Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Circuit, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Change and Instability
Immigrants, Discrimination, and Injustice
Childhood vs. Adulthood
Family and Community
Summary
Analysis
Francisco is upset because it’s the last day of seventh grade before summer vacation. His classmates, on the other hand, are excited—for them, summer means trips and camps and fun. However, Francisco will have to work in the fields all summer. As he heads home in the school bus, he uses a notepad to count down the days until he can start school again. It’s now the middle of June, and he won’t be in school again until November, after the strawberry and cotton seasons. Francisco gets a headache as he counts 132 days.
As Francisco gets older, he becomes more aware of how different his life is compared to the lives of other children his age. As an undocumented immigrant and itinerant farm worker, Francisco deals with a lot of problems that most seventh graders don’t even think about. Here, it seems like Francisco would love to attend school without disruption, but this isn’t an option for him. In addition, he’ll be in a new school when he resumes in November, since the family will have moved again for work.
Themes
When Francisco gets home, he takes some of Papá’s aspirin and lies down. Then, Francisco’s neighbor Carlos calls him from outside, asking him to come and play kick-the-can. Francisco likes the game, but he doesn’t enjoy playing with Carlos, who is older than him and a bully. Still, Francisco goes out to play, because he wants to forget about the long summer ahead. His younger brothers Torito, Trampita, and Rubén join him.
Francisco faces problems that seem too heavy for such a young child, and in an attempt to forget them, he turns to playing games with other children. This shows that he is still a young at heart, even though he is burdened with adult-like worries.
Themes
Carlos never lets another little boy named Manuelito play with them, so Manuelito quietly hangs around on the fringes of the game. Francisco tries to convince Carlos to let Manuelito play, but Carlos refuses, giving Francisco a dirty look. As Francisco becomes engrossed in the game, he forgets his worries.
Francisco knows what it is like to be excluded, since he experiences this all the time at school. As a young child, he didn’t know any English, so he couldn’t even communicate with his classmates—and as he grows older, he understands how different his life is from his peers’ privileged lives. This is why he tries to speak up for Manuelito, but Carlos, who is older and a bully, refuses to listen to Francisco. This shows that it isn’t easy to speak up for equality and justice.
Themes
Early the next morning, Francisco watches Roberto get ready for work and sadly remembers that it’s a workday for him too. At the strawberry farm, a black truck pulls up behind Papá’s car. The driver of the truck, Mr. Diaz, who is a labor contractor, orders the man riding in the bed of the truck to get down. Papá explains to Francisco that Mr. Diaz runs the bracero camp for the strawberry farm, and his passenger must be one of the braceros.
Francisco immediately notices that Mr. Diaz doesn’t treat the bracero with respect, since he speaks to him in a bossy manner and makes the man ride in the bed of the truck even though there are just the two of the them in the truck.
Themes
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Ito, the sharecropper, introduces Gabriel, the bracero, to the other workers. Gabriel seems to be barely older than Roberto. His clothes are faded, and his face is weather-worn. Gabriel seems nervous, but he relaxes when the other workers greet him in Spanish. Ito asks Papá to show Gabriel how to pick strawberries, since he’s never done this work before. Gabriel learns quickly.
Gabriel is clearly nervous in this new country. The other laborers from Mexico treat him kindly, including Papá, who even teaches him the work. This once again emphasizes the importance of forming relationships and finding a reliable community when trying to navigate new situations.
Themes
At noon, Papá invites Gabriel to join them for lunch. Gabriel pulls out a mayonnaise sandwich and two jelly sandwiches from his brown paper bag, and he complains that Diaz gives them this meal for lunch every day. Francisco offers him one of his taquitos, and Gabriel gives him a jelly sandwich in return.
Diaz is the one who has arranged for Gabriel to work in the United States, and Gabriel seems to be unhappy with this arrangement. Francisco and his family are very friendly and welcoming to Gabriel, which shows how kind and hospitable they are even in the midst of their poverty and troubles.
Themes
Gabriel tells them that he has three children, and he says that he misses them a lot since he hasn’t seen them in months. He tells Papá that Papá is lucky, since he gets to go home to his family every day. Gabriel says that he manages to send his family in Mexico a few dollars every month. He’d like to send them more, but after paying Diaz for his room and board, Gabriel has barely any money left. He looks angry as he says that Diaz is a crook.
As a bracero, Gabriel spends months away from his family in Mexico while he works on farms in the United States, which must be very difficult and lonely for him. To make matters worse, Diaz seems to be an unfair employer. Under the Bracero Program, braceros were supposed to get fair wages and good living conditions, but Diaz seems to be exploiting the braceros he has sponsored.
Themes
That evening, and for some days after, Francisco is very tired and goes straight to bed after dinner. After a few days, however, he gets used to the farm work and begins playing kick-the-can again. The game is always the same—they always play by Carlos’s rules, and Carlos never allows Manuelito to play.
Francisco witnesses how Diaz bullies Gabriel at work—and on the playground, he sees the same dynamic between Carlos and Manuelito. As he grows older, he notices that there are always those who enjoy bullying and mistreating others.
Themes
At work, Francisco picks strawberries for 12 hours every day. He doesn’t enjoy the work, but he does like chatting with Gabriel. One day, Ito sends Francisco and Gabriel to work for another sharecropper who needs extra help. Diaz is at this farm, and he immediately begins calling out orders to them. He wants Gabriel to tie a plow around his waist and till the furrows. Gabriel refuses to do this, saying that in Mexico, only animals do this kind of work.
Francisco and Gabriel are both living through situations they dislike, but they find comfort in friendship. The connections that the characters share with one another help them to bear their hardships. Diaz is very bossy and treats the workers without respect. While Gabriel usually silently tolerates Diaz’s mistreatment, he draws the line at being treated like an animal.
Themes
Diaz walks up to Gabriel and yells at him, calling him an idiot and saying that this isn’t his country. He threatens to fire Gabriel if he refuses to do the work. Gabriel pleads with him, saying that he has a family to take care of, but Diaz throws Gabriel to the ground and kicks him with the hard tip of his boot. Gabriel gets up and lunges at Diaz, and Diaz immediately looks nervous and steps back. Gabriel doesn’t hit him. Diaz jumps in his truck and drives away.
Diaz becomes very upset when Gabriel disobeys him, and he ends up treating Gabriel very poorly—even beating him up—which proves that he truly is an abusive bully. This is one example of how immigrants like Gabriel are exploited and abused. However, when Gabriel moves threateningly toward him, Diaz is immediately afraid, showing that he is actually a coward.
Themes
Francisco is very scared—he’s never seen grown men fight before. Gabriel tells him that Diaz is a coward. He says that Diaz can cheat him out of his money and even fire him, but that he can’t take his dignity. As Francisco works on the fields, he thinks of the morning’s events and feels disturbed by them.
As Francisco gets older, he becomes more aware of the flaws in the world and in the people around him, and he finds this disconcerting. This experience will, perhaps, give Francisco more insight to why Papá (who has likely been witnessing behavior like this for years as he’s worked in the fields) is constantly anxious and stressed out.
Themes
That evening, Francisco goes up to Manuelito and insists that he, too, must join in the game of kick-the-can. Carlos protests, but Francisco refuses to play if Manuelito can’t. This Carlos, so he trips Francisco and pushes him down. Francisco yells at him, saying that Carlos can push him around but that he can’t force him to play. Francisco walks away from the game, and Trampita, Torito, Rubén, and Manuelito follow him. Carlos is left alone with the can. After some time, he calls out that Manuelito can play too.
After witnessing how Gabriel stood up for himself against Diaz, Francisco feels emboldened to stand up to Carlos. Francisco understands that Carlos is bullying all of them—especially Manuelito—and that this behavior must not be ignored or tolerated, because it is unfair and abusive. Francisco is kindhearted and empathizes with those around him because of his own struggles to fit in, so he has always disliked Carlos’s behavior.
Themes
The next morning, Ito tells Francisco that Diaz fired Gabriel and sent him back to Mexico. Francisco is upset and can’t focus on his work. Papá helps him get through the day by picking strawberries for him. That evening, Francisco doesn’t feel like playing but relents when Manuelito invites him. Francisco and Carlos are pitted against each other, and Francisco kicks the can so hard that it flies high and lands in the garbage. This is the last time he ever plays this game.
Francisco is disappointed that Gabriel was punished for speaking up against Diaz. To Francisco, it probably seems like nothing good came of Gabriel’s gesture, and Francisco struggles to deal with the unfairness of the situation. As he grows older, he becomes more aware of how the world is often unfair to the poor and voiceless, like Gabriel. This is a harsh truth for him to learn at this young age. Earlier, Francisco found solace in playing childish games, which helped him to forget his problems. At the end of the story, however, he kicks the can into the trash and never plays the game again, which implies that Francisco now understands that he can’t retreat from the harshness of the adult world.
Themes
