It is rare to find everyone in Morgan Hill doing the same thing
at the same time but now may be that time.
It is rare to find everyone in Morgan Hill doing the same thing at the same time but now may be that time.
Picking up what they thought was a great idea – for the entire town to read and discuss a book of importance and insight – Cinda Meister and Carol O’Hare have organized a free, citywide readout of “Breaking Through” by Francisco Jiménez.
To cap the effort, Jiménez himself will appear in Morgan Hill on Saturday, Feb. 22 to discuss the book. The presentation will be given in English and Spanish. In Spanish the book is titled, Senderos Fronterizos.
“Breaking Through” is the story of Jiménez growing up in an family of hardworking, undocumented – at first – farmworkers near Santa Maria and ‘breaking through’ tradition and lowered expectations to make it to college and graduate school. An earlier book, “The Circuit”, tells of the family’s travels on the migrant ‘circuit.’
Meister and O’Hare contacted Mayor Dennis Kennedy, who serves on the Silicon Valley Reads committee and which is sponsoring a readout of the same book this month.
“The purpose of the program (Silicon Valley Reads) is to engage the public in issues of common concern,” Kennedy said Monday, “as well as encouraging people to read. It’s appropriate for all of us in Santa Clara County, where we have such a high Latino population, to read this book. Many of our residents can relate to (Jiménez’s) experience first hand – the discrimination, the extreme difficulties.”
“We thought people in Morgan Hill should be encouraged to read this book, too,” O’Hare said. “It all worked out neatly – Jiménez had a Saturday free, BookSmart could make the books available at a 20 percent discount, and everyone wanted to help sponsor the event,” she said.
O’Hare said the book is accessible to its target age of 10 and up and an “easy read” for adults. But, she stressed, both flyers going home from the school district and the presentation itself will be in Spanish as well as English – to reach as broad an audience as possible.
“It will be valuable for the entire community – of all ethnicities – to experience the reality of Jiménez’s book together,” O’Hare said.
Kennedy encouraged the rest of the City Council to agree to co-sponsor the Morgan Hill event.
“A Britton teacher told me that she looked high and low for a book to connect with her young Latino students,” Meister said. “”Breaking Through” did the job.”
Other groups backing the Jiménez day are the Morgan Hill Library, the Morgan Hill Times, Friends of the Library, American Association of University Women (Morgan Hill Branch) and the Morgan Hill Unified School District.
“Breaking Through” begins when young Francisco, in junior high school, is about to recite from the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Immigration and Naturalization Service officers appear in the classroom and pull him out.
The family returns to Mexico to await legal immigration papers. Francisco and his older brother Roberto – and later the rest of the family – return to their California jobs and school as soon as they can do so legally. This is the story of Francisco’s struggle to find time to do his homework while working many, many jobs before and after school and every weekend. It is the story of being treated differently because he was “Mexican.”
It is the story of struggle and victory through hard, never-ending work and of the people who helped him (or not) along the way.
It is also the story of a family that relies on each other and on their religion, and is concerned about doing the right thing. The family is aware of the value of education as a tool to climb out of the cycle of poverty.
“I was really struck by the close family relationship,” Kennedy said “and how the family held together despite some really trying circumstances.”
“I was in a house once before,” Francisco said at age 14 when he was invited to visit a friend after school. His young life was spent in tents and in migrant shacks.
Jiménez earned his undergraduate degree from Santa Clara University in 1966 and a Master’s and Ph.D. in Latin American literature from Columbia University under a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. His three sons also graduated from SCU.
Now, Jiménez, who is approaching age 60, is the Fay Boyle Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures and director of the Ethnic Studies Program at Santa Clara University.
The presentation and book signing will be located at the Morgan Hill Community and Cultural Center, El Toro Room, located at 17000 Monterey Road at Dunne Avenue on Saturday, Feb. 22, 10 a.m.-noon. Books in English and Spanish will be available for purchase at 20 percent discount at BookSmart Bookstore (Second and Monterey) and at the event. Free and open to the public.
Details: Cinda Meister, 778-6467.
