The path of education
Francisco Jimenez had every right to be sad and bitter about his childhood. As migrant workers, he and his family relocated often depending on the harvest thus seldom remaining in one place. Starting school at odd times during the year gave him little consistent education. His family even suffered deportation during his middle school education. Only a benevolent farmer’s offer to sponsor them assured their legal return to the United States. He could have chosen to remain silent about his dreams. No one would have blamed him if he had given up. He had every right to decide his reach was too short to fulfill his dreams.
To his credit, however, Francisco did not give up. He fervently desired to understand not only the language but also the culture of his new country. In the classroom, he experienced pure panic when he could not understand nor communicate with his teacher. From those early experiences, he recognized that an education would be his only emancipation to move from paralyzing fear to empowered assurance. He stubbornly preserved through school, excelling when many students failed.
The path of education
After high school, he studied at Santa Clara University and majored in Spanish. Not satisfied with an undergraduate degree, he doggedly pursued first a master’s and then a doctoral degree in Latin American literature from Columbia University. He taught at Columbia and then returned to Santa Clara University, where he became the Fay Boyle Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, and Director of the Ethnic Studies Program.
As the second child of nine, Francisco lived a life of exemplary drive and perseverance for his family. Adversity is not unique to immigrants and migrant workers. Yet, as Francisco knows intimately, immigrants and migrant workers do unfortunately have more than the average amount of obstacles.
The path of education
Francisco offers hope to any student struggling to rise above difficulties … even in a new language or different culture. The key to success is education, “Whatever I learned in school, it was mine to have and to hold. And it didn’t matter how many times we moved — that knowledge, that learning — would go with me. Learning, education became the stability I was looking for … Public education is the best means for people who come from poor economic backgrounds to escape poverty. The obstacles are greater, but at least the opportunities are there. Education helps to level the playing field.”
Francisco tells the tales of his boyhood life as a member of a migrant family in his acclaimed books, The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child and Breaking Through. His children’s book, La Mariposa, published in both English and Spanish and The Christmas Gift/El Regalo de Navidad, an illustrated bilingual book for children, are both award winners in multiple categories.
The Circuit characterizes the life experiences within his own immigrant family as well as thousands of others that gave blood, sweat and tears to further the farming industry of the USA. In the children’s book, La Mariposa, he parallels the life of a first grade Spanish speaking boy in an U.S. English speaking school with that of the classroom’s captured caterpillar. Utilizing the caterpillar’s transformation to a free flying butterfly with the boys own phenomenal task of learning La Mariposa gently pleads with the reader to foster both the child and his language. As a bi-lingual book, it refreshes the reader as it renders Latinos in both a positive and generous manner.
Francisco’s primary accomplishments lay however outside the creative non-fiction genre. Best known for academic writing, the Carnegie Foundation chose him as “U.S. Professor of the Year” for the Advancement of Teaching and Council for Advancement and Support of Education. He has served on various professional boards and commissions, including the California Council for the Humanities, Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities as well as the Santa Clara University Board of Trustees.
As a member of a Delegate Assembly and of the Executive Committee on Chicano Literature of the Modern Language Association, Francisco advocated first hand about the importance of including Chicano literature as part of American literature.
“‘Since then, many departments of English in the country now consider Chicano literature as part of American literature,” he says “and it’s taught in the English departments just as African-American literature, Asian-American literature, and other ethnic literatures are taught in English departments.”
He is a compassionate man offering tangible hope to a new generation of students. His life story touches the migrant workers of today, as well as the ever-growing immigrant population.
His roots, spreading deep into his beloved Chicano culture gave him a secure foundation upon which to live. Francisco traded the vegetable and fruit fields for the ripe fields of education. His eyes remain wide open to the bright future as he leads yet a new crop of students down a well-worn path of success — the path of education. using APA style formatting guidelines,
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