When looking for works on Mexican Immigration many children’s books appear on the subject. This is interesting, but also great great because children are experiencing the difficulties of immigration still and these works can help make them feel less alone, which seems to be a theme in many of these literary pieces. In The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child, by Francisco Jimenez, Fransico, also known by Pancho, moves with his family from Mexico to America for a better life. However, his family does not find this and they move around California from labor camp to labor camp. When they settle in a tent city, Fransisco goes to school, but he can’t understand English. He struggles along with his friend Miguelito until Miguelito moves away. The teacher notices one day Francisco doesn’t have a coat, so she gives him one from lost and found. Then the child who it belongs to wants it back and he fights Francisco, because Francisco doesn’t know what he’s saying. Later in the year, Francisco’s drawing of a butterfly wins an award in the school exhibit. The kid who he fought with before tells him it’s a good picture and Francisco gives the picture to him. Tragically, Francisco and his family are deported back to Mexico, after things start to look better. Clearly this novel has a depressing ending, but that’s how think many immigrants may feel. There’s the obvious isolation that Francisco feels not being able to talk to anyone, but also how his family’s dream of a better life has proven to be just a dream.
Perhaps the most famous Mexican author is Octavio Paz. In 1990 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. The Swedish Academy of Letters said he won because of his “impassioned writing with wide horizons, characterized by sensuous intelligence and humanistic integrity.” Paz had a prolific career, writing numerous poems and essays. He has been a political commentator; in his “The Labyrinth of Solitude” he discussed modern Mexico and the modern Mexican personality. One of his best known works is his existentialist poem, “Piedra de sol” or “Sunstone”.
