Francisco's family slips under the border fence from Mexico into California, beginning their new life as undocumented immigrants.

The camp foreman tells Papá that strawberry season won't start for two weeks, leaving the family with almost no money.

Francisco is left alone in the family car to watch baby Trampita while Papá, Mamá, and Roberto pick cotton.

Francisco starts first grade in Miss Scalapino's class but cannot understand a single word of English she speaks.

Francisco's butterfly drawing wins a first-prize blue ribbon, and Miss Scalapino lets Francisco release the class butterfly from its cocoon.

Baby Torito falls gravely ill with worsening fever and bloody stool, and the hospital doctor says it is too late to save him.

The family fulfills their promise of daily prayers to Santo Niño de Atocha, and Torito recovers against the doctor's prognosis.

Papá, exhausted and irritable from worrying about work, kills the family's beloved parrot El Perico with a broom.

After the final day of strawberry season, Francisco helps load the family's cardboard boxes into la Carcachita for another move.

Francisco starts sixth grade with Mr. Lema, who notices Francisco's struggles and offers to tutor him in English at lunchtime.

Mr. Lema takes Francisco to the music room and offers to teach him to play the trumpet.

Francisco arrives home excited about the trumpet only to find the family's belongings packed into boxes for yet another move.

Bracero Gabriel refuses Mr. Díaz's order to pull a plow like an animal, asserting his dignity, and is fired and deported to Mexico.

The family's house burns to the ground after gasoline is accidentally used in the kitchen stove instead of kerosene.

Border Patrol enters Francisco's eighth-grade classroom and Miss Ehlis sadly identifies Francisco, who is taken into custody.

The Circuit follows young Francisco Jiménez and his family as they cross illegally from Mexico into California in search of a better life. They endure poverty, substandard housing, and backbreaking fieldwork while moving from harvest to harvest across South-Central California. Francisco's education is constantly interrupted by the family's need to follow the crops, though he finds support in teachers like Mr. Lema who champion his potential. Devastating personal losses—including the violent death of his beloved parrot and the miraculous survival of baby Torito—mark the family's years on the circuit. The tension between hope and hardship peaks when Francisco is pulled from the classroom just before reciting the Declaration of Independence, the ultimate irony of his immigrant story. These fifteen events trace the backbone of Francisco's childhood from his family's first border crossing to their abrupt encounter with the law that will define his future.

The essential journey of a migrant family from Mexico to California and back.

A train conductor slows the daily train near the family's camp and drops a bag of fruit and candy for Roberto and Francisco.

Francisco mixes lumps of dirt into his small cotton pile to make it weigh more, and Papá scolds him for cheating and risking their jobs.

Francisco befriends Arthur, the only classmate who knows some Spanish, but Miss Scalapino reprimands them for speaking it in class.

Francisco is the first to notice the class caterpillar emerge as a butterfly, and Miss Scalapino lets him open the jar to release it.

Roberto and Francisco scavenge wood from the city dump to build a floor inside the family's tent at Tent City.

Francisco arrives to meet Miguelito after school and discovers his cabin is completely empty, the family gone without warning.

Francisco rescues dozens of gray fish stranded in drying puddles and leaves the last surviving fish with the neighbor who owns the goldfish.

With almost no food at Christmas, the family searches grocery store trash cans for discarded fruit and vegetables Mamá cooks into soup.

A broke young Mexican couple comes door-to-door offering a leather wallet and a hand-embroidered handkerchief for sale.

Francisco, Roberto, and Trampita bury El Perico deep in a vineyard row and mark the grave with a handmade cross.

The contratista at the cotton weigh station mocks Francisco in front of the family for not having his own picking sack, calling him a moscoso.

Papá orders Francisco and Roberto to hide in the vineyard rows whenever the school bus passes so the family does not attract attention.

Francisco demands that bully Carlos allow Manuelito to join the kick-the-can game, takes a blow, and walks away until Carlos relents.

Francisco discovers that his little sister Rorra has spent his two irreplaceable keepsake pennies at a gumball machine.

A shoe store owner offers Roberto yard work instead of a counter job, delivering an unspoken racial dismissal that humiliates him.

Behind the headline events of Francisco's story lie countless smaller moments that reveal the true texture of life on the circuit. These events show Francisco's deep longing for friendship and stability—befriending Arthur at school, losing Miguelito to a sudden move, and desperately rescuing fish from drying puddles to give each one a companion. The family's poverty is visible in their daily survival strategies, from scavenging the dump for building materials to picking through grocery store trash for food. Francisco experiences humiliation and loss repeatedly, whether through the contratista's mockery, Rorra spending his keepsake pennies, or Roberto's quiet degradation at the shoe store. Each moment adds texture to the family's resilience and helps Francisco develop the values of perseverance, compassion, and dignity that carry him through his years on the circuit.

The small moments and daily hardships that shape Francisco's childhood on the circuit.

Papá decides to leave El Rancho Blanco behind and boards a train north with the whole family toward the US border.

After crawling under the border fence, Papá pays a woman to drive the family to a field worker camp near Guadalupe.

Roberto is disillusioned to find that California looks nothing like the wealthy paradise his cousin Fito described from a movie.

Miss Scalapino posts Francisco's butterfly drawing on the classroom chalkboard, the first public acknowledgment of his talent.

Doña María's folk-healing treatment with eggs fails to improve Torito's condition, forcing Papá and Mamá to rush him to the hospital.

Francisco dreams of white butterflies carrying him to see Torito dressed as Santo Niño, healed and radiant.

Baby Rubén is born into the family during a period of scarce cotton work and deep poverty in Corcoran.

On Christmas Day, Papá surprises Mamá with the embroidered handkerchief he bought from the visiting couple, revealing his quiet love.

After El Perico's death, Francisco runs to a distant shed, prays for the parrot, and then offers a prayer for Papá himself.

Francisco's hands freeze in the bitter Thanksgiving cold and Papá sends him to the fire, confirming he has not yet proved himself.

Francisco practices reading aloud alone in the school restroom before gathering the courage to ask Mr. Lema for help with vocabulary.

Papá tells Francisco that Mr. Díaz acted wrongly toward Gabriel, that Gabriel did what he had to do, and that Díaz will face consequences.

Mamá tells Francisco the story of the ant and the mouse to teach him that his sister Rorra is worth far more than any penny.

Papá's back pain becomes severe enough that he can no longer work in the fields, leaving Roberto as the family's sole earner.

Mamá convinces Papá to return to Santa Maria, where Mr. Sims helps Roberto secure a year-round janitorial job at the elementary school.

The Circuit is built on pivotal moments of choice and discovery that reshape Francisco's understanding of himself and the world around him. The story begins with Papá's fateful decision to leave Mexico and the immediate shattering of Roberto's dreams when California fails to match the paradise he imagined. Francisco's inner life deepens through prophetic dreams, hard-won lessons in forgiveness, and the quiet courage it takes to ask a teacher for help when you are ashamed of what you do not know. Gabriel's confrontation with Mr. Díaz teaches Francisco about dignity and racial injustice, and Papá's moral confirmation of that lesson becomes one of the book's most important turning points. The family's growing recognition that the circuit is slowly destroying Papá's body—and their hopes—drives the search for stability, culminating in Roberto's steady job and the first real possibility of a permanent home.

The decisions, discoveries, and emotional shifts that turn the course of Francisco's story.