Assignment 7: Book Club

Book Assignment:      Breaking Through by Francisco Jiménez


1.What were your points of disruption-- places in the book that caused you to feel uncomfortable or angry or curious?

     As the entire book was almost like one big disruption, I'll focus here on several recurring themes that were most difficult for me:

1. Fear
     "I lived in constant fear for ten years." The opening sentence of a book which would frequently revolve around Francisco, or Frankie's fears, whether they be returning to Mexico and thus having to end his schooling (2), fear of college because no one looked like him (116), or the constant fear that his family wouldn't be able to meet ends meet (148 is just one example).

2. Work Interfering with School
     It makes me extremely angry that young children and teenagers should ever be obligated to miss school in order to work to support their families, as Frankie and his brother Roberto did for months at a time as children (56). And even during his later teen years when Frankie wasn't missing school to work, he was still working at all times, often both before and after school, and this was sometimes to much for him on top of his homework that he couldn't get out of bed to go to school. And so, though his working hours didn't overlap his school hours, he was still negatively effected.

3. Racism
     There are a few times in the book when Frankie and his family are the objects of ridiculous racism, most notably when relationships with three girls, Peggy, Susan, and Darlene are complicated by the family's race. Frankie is extremely young when Peggy's family tells her she can't be friends with him anymore because he's Mexican, and it takes him years to realize, in confusion, that this was because of where his family is from. But the problem is much more severe for Roberto and Susan, who are forced to break up in bad feelings because her parents disapprove of Roberto's race. The same disapproval comes from Darlene's step-father, but it doesn't impede Roberto and Darlene's marriage.

4. Immigrants' Quality of Life
     The Jiménez family workers harder than anyone I have ever met in America. I believe that anyone that works so hard should be able to easily enjoy all the basic necessities of life without worry. It made me very uncomfortable to think of my economic privileges when such hard working people consider enchiladas, rice, and beans a feast; when their children rummage through rubbish bins looking for food and furniture scraps; when they may have never even set foot inside a house; or when Christmas was a time of sorrow because it brought up memories of juxtaposed poverty during that season in years past. All of these are real experiences that Frankie had-- how can that be going on in a country that claims to value equality so much?

5. Impotence
     Overall, it is just the theme of powerlessness that was such a disruption for me. Frankie and his family were able to survive and even be successful in some ways, to break through, just as much because of generosity from the privileged as because of their own hard work. Just a little less physical resilience to hard work or sickness, just one lost job here or there, just one disinterested school counselor... any small thing could have upset how this story played out. And though it has a hopeful ending, while reading I couldn't help but think that while Frankie's story may have played out well (thus the reason it's even available to me to read at all-- he got an education), all of those things that could have gone wrong for him and his family but didn't... all of them have happened to some other immigrant or impoverished family, and their Frankie's were likely denied their chance to break through because of that twist of fate or that failure on the part of the privileged to enable their success.

2. Describe stories from the book that clarify or provide examples of the ideas we have been discussing in class.

     One of the most relevant stories in the book to this class was when Frankie and his brother Roberto are invited to eat in a restaurant by a kind woman that Roberto works for. She is in possession of cultural capital, she knows the language of power, the discourse of how to eat in a restaurant properly. At first, it's clear she doesn't realize just how new everything is for her guests. Though she is kind and discerning enough to help them learn (though not by lecturing, which we discussed is often frustrating for those not part of the privileged group, but seems to be the polite and proper way to go about helping the underprivileged-- in reality, just being told outright what to do it is much easier), she doesn't seem to sense that even questions like, "What do you want to eat?" are so foreign to the brothers that the question makes them quite uncomfortable and confused. This experience comes in handy for Frankie when he is invited to have lunch with the local Rotary Club when he is elected Student Body President at his High School. If he hadn't had that initial restaurant experience, it probably would have seriously complicated his later attempts to follow his teacher's lead with such niceties as selecting the right fork.
     Another story clearly conveys the presence of institutional discrimination in our society. When his family was deported from the United States and then tried to gain reentry, Frankie underwent a medical examination. The ableism of the questions put to him were shocking to me. The intent of the doctor's inquiries were clear-- not only will we not let you into our country if you have any kind of sickness, but if you have any kind of disability of any kind, you're not welcome. I think at one time I wouldn't even have realized this-- the hegemony of ableism. If Frankie had had a mental disability, a speech or hearing impairment, or behavioral disorder, would they have let him into the country? Yet why should a person like that have any less right to enter this country than brilliant Frankie did?
     The final story I want to highlight is when Frankie is asked by a friend to telephone her. This causes him a lot of consternation because he doesn't have a telephone. He eventually finds a place where he can use one, but the process is bewildering and a little frightening for him. He has to be guided through dialing the numbers and how to talk into the phone properly. I don't have any fancy vocabulary to describe this process, but I think it relates to a lot of discussions we've had in class about understanding others' experiences. If you had asked me to help Frankie get through one 24 hour period in his life, I might be able to think of some things from my own perspective that would be difficult for him. But how to make a phone call seems to fundamental that I would never even have considered needing to help him with that, let alone the emotional and mental anxiety it caused him. As teachers, we need to be paying close attention to our students at all times-- we never know when what seems like a basic or easy task to us is actually very trying for our students. We can't ever fall into the trap of deficit thinking, as if such lack of experience on the part of our students is due to anything other than structural inequality.

3. How did this book influence your thoughts about your future work as a teacher?

     I am very grateful to have read this book because it has given me invaluable insight into the life of undocumented immigrants, both parents as well as students that I will have in my classes. Since I will be teaching in an inner-city school in Houston, Texas, it's extremely likely that students with situations very similar to Frankie's will be in my classes every year. One of the great lessons that Frankie drew from his reminiscences is that his success was enabled not only by his and his families hard work and extreme sacrifice, but would have been impossible in spite of that without the aid of those with more cultural and economic capital than he possessed. His English teachers who so patiently helped him in improve; his counselors who not only refused to laugh at his dreams of college and teaching, but even supported him in those goals and pushed him when he himself felt too inadequate or unable to reach them; and the various adults who so patiently helped teach Frankie language of power by teaching etiquette, social customs, and American culture... all of these people were also responsible for his break through. And so I have had these three aspects of being an advocate and ally brought home to me while reading. If I want to help my students break through I must be  (1.) willing to guide each student who comes into my classroom from the place they begin to a better place, even if it means significant differentiation or additional work on my part,  (2.) push my students so that they will have the capacity and skills to be successful in ways they don't dream of as well as ways they do, and  (3.) vocally and consciously address the hegemony my students will encounter in the world and teach them how to confront and beat it (i.e. metacognitively address institutional / individual discrimination).