stop so they can resume picking cotton?

2. Miguelito promises the narrator in “El Angel de Oro” that he will help him make what object the following afternoon?

3. In “Christmas Gift,” the narrator’s family home is visited by a couple who are going door-to-door selling various items. What is an example of one of the items they offer?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. In “El Angel de Oro,” why does the narrator let his makeshift fishing rod drift away?

2. How do the narrator and his family spend Christmas Eve? Describe the scene and how it shapes the narrator’s character.

Paired Resource

“América”

• Poet Richard Blanco, whose family was exiled from Cuba when he just was an infant, talks about the experience of holidays in America as a member of an immigrant family in this poem.
• This poem, written from a child’s perspective, deals with The Challenges of the Immigrant Experience and The Value of Family.
• How does Blanco’s family’s experience of holidays compare to the narrator’s? In what ways are they similar? In what ways are they different?

“DEATH FORGIVEN,” “COTTON SACK”

Reading Check

1. What is the name of the narrator’s pet parrot?

2. The parrot befriends another animal in the neighborhood, a pet owned by the narrator’s neighbors Chico and Pilar. What is the name and type of pet?

3. In the first few days after moving to Corcoran, what prevents the narrator’s family from being able to pick cotton?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What is the tragic fate of the narrator’s pet parrot in “Death Forgiven”? How does this moment comment on the immigrant experience?

2. Papá’s irritability, which stems in part from his health problems, also plays a role in the narrator’s desire to please him. In “Cotton Sack,” how does this desire manifest itself?

Paired Resource

“Fingers to the Bone: Child Farmworkers in the United States”

• This 6-minute video explores the exploitation of child farmworkers in the US, gaps in legislation that would otherwise protect these children, and the dangers child farmworkers face daily. Excerpts from interviews with child farmworkers reveal their struggle with keeping up with school, their fear of physical harm, and their acknowledgement of losing out on their childhood.
• The interruption of child farmworkers’ schooling connects to the theme of The Importance of Education.
• What does this video show about the realities of working on a farm as a migrant child in the US, and how does this compare to what the narrator believes about farm work at this point in The Circuit? How does farm work interfere with the interviewees’ education, and how do their attitudes toward school compare to the narrator’s?

“THE CIRCUIT,” “LEARNING THE GAME”

Reading Check

1. The narrator’s beloved sixth-grade teacher, Mr. Lema, asks the narrator if he might like to learn what musical instrument?

2. In “Learning the Game,” the narrator plays kick the can with the local bully. What is the name of the bully?

3. What small victory does the narrator achieve at the end of “Learning the Game”?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What does “The Circuit” refer to? Why do you think the entire story collection was named after this one particular story?

2. In “Learning the Game,” why does Gabriel refuse to plow and furrow the fields? What is his fate, and how does Gabriel’s situation contribute to the overall message in the book?

Paired Resource

“Hispanic and Latino Immigrants: ‘We Came Here for a Better Life’”

• Access to good education is one element of the “American Dream” that many immigrant families are chasing. In this PBS NewsHour clip, Hispanic and Latino students talk about the negative stereotypes that limit them in their schools and how they attempt to overcome them.
• The students in this clip talk about their experiences with alienation, one of The Challenges of the Immigrant Experience, and how it affects what they might be able to achieve and accomplish in school. The clip’s subject matter also reflects The Importance of Education.
• What sort of prejudice and stereotyping, if any, does the narrator face? Does he share any of the sentiments that the students in this video describe?

“TO HAVE AND TO HOLD,” “MOVING STILL”

Reading Check

1. What is the primary reason that Papá has the family relocate to the vineyard in Tulare County?

2. The narrator struggles to memorize the first lines of what foundational American document in the chapter “Moving Still”?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. In “To Have and to Hold,” the narrator begins to lose a series of precious objects/possessions. What does he lose? What does his family lose, and what does that moment symbolize?

2. How does “To Have and to Hold” end? Does it conclude on a hopeful note?

3. When Roberto and the narrator debate where they might choose to settle down if given the opportunity, they talk about choosing Santa Maria as their home because that is where they’ve gone to school and where they feel the happiest. Why is this moment significant? What does it say about the boys’ identity?

Recommended Next Reads

Breaking Through by Francisco Jiménez

• Breaking Through is Jiménez’s sequel to The Circuit, published in 2002 and the winner of the Pura Belpré Honor.
• Building upon The Circuit’s themes of The Value of Family, The Importance of Education, and The Challenges of the Immigrant Experience, Jiménez tells the stories of his family from the late 1950s and early 1960s, beginning with when, at the age of 14, Jiménez, Roberto, and his mother are all caught by immigration police.
• Breaking Through on SuperSummary

Reaching Out by Francisco Jiménez

• Published in 2008, Reaching Out is the follow-up to Breaking Through and the third and final book in Jiménez’s series of autobiographical memoirs for young adults.
• Once again, in his retelling of his family’s experiences as illegal immigrants from Mexico and his being a first-generation American, Jiménez touches upon themes of The Challenges of the Immigrant Experience, The Importance of Education, and The Value of Family.
• In the narrative in Reaching Out, Jiménez is slightly older, resulting in a more mature narrative perspective on these issues.
• Reaching Out on SuperSummary