It is a
cold crisp, dawn for Francisco Jimenez, but instead of getting ready for
school, this teen is in the fields doing backbreaking work of picking strawberries.
Although he is only 14, Francisco has little choice but to work.
His family is poor, and they depend on every cent from every strawberry
he picks for just basic survival, food and housing. What about his rights
and child labor laws? Jimenez and his family are invisible to most
Americans. They are under the radar of the human rights laws, often having
to survive in desperate situations. To make matters worse, the families
are often here illegally. If caught they face deportation to even
more desperate lives in Mexico.
Francisco
Jimenez’s autobiography, Breaking Through, tells of the conditions and
the hardships faced by immigrant families in America in the 1950s in California.
This story, however, also portrays a family's courage to overcome hard
obstacles and find a place in America.
