 So let's start, why don't you share with us some of the best memories that you have in Mexico before you came to the United States with your family, Francisco? Well, I was only four years old when we crossed the border. So I have some memories from my childhood. I recall living in the outskirts of El Rancho Blanco Las Fuentes and lived in a adobe cabin or adobe hut with no electricity, dirt floor, we had candle for candlelight and to get water we used to have to go down to the river to get the water. So it was a very simple life but also a hard life and so that's why my father decided to make the trip to California hoping to leave our poverty behind and starting a new and better life. So we took the second class train from Guadalajara to Mexicali and then waited until the night. So we traveled, I forget, quite a distance away from the border patrol station and my dad dug a hole underneath the fence and we slid through it like snakes and on the other side a woman who my father had contacted in Mexicali picked us up and drove us to Santa Maria where we began our new life and in Santa Maria we lived in a migrant camp called Tent City. The migrant camp was owned by Chihi who parceled out the acres of strawberries to sharecroppers, Japanese sharecroppers and so we picked strawberries for ito and we lived in tent in this migrant camp. The tent that you see there to your right is the tent that we lived in. The tall boy that you see there that's Roberto, my older brother and I'm a trampita in front of my brother. So how many brothers and how many of you were? The five boys and one girl. And then next to Roberto is Panchito the one wearing suspenders that's yours truly. So that's where we began our new life picking strawberries. I want to show you another picture this picture was taken the year that I went to Santa Clara University for my undergraduate studies my mother was still picking strawberries that's my mother and that little boy with the blue shirt that's my little brother Ruben. So after the strawberry season would be over we would move to the San Joaquin Valley around the Fresno area, Merced, Cinco Puntas, Corcoran and Corcoran. I mean in these little towns we would pick grapes for raisins as you see in this picture. We used to get a penny and a half for each one of these paper trays. So I can go on and give you the whole summary but I'll stop there. But what were those things Francisco that you were amazed when you arrived to the United States? How much did you know about the United States when you arrived for being a child? What surprised you and what makes you like maybe feel afraid or scared? Yeah well as I say I was fairly young but my father used to talk about moving to to the United States and he would always say that people there can make a better life. And so when we made the trip I was very excited but also a little bit nervous because and sad because I was leaving my cousins in Ploquipaque, Mexico. So I had mixed emotions but as a child I thought well once we cross the border then things will be just beautiful you know because that's what I had heard. And as you saw from these pictures I was shocked that that life was really not as we expected it to be. Nevertheless the difference was that there were more opportunities here in this country to improve our lives, more opportunities than where we lived in rural Mexico. But what does it mean for you and maybe your mother being like okay we're coming to the United States because we can get a better life but you had to work in the fields as a child? Yes. Something that you were not doing in Mexico right? That's correct that's correct. At the age of six my older brother and I began working alongside our parents picking strawberries and picking cotton, grapes, topping carrots you know. And so it was necessary for the older children in our family to work during the harvest season because during the winter months there's little or no work. So it was necessary to save as much money as we could during the harvest season or to survive the winter months. So how were you combining your work in the fields when you're school? Like how was it? Well it wasn't easy. I missed school and so did my older brother. I did not start school every year until the middle of November. That's why Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. Because you were going to school? I used to think oh it's almost Thanksgiving that I'm going to go back to school. So because we spoke Spanish only Spanish at home and because I missed a lot of school whenever I enrolled in school for the first time in the middle of November I would always fall really far behind my classmates and I was struggling with English language. As a matter of fact when I first started first grade I didn't know English well enough so I had to repeat it. But we were surrounded by other migrant families and our way of life was to me normal because everybody around us lived that kind of life. Most of them? Most of them yes. And it was not until I was in the sixth grade when a classmate of mine invited me to his home which was nearby the school and I had time before taking the school bus and when I went in his home I realized that not everyone lived the way we did because here they had carpet and or plumbing. They had electricity and I remember they had lamps you know not the one light bulb hanging from the from the ceiling and and then he had his own room and most of the time not most of the time we only had cabinets with one room we all slept in the same place so so that's when I began to realize. Was he like Mexican or was he? No he was not Mexican. He was not Mexican. And how was that experience for you how his family treat you? Did you feel like some discrimination in this house and also maybe at school? Well not in this situation. Eventually I did experience prejudice and discrimination when I was in junior high you know that's when your heart begins to look for or is attracted to little girls and so and then the girl that I was attracted to I guess she also was attracted to me so she invited me to her home and when she introduced me to her parents there was dead silence and so the parents said so so what's your nationality and I say well I'm Mexican I did that silence again the next day when I saw the little girl she wouldn't talk to me and I found out later that her parents didn't want her to see me anymore. My brother Royto was in high school in sophomore and again he had the same experience he and and he liked this girl and the girl liked him and when the parents found out that he was Mexican they forbade her from seeing him again and the father her father told her that he would buy her a new car if she would stop seeing him and she really loved my brother because she said you know I don't I want to I want to continue seeing you but we can I can go to my friend's house and you can pick me up there and we can continue going out and my brother did that once or twice and then he stopped he said I don't I don't like this I don't like to be hiding and so they broke up and so you know those were the I later on you know I experienced discrimination even in college like what that was some stories well I was used to belong to an organization called Sodality and we used to have what they call cells where a small group of students would get together and discuss different issues and we were discussing religious differences and one I was a sophomore I believe and some of them were sophomores juniors and seniors and one of the seniors said what would we're talking about intermarriages and differences in religion and he said to me as he said it to the group well he said I wouldn't want my sister my daughter to marry a Mexican and I I was speechless so I walked out out of the room and others told him that I was Mexican so he I went down the hall on the down the the hallway and he followed me and he apologized he said I didn't know you were Mexican I said I said that you know you have the problem you have a problem you know but you know yeah I but I realized that prejudice and discrimination is based on ignorance yes yeah but the saddest thing is that we're still living that yeah more in these days right yeah and I have to say that you can see like Francisco Jimenez is kind of that not Mexican assumption that a lot of people has because his skin your skin is white your green eyes so maybe he that's why he never thought about like you were Mexican you are Mexican of course because in Guadalajara in the state of Jalisco a lot of people look like me and and I even had a custodian at one of the elementary schools who was was also Mexican and he he I include all of this in in the book right and he would say you know Francisco you shouldn't tell people you're Mexican you could get away you know because you're light and I said no but I'm proud to be Mexican my father says that you should be proud of being who you are and he said well I mean he didn't agree with me but all those bad experiences that you have make you think about like how important it is to be educated and also to be bilingual yes all those experiences that I went through as a child really inform everything I do in my writing in my teaching in my my public speaking I I try to show that we're all basically the related we are all the members of the same human family and that we should look at differences with respect and also welcome people who are different from us because we can learn from them as well as they can learn from us and so my my my my efforts throughout my professional life is to create a more inclusive society a society where no one is left out I am more just in humane society so that's that's my the things that I try to do thank you Francisco and since I I see some little boys and girls here I would like you to share like how difficult was for you going a little back from your first days or weeks at school what were you facing besides like not having the the English the language and like living in a poor situation with your parents and having to work in the fields before going to school like maybe you can share all those things like how was your life in those first weeks months or maybe years well they were very difficult I hated missing school and and finding myself behind all my classmates and one of the things that I used to do in order to not be so far behind my classmates was that I used to carry a little notepad in my shirt pocket and every day I would add a different English word in this definition and as we worked in the fields I would memorize those words to improve my English and I added other things that I needed to learn in school so you know in in this and as I relate in the book we were living in Orozi in a migrant camp in the place we lived in burned down and I lost my little notepad and I was terribly upset and crying and my mother being very wise said oh Panchito I know you're upset but we should be thankful to God that none of us got hurt I said see mama pero es que perdió mi libertita and so she looked me straight in the eye and she says well Panchito do you recall what you wrote in your libertito I said for see mama she says well then then not everything is lost me who right yes and and so I I thought about what she meant and she was absolutely right right that whatever I learned on my own using that little libertita and whatever I learned in school that knowledge would go with me no matter how many times we would move so in this very unstable life that we were experiencing as a child I always learned yearn for a place to call our own I was tired tired of moving and missing school I yearned for stability in my life and where I found it was in education right that whatever I learned on my own whatever I learned in school that knowledge would go with me no matter how many times we would move so it's not surprising that I went into education right educational yeah and books and before I start like because we all want to know like how did you or when did you decide to become a writer and when did you start writing I mean in a professional way I would like you if you please can share the experience of the deportation of your or your father I guess only or your parents because that's something that we as an immigrants we all know that yes it's it's happening well I was on the in the eighth grade and my father couldn't continue working in the fields because he had severe back problems so Roberto my older brother and I got jobs working as custodians to to to help support our family so things were getting pretty stable and we did not move we stayed in Santa Maria and unfortunately when I was in the eighth grade the Border Patrol came into the classroom and asked for me and Mr. Salis whom I can show you the picture let's see these are all pictures so it's going to talk about this is where I was in school in Santa Maria and junior high in the eighth grade and the teachers that you see here Mrs. Salis in the picture she was the one who painfully identified me when when the Border Patrol came in so I at that moment I thought my whole world had collapsed and I wish that I had a different name I didn't want to be who I was so walked out of the classroom and then he got in the Border Patrol car he drove to the high school and then picked up my brother who was in high school at that time then both of us then drove in his Border Patrol car to Bonetti Ranch another migrant camp where we lived and other Border Patrol officers had gathered other families in the ranch including my family and so my we we asked that we were taken to San Luis Obispo to be processed my brother had to do the interpretation and asked if we could give us three three days to get things in order and and that we would voluntarily would go back and so they they said okay you have three days so we will cross the border in Novales and and that's that's how we got deported how long you stay in Mexico like by then my um my my younger siblings were already born here each of the Japanese sharecropper for whom we picked strawberries and he uh became our sponsor and loaned us money so we could come back uh with our papers and so um the it took months several months my parents then um this was during the late winter my parents and younger siblings stayed in Guadalajara with my aunt my my father's older sister and Roberto and I came back by ourselves to um to the Bonetti Ranch and my brother was hoping to continue his job as the custodian he was working for the San Maria Unified School District as a custodian but when we came back he discovered that he had lost his job because the principal said well you know you left and you didn't tell us anything so it happened that the um the man they hired to replace my brother didn't work out so my brother got his job back thank you for sharing that story that I know brings a lot of sad memories but thank you for sharing that and I'm just like curious did you ever get another libre tita because all these stories that you're sharing with us I thought I I know they are part of the books yes and did you get another libre tita and you were writing everything that was happening to you well no actually I started doing that again and when I went to uh college um I I should tell you that during the four years in high school I worked uh as a custodian and so I did with my older brother 35 to 30 35 hours a week each to support our family so when I graduated from high school I I wanted to go to college but I wasn't sure I was able to because I was still supporting my family so through the um the advice of my high school counselor uh I gave my janitorial job to trumpita my little brother and he agreed to take it so that so um so I got some local scholarships and borrowed money um to go to to pay for um my first year in college when I went to Santa Santa Clara University at the advice of mr penny and my high school counselor I had never heard of Santa Clara before um but he wanted me to go there because it's a private Catholic small school I found myself uh at a place um you know everybody around me seemed so much smarter than I um and in moments when I felt discouraged and guilty guilty because here I was living in a nice dormitory kind of hall where I have my office office now in kind of hall I've been there um you know getting having three meals a day and eating as much as you you wanted to with for the same price and knowing that my parents were still struggling economically I felt guilty and so uh you know I had doubts about my own academic ability so in moments like that that's when I began to reflect on my childhood experiences to give me the courage not to give up yes and I began writing those recollections um and um I compare my situation then to a man who is drowning you know a man who is drowning uses the water the very substance that threatens his life to save himself right so likewise I um the the experiences that I had as a child and as an adolescent that were initially pulling me back pulling me down I used them to boost myself up to save myself and that's so um you know I would refer to those um those those childhood reflections or recollections to to not give up and so I kept doing that during those four years and then when I went to graduate school I found myself in the same situation my first year in graduate school feeling the same way I did my first year in as undergraduate and so I can refer to those uh apuntes those uh notes uh um scribbles uh for the same reason I happened to show them to my uh thesis advisor Andresi Duarte who had been um the director of the La Ciudad Bellas Artes in Mexico way um thanks to him he was also a writer and I showed him my my recollections written recollections and he said Panchito I think you should put them together and publish them and and I thought well I don't know but but I felt well he's he's a writer and he must see something that that's worth doing so as soon as I began to to bring those uh recollections into some kind of order and and began writing I'd immediately realized that I wasn't writing just for myself that I was writing the experiences of many many families that I had grown up with and many families who continued working in the fields just like I did many years ago and so that was the encouragement for me to write to put those those experiences in book form like in the circuit knowing that I was writing the experiences of many many people who work very very hard you know from sun up to sun down for very low wages living in poor living conditions and what sustains these families day in and day out is the hope and dreams of having a better life for their children and their children's children so for me in my writing I try to pay tribute to these families and to um and they're an inspiration to me so that's why I began writing consistently uh at that time I I was having um I was still writing my phd dissertation and I knew that I had I couldn't continue writing those those stories I needed to concentrate in my writing that finishing my doctoral dissertation if I wanted to continue um my profession in in college and university teaching so I postponed writing at that point I finished the doctorate and had two children with my beautiful wife Laura who's sitting there and in in New York and then we came back to Santa Clara I was hired at the university's Santa Clara University and um began teaching and then got into administration and for those 20 for 20 years as working as a teacher and being in administration I finally took my first sabbatical and it was then that I began consistently writing other stories that I put together and published the circuit stories from the life of a migrant child thank you Francisco I really want to just bring again what you just say that I think it's beautiful that he he's not saying like I am writing because I why want the people the people in the fields or the children's to be inspired by me but you say in the opposite way like they are your inspiration and he told me the same when I first interview him and when we we were airing that uh interview on the tv and that was for me amazing that he was saying that he was you were dedicating the award but you were also saying that they inspire you and I believe me as an interviewer as a journalist I keep always listening the opposite so thank you so much for saying that Francisco um but there's a story that you share with me and I would like you to share now because I remember you mentioned that you had a teacher that she was reading your story and she asked you did you write this and it was about your brothers your family and that she gave you a book by Steinbeck that's right that's right I was a sophomore in high school and had an excellent but very difficult very demanding teacher her name was mrs bell which to call him la senorita campana and one of the assignments she gave us was to write something that happened to us something that we experienced so I wrote about my little brother who almost died when we were living in a migrant camp and so uh at that time I was still having difficulty with uh some of the grammar I and I turned in the the the essay and then the following about a week later she came in and handed out the results for around the class to return the the papers and she asked me to stay afterwards and I said well boy now I'm really troubled because you know my papers would come back with all kinds of corrections so so after the student everybody left and I approached her and went and then she said uh Francisco is this is this a true story and I said yes it is she got choked up I bet and she said well you know if you continue working as hard as you are working you're going to succeed then she said something that I'll never forget to maybe change my life she says you have writing talent we should thank senorita campana and then and then that's when she gave me the to read the novel by john steinbeck the grips of wrath and and I took it and it was very thick and and so when I take when I took it uh when I started uh reading it it was very difficult because there were many words I didn't know so I had to look up at many words but I couldn't put that work that work down because uh I could relate to what I was reading you know that that that's it's a story in that that novel is about a um a family from Oklahoma who came who during the dispo came to California and they were migrant workers and they suffered in discrimination because they were the okies the white okies you know and and then um and they suffered injustices and so I say well that that's that's my story that's my story and so for the first time I realized the power of literature and um to move hearts and minds and for the first time I realized that my own story was part of the American story that there were other people in our country who had gone through the same experiences that my family was going through yeah yeah and and I'm too and so that that novel um made a world of difference for me and and and she misses about planted the seed in my mind that perhaps someday someday I would do write that story yeah and so there's with the very big difference that the Steinberg saw that from far away and you were living that experience from inside so that's a very huge difference I guess for me and yeah I guess for everyone so what do you think what what did you feel like when you realized that you were going to be the first Mexican to get this Steinbeck Aurora but well I I was I was emotional and at the same time excited and felt very what's the word I can't explain the the emotion that I felt because getting the John Steinbeck award here from that was an award that was established in in memory of John Steinbeck the writer whose novel really made a world difference in my life and and so it was an affirmation that my writing and my purpose for writing was affirmed by that award you know that that and that award really belonged not just to me but to all of the people the community that I write about it was really their award it was also an award that had its roots in mrs bell in my parents and many many people who along the way guided me and gave me the courage and the guidance to get a good education so that then I could write and then pay tribute to the families the people who made it possible for me to make to break the migrant circuit or the poverty this the cycle of poverty so when I got the award I thought yes this is an affirmation of an award that belongs to all these people mrs bell mr penny my parents especially and my brother my teachers and my teachers right so I would felt very good about it and then when I just when they when I saw the list of previous recipients I said no I maybe they made a mistake I don't because the springsteen was the first one to get it and then Dolores Dolores Huerta who are some of the others can burns John Bayez and the the the award is given to writers and artists whose work are and promote social justice works that deal with the the the spirit of and the value of those who are marginalized so that's all I thought this is wonderful award that means you are doing a great job so how do you connect this how would you connect the social justice word that you have been doing with also the hard job that you have been doing as a professional in order to to tell everyone how important it is to be bilingual and to be educated and again how do you combine those things or make the connection with the social justice education and bilingual well it's a very good question I I think I've always been supportive of a bilingual education when Jerry Brown was governor his first term he appointed me to the california commission on teacher credentialing which is the agency that establishes the the standards for credentialing teachers and administrators in the state of california and I served on it for 10 years and during that period of time bilingual education was became a state state mandate and so the commission was responsible for establishing the requirements for credentialing bilingual teachers and so I was a strong voice on that commission for bilingual education and establishing um the requirements that would prepare bilingual teachers to be um well informed and to have the sensitivity for for the different cultures that are represented in our in our state um and I and I did so because again referring to my own childhood experience having to struggle with English language when uh at that time we were as children were not allowed to speak our native language and as a matter of fact we were punished sometimes before if you spoke another language other in English in the in the schools and I felt that that was a traumatic experience for me so I I felt that uh it's important for teachers to value that the child's native language while they're learning English and hopefully maintain that helped the child to maintain their native language while they learn English to become bilingual because by being bilingual it's it's a big advantage I find that students who are major in a foreign language who are let's say who are non-native speakers of Spanish but major in Spanish uh they see the world in much a broader sense they embrace cultural differences and language communicates culture so if if uh if if we are not encouraged or if our native language is not valued that the message as children is that we as children are not valued our culture is not valued so but so that's why I have always been supportive of bilingual education and the second part of your question was how does that really yeah do you connect that with the social justice yeah well um I you know we um when I think when I when you study American history uh in its truest form not as an alternative reality but it's it's it's it's it's an alternative you discover that that we are a nation of immigrants for the most part except for the exception of Native Americans and African Americans and and Irish the different ethnic groups that came to this country uh suffered discrimination the Irish the Italians and they struggled and they and they work hard because they wanted a better life for their children so it seems to me that when we begin to learn about the experiences of the different groups that make up our diverse society we begin to make connections that even though we are different we have a lot in common there are common history in many ways and and so uh even though we come from different parts of the world speaking a different language and it's precisely those differences that makes our nation the rich nation that it is uh and and so when we make connections then we begin to destroy those walls that separate us from one another and instead of building walls we build bridges right so after all these minutes that you have shared all your experience good experience and bad experience in the school with the teachers sometimes the discrimination what would you say are the most biggest uh or the most big challenges that we have now as an immigrants but mostly thinking about the foreign immigrant students and not only immigrants those ones that are undocumented and are in like elementary school high school college university yeah well it hurts me my heart pains for these individuals because especially well for all immigrants we should value them respect them and and appreciate all the things that they have brought to this country uh and and we are benefiting from all the contributions that all the different immigrants have have made in in in in agriculture and architecture and music for example and art all those contributions uh are make us who we are and and when immigrants are are discriminated against or when students who are here who are brought here as children who are without documentation um and and the the um the fear that they have of being deported I can relate to those fears and I've been working with uh different students doctors and students um encourage them to tell their stories and my and my hope is by telling their stories that they can they can increase the compassion or create more compassion for the situation in which they find themselves and that and I mean we're living in a very difficult time now but it's it's rather than to feel fear we should use the opportunity to double our efforts to overcome injustice um double our efforts to fight against discrimination and prejudice because that only that that that's not a situation that is good for our for our people for all people it's not a good situation for our democracy and our democracy is suffering as a result of what's going on it seems to me uh and so we have to um do everything we can as individuals to overcome those um those that situation and and not lose hope I think we have to I think we we have to uh we are a nation that as I mentioned earlier that has worked really hard suffered discrimination and prejudice in our history so knowing that then we should do everything within our power to change that situation so that no one no one suffers because if one suffers we all suffer right I mean that that's uh so we we just double our efforts do everything we can I on the on the way here we saw people with signs you know coming to the yeah protesting and I and I I think it's healthy to see protest protesters asking for social justice uh protesting again injustices and um what I don't agree with is the violence uh I don't think it serves as well or you know destroying destroying or breaking windows and so forth that that just feeds into the current administration's uh you know uh justification for um for doing what they're doing so but uh to to maintain a healthy democracy we need to uh do everything possible to help everyone get up the best education possible right and to uh become um contribute to contribute to our society as citizens and to always look beyond ourselves and and and uh help others who who need our help everything that's attributed to me in terms of success I really owe it to many people I couldn't have done it by myself right we can't we need each other so when when I hear people say well I I made it so can you and I say I made it without a lot of help so I will do everything I can do to help you succeed because to say I made it so can you is really absorbing ourselves from the responsibility that we have to each other right yes well I know many of you are waiting for him or for us to finalize to finish this conversation so you can talk to him and get a book and sign but I would like first of all I I want to say three more things first because I know you brought a lot of images and maybe you just want to go and share something with the people just quickly I'll show some quick that that's the that's the story and and I I they're narrated from the child's point of view oops and this is the second book the first book ends with eighth grade this one is my experience is in high school during those four years it's in Spanish with the titles and that was from Therizos this is the third book where I describe my experiences in in college and in this in Spanish with the title Masaya to me this is the picture that appears in my naturalization papers I became an American citizen when I was a sophomore or junior in college and this is the latest book to have at the taking hold where I describe my experiences at Columbia University during the 60s my participation or my support of the riots and not the riots but the the the protests against the Vietnam War and the the tragedy when says Martin Luther King was assassinated so I talk about what my reflections during that chaotic period of history and and what what the the common theme in all four books is a transformative power of education great right that's junior each one of the books at the different stages of education and so I for those young people who are here my advice is take advantage of your education work hard in your studies and and you will succeed have to you have to believe in yourselves be proud of who you are be proud of of your heritage and be thankful to your parents and ancestors for their older sacrifices that they made so that you are in school I have that privilege of being in school and and that's that's why I have devoted most of my life to promoting education and the importance of literacy because literacy is extremely important if we're going to maintain a good and healthy democracy exactly thank you just one more question are you working in a book now in these days I know you are very busy but perhaps you are with your little yeah I was my Laura my wife and I had this discussion the other day you know saying I get many requests to make presentations to visit schools and I take advantage of doing that because it gives me a chance to to promote education but at the same time it takes me away from writing so I I have to figure out what a way to do both right so but I do have ideas for another one okay we look forward for that thank you so much for this conversation and thank you thank you Ricardo thank you San Francisco Main Library