Recommended Reading: Francisco Jimenez

In The Circuit, Francisco Jimenez tells stories from his childhood, starting with his family's crossing the Mexico/U.S. border under cover of night in the 1940s.  He details how they made the loop of farms in central and southern California with the seasons, uprooting every couple of months to find a new job, a new school, and a new place to live.


In Breaking Through, he writes about his high school years, and about the stability his family found with full-time work in Santa Maria, CA.  He includes details about learning to love rock 'n' roll, learning to drive, working full time, dealing with difficult family relationships, dealing with racism, and breaking through the cycle of poverty.

Francisco Jimenez

Francisco Jimenez is currently chairman of the Modern Languages and Literature Dept. at Santa Clara University. In addition to being an prolific writer, Dr. Jimenez is an outstanding advocate for underprivileged, underrepresented people in American society.  His stories are mostly autobiographical, and thus from the perspective of a Mexican immigrant.  But he has pointed out that his experiences are not his alone, but are shared by many, many others.

Jimenez is a role model for me and for the students I work with.  Reading The Circuit and Breaking Through, I see a responsible, empowered individual who does the virtually impossible by succeeding and excelling in spite of terribly heavy oppression.  For my students, he is someone who has lived what they are living and has come through stronger for it.

Jimenez has also written Reaching Out, about his early adulthood and college experience.  I haven't read it yet.  If it's anything like The Circuit or Breaking Through, it's sure to be a beautiful collection of poignant, easily readable stories that speak to the human experience in a way few books can.

Long Time No See, Internets

Disclaimer: This post involves thought-vomit and psychobable.  Read at your own risk.

It's been almost five months.  A lot has happened.  And still, if you were to ask me what's been going on since October, I would probably say something non-committal and vague, something like "Oh, not much."

Lily stayed in the hospital until the night before Thanksgiving.  That made for a particularly happy holiday season.  Thanksgiving break was kind of whirlwind, spending all afternoon Tuesday getting ready, then all night at the hospital, then all day Wednesday getting ready even more.  

A few sleepless nights months later, here we are in March.  I'm working as the ESL specialist at a local high school, and I'm well into my internship at an agency that does court-ordered counseling.  Camille is in her third and (hopefully!) final student teaching placement.  She only got in a week at her second placement.  I guess Lily really didn't want her to be there, because that's when she came to see us.  It worked out well, because Camille told me a few times that the second placement wasn't a good fit for her.  The new placement is much better.

A few thoughts that have occurred to me since last I was here:

Albert Ellis

• In my counseling work, I find myself talking a lot about "shoulds," or what psychologist Albert Ellis called "musterbation."  We, as people, are really good at telling ourselves and each other what we should, must, or ought to do.  When we internalize those messages, we don't get any closer to actually doing what we should.  We just end up thinking that we're bad for not doing it, and then feeling guilty, ashamed, or angry.  Instead of telling myself or others that "I should" or "You should," I prefer to say (and hear) "I want to" or "It would help if you."  That way, I usually succeed in reducing judgment for not following through and on guilt.  I would really like it, and I think y'all would too, if we got better at communicating our wants and needs in constructive ways.

• Similarly, we people tend to do better with positive requests rather than negative ones.  For example, at my internship, another counselor asked me not to do something.  She had good reason for asking, and she explained why very clearly.  She was very professional, and I have no complaint about her or her communication.  The problem arose when I asked myself "What should I do instead?"  I didn't know what to do.  I still haven't quite figured out an alternative.  There are several options, and it won't be very difficult to make something work, but I have felt a little confused and a little anxious over not knowing what to do for a couple of days now.  I'm still just barely learning to make positive requests, so I won't claim credit for being good at it.  Nevertheless, I'll make a positive request of you, Internets users: Please make positive requests of each other.  It makes it so much easier to know what to do.  You can leave your requests open, if you want.  That way there's room for creativity, experimentation, or even trial and error.  That way there's also room for confidence, progress, and achievement.

There's my two cents for the last few months.  I'll leave you for now with the immortal words of social historians Logan and Preston (1989).  "Be excellent to each other.  And party on, dudes."