By Deb McKee
CNHI News Service

— From migrant worker to janitor to highly acclaimed author and teacher, Francisco Jimenez wants to give a voice to the experience of an “invisible” sector of society.
Jimenez (pronounced Hee-MEH-nez) first came to the United States from Mexico illegally with his migrant worker parents and later obtained legal status. He has written several award-winning autobiographical works and children’s books that tell the plight of migrant workers as well as that of non-English speaking immigrants.
The author, who also is the Fay Boyle professor of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Santa Clara University in California, presented two workshops at Indiana State University on Thursday for Terre Haute Human Rights Day 2006.
When Jimenez, now in his early 60s, was 4 years old, he and his family entered the United States. Their hope was to escape poverty and find a better life.
Instead, the family ended up on “the circuit,” the term Jimenez uses to describe the years they spent following the harvest and trying to avoid immigration officials. The family moved from tent city to tent city on a loop through California, harvesting strawberries in Santa Maria, grapes in Fresno, cotton in Corcoran and Bakersfield and then back to Santa Maria to help with lettuce and carrot crops.
They lived without running water and often in one-room shacks or tents.
As a child, Jimenez was able to go to school for several months each year, something he loved, he said. The English language baffled him, however, and it was only through the compassion and encouragement of a few teachers that Jimenez improved, he said.
His family was deported when Jimenez was in junior high school. After several weeks, they were able to return with the help of a Japanese sharecropper. The sharecropper helped them obtain visas by promising to provide employment for the Jimenez family. Such sponsorship was required by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to ensure a family would not become a burden to society.
During high school, Jimenez and his older brother, Roberto, worked 35 hours a week as janitors to support their family. Their father, his back ruined from years of bending over crops, could no longer work in the fields.
Jimenez said he continued to struggle with English, but earned high grades in all his other classes.
A book Jimenez credits with opening his eyes to the power of literature was “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck. It was assigned to him during his sophomore year of high school by an English teacher who got a glimpse into Jimenez’s childhood through an autobiographical essay he wrote for her class.
Jimenez said although the book was difficult for him and he had to look up many words in the dictionary, he could not put it down. For the first time, he said, he knew what it meant to read “for enjoyment.”
“I connected with the Joad family,” he said. “Even though they were not Mexican, they had many of the same experiences my family had, moving from one tent city to the next, standing up to the labor camp bosses … I could relate to what I was reading.”
After Jimenez finished high school, he went on to earn his bachelor’s degree in Spanish at Santa Clara University, followed by his master’s and doctorate degrees at Columbia University in New York City.
Jimenez says he writes to give a voice to an ignored segment of society, many of whom continue to face the poverty and isolation his family experienced, he said.
“We hardly ever think where our fruits and vegetables, where our salads come from,” he said. “It is so important for people to develop an appreciation and compassion and respect for the value of work migrants do.”
In addition, Jimenez talks to teachers in California and elsewhere about teaching immigrant children, emphasizing the importance of valuing the child’s native culture while that child is learning English.
Amy Mendoza, executive director of the Indiana Commission on Hispanic/Latino Affairs, says immigrants and migrant workers continue to face the problems Jimenez experienced as a child.
“The best thing about [Jimenez’s] books is to raise awareness, not just about what migrant workers face but also what all immigrants face, and not just Hispanic or Latino immigrants,” Mendoza said. “His books show very well the language barriers and misunderstandings and what people face day to day as migrant workers.”
The main message Jimenez said he wanted to pass on is the importance of trying to understand and connect with the experience of others.
“If we are to understand who we are as a nation, who we are when we say ‘America,’ we have to learn about the experience of others … the migrant experience is a part of the American experience,” he said.

Deb McKee can be contacted at (812) 231-4254 or deb.mckee@tribstar.com.