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Cotton Sack
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’s family is now working at a strawberry farm, and the peak of the strawberry season has already passed. The farm workers—most of them braceros—are not picking as many strawberries as they had picked in June and July. As the end of August approaches, the strawberry crop diminishes further, and the braceros slowly disappear. On the last day of work, Ito, the Japanese strawberry sharecropper, yells in his broken Spanish for the workers to go home. Francisco thinks that he has waited for these words “for twelve hours a day, every day,” all summer. However, he’s saddened by the thought that he won’t hear them again.
Francisco’s family has moved once again, and the season’s change seems to mimic the constant changes that the family experiences. The braceros, too, are temporary workers, and their departure emphasizes the changes that surround them. Francisco has been working on the strawberry farm all summer, waiting for each grueling day to be done—the workers work for 12 hours straight, which must be very hard. Yet, after the season is done and Ito sends the workers home at the end of the last day, Francisco is sad because he his family will have to move again to find work.
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As they drive home, Papá and Roberto are silent. At home, Francisco sees that all their belongings have been packed up, ready for them to go to the next farm where they can find work. He suddenly feels the weight of all the hard work they’ve done over the past few months, and he sits down on a box to get his bearings. That night, Francisco can’t sleep because he’s worried about their move to Fresno; he thinks about how much he hates the constant moving.
The constant change seems to be wearing everybody down. While Francisco is upset about the unceasing hard work and the constant moving, Papá must also be worried about where they will find work next. The work they do is temporary, and he must look for their next source of income.
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Papá wakes everyone up very early the next morning. Francisco’s little siblings—Trampita, Torito, Rubén, and Rorra—are excited. To them, the move is an adventure. The family eats a quick breakfast, and then Papá goes out to start the car and warm up the engine. He’s very proud of the old car that he calls the Carcachita, Papá bought it in a used car lot in Santa Rosa and spent a lot of time looking at many other cars before deciding on this one. He’d found a blue necktie in the backseat, so he decided that the previous owner must have been an important man.
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Francisco and Roberto load their four boxes into the car, and Papá ties their mattress to the roof. Mamá carefully carries her cooking pot, which is full of cooked beans, and Papá helps her to gently place it on the floor behind the front seat. Then, the family piles in, and they’re on their way. Francisco feels a lump in his throat as he turns to look back at their shack one last time.
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At sunset, the family reaches Fresno. They come to a labor camp, and Mamá goes to talk to the foreman, since Papá doesn’t know English. The foreman says that he doesn’t need more workers but advises her to try at Sullivan’s farm down the road. Sullivan lives in a big house with a white fence, surrounded by rose bushes. He tells Mamá that he’ll give them work, and that the family can live in an old garage all season. Mamá is very excited about this, even though the garage is dilapidated: earthworms crawl around the dirt floor, and termites have eaten holes into the walls.
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That night, the family works to make the garage more habitable. They sweep away the worms and the dirt, and Papá fills in the holes in the walls. After breakfast the next morning, Papá, Roberto, and Francisco head to the vineyard to pick grapes. By nine o’ clock, it is already 100 degrees, and Francisco is covered in sweat. He takes a big drink of water, though Roberto cautions him against doing this, and Francisco immediately doubles over because he feels sick to his stomach. He stays very still on the ground until he slowly begins to feel better.
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At two o’ clock, they take a break to each lunch, and Francisco still feels a little dizzy. Papá counts the boxes of grapes they’ve picked. Suddenly, Papá shouts a warning when he spots the school bus. Francisco and Roberto run away and hide in the vineyards until the bus drives away—they don’t want to get into trouble for not going to school.
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It gets even hotter in the afternoon, and as Francisco continues working, he feels like the day will never end. Finally, they stop once it’s too dark to work anymore. Papá counts the boxes of grapes they picked and sees that they’ve earned $15. The next morning, when Francisco wakes up, he feels like he can’t move—he feels like this for several days, until his body gets used to the work.
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Francisco goes back to school in November, when the grape season ends. He’s starting sixth grade for the first time, which he’s excited about; he’s also happy that he doesn’t have to go to work anymore. However, Francisco feels guilty about this, because Roberto won’t go to school until the cotton season ends in February. Francisco tries not to look at Roberto at all that morning, and he’s relieved when Roberto and Papá head off to work at six o’ clock.
At eight, Francisco stands by the side of the road and excitedly waits for the school bus. But when he sits alone at the very back of the bus, he feels nervous. At school, Francisco walks to the office, and when a woman there speaks to him in English, he is “startled” because he “had not heard English for months.” He struggles to find the English words to say that he wants to enroll in the sixth grade.
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The woman from the school office leads Francisco to his classroom. The teacher, Mr. Lema, greets Francisco and introduces him to the class. Francisco is so nervous that he wishes he was with Papá and Roberto in the fields instead. This morning, the class is continuing reading a story they started earlier. Mr. Lema gives Francisco a copy of the English book and asks him to turn to page 125, which makes Francisco feel dizzy. When Mr. Lema asks Francisco if he’d like to read too, Francisco’s eyes begin to water because he is so stressed. Mr. Lema kindly tells him that he can read later.
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At recess, Francisco takes the book to the bathroom and tries to read it. He struggles with many words. When he goes back to the classroom, Mr. Lema smiles at him, which makes him feel better. He asks Mr. Lema if he’ll help him with the difficult words, and Mr. Lema immediately agrees. For the rest of the month, Francisco spends his lunch and recess with Mr. Lema, who tutors him in English. Francisco thinks of him as his “best friend at school.”
One afternoon, Mr. Lema takes Francisco to the music room at school. Francisco tells him that he likes corridos. Mr. Lema offers to teach him to play the trumpet, which is one of the main instruments used in corridos. Francisco is very excited about this, and he can’t wait to go home and tell his family the news. However, when he gets home from school that day, he finds that his family has packed all their belongings in cardboard boxes—they’re ready to move again.
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