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Updated November 19, 2003
Breaking Through, by Francisco Jimenez (Junior/Young Adult)To an immigrant, legal or illegal, few words cause as much concern and fear as immigration, or in Spanish, La Migra. The people of the immigration service literally hold the lives of families in their hands. Until that eagerly sought citizenship is achieved, immigration authorities are respected and feared.
“Breaking Through” is the immigration story of one family as told through the voice of Francisco Jimenez. When La Migra comes to Francisco’s school and takes him from class to be deported back to Mexico with his family, the trials he and his family are about to face are unimaginable. Some of the family is legal and some is not. Who should go, and who should stay? They agree to all return to Mexico together. After a short time the family decides that Francisco and his brother Roberto, American citizens, should return to California to work and send money back to the rest of the family who remain in Mexico.
America shows herself in all her goodness and in all her meanness to the two returning brothers. Francisco, 13, and his older brother work like adults and are paid a pittance to do back breaking work in the fields of California. The promise of a better life is the anchor that holds them to their promise to their parents to work until the rest of the family can join them.
This is a book that will ring true with many immigrant families.