Francisco is a young boy living in a tiny Mexican village with his mother (Mamá), father (Papá), older brother Roberto, and little brother Trampita. The family works very hard but are poor, and they live in a tiny house without electricity or running water. Still, they are part of a warm community and enjoy attending church and spending time with extended family. Papá decides to move his family to California in search of a better life, and one day, they make the long journey to the United States-Mexico border and manage to slip undetected under the fence.
Their first few weeks in California are harsh, since Papá doesn’t yet have work and barely has any money. They live in a tent and scrounge around in the woods for food. This sets the tone for their lives in California, which is often harsh, even after the family finds work as itinerant laborers. They work hard in the fields but are paid very little. They usually live in tents or in small, dilapidated cabins in labor camps. When Mamá and Papá have another baby, Torito, he nearly dies of a rare disease because they can’t afford medicine and must borrow money to take him to the hospital.
The family also constantly move around for work, going to various farms depending on the season and the crop. Usually, they pick strawberries in Santa Maria in spring and summer, followed by picking grapes in various vineyards in early fall, and cotton in Corcoran in late fall and early winter. They repeat this year after year, and Francisco thinks of this ceaseless moving as a “circuit.” Still, despite these struggles, the family takes consolation in their love and closeness. The family grows—Mamá and Papá have two more children, Rubén and Rorra—and they all have some happy moments together.
Francisco works in the fields alongside his parents and Roberto at the peak of each harvesting season, but when the season wanes, he gets to attend school. He initially struggles in school since he doesn’t know any English and cannot comprehend anything that’s being said to him. He has to repeat the first grade because of this, which he finds upsetting. However, Francisco is very interested in learning and is a very diligent student. He writes grammar rules and math facts in a little notepad that he carries everywhere with him, and even when he works in the fields, he often refers to these notes to study. Eventually, by the time he’s in eighth grade at the novel’s conclusion, Francisco is excellent at math and consistently scores the highest in his class in math tests. He also works hard on his English, even though he still struggles with it.
The entire family feels the strain of the constant moving. Francisco, especially, dislikes the constant disruption to his friendships and to his education, and he longs to settle down in one city. Eventually, when Francisco is in eighth grade, Papá is unable to work since he has a bad back. At this same time, immigration officials begin making surprise sweeps in the city of Corcoran, where Roberto is now working alone in the cotton fields. This makes the family nervous, since none of them except for Papá has papers or visas, and they decide to move to Santa Maria to escape the immigration checks. Francisco is very happy about this since he likes the city. In Santa Maria, it is clear to them that Papá can’t work in the fields ever again, so Roberto decides to get a full-time job so they can settle there. He finds a job as a school janitor, and Francisco helps him with this work in the evenings. They are very happy that they don’t have to move again.
At school, Francisco has an assignment to memorize a section from the Declaration of Independence. As he is memorizing the words that “all men are created equal” and that all people have the rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” immigration officers show up at his school and haul him away. The officers then set off to pick up Roberto too.
