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The Circuit
Themes
and Colors
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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