39 pages • 1 hour read
Francisco JiménezReaching Out
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2008A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “College Bound”
In September 1962, Francisco Jiménez (known as “Frank” or “Panchito”) drives with his mother, father, and four younger siblings in their rickety DeSoto from their home in Santa Maria, California to the campus of Santa Clara University. Growing up in a poor Mexican-American family and working in the California fields, going to college had seemed an unlikely prospect for Frank. He was born in Mexico, but his family emigrated illegally to California in the late 1940s to escape poverty. In 1957, they were deported back to Mexico but returned to the United States legally. Frank has felt guilty ever since about the family’s illegal entry and habitually conceals the truth of where he was born.
Growing up, Frank was sustained by close family ties, especially with his older brother Roberto. Even now, it is painful for Frank to say goodbye to Roberto, with his wife Darlene and baby girl Jackie, as he leaves for college. Frank’s other siblings are José (“Trampita”), Avelina (“Rorra”), Torito, and Rubén. Trampita has been working in Frank’s old janitorial job in order to support the family and allow Frank to go to college.
Frank’s father is grouchy this morning, which has frequently been the case ever since he hurt his back and had to stop working in the fields: “He was upset because I was leaving home. He wanted our family to always be together” (3). For a number of years, the Jiménez family has worked on Bonetti Ranch, a migrant labor camp, living in an old army barracks without indoor plumbing or electricity. As they arrive at Santa Clara University, Frank feels as if he has entered another world. A Catholic college—the oldest university in California—run by the Jesuit order, it is graced by palm trees and a Spanish Mission-style church. Frank checks into his dorm room and reluctantly says goodbye to his family.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Moving In”
Frank is overcome by loneliness in his new surroundings, but reminds himself of the sacrifices he and his family have made to allow him to attend college. Working janitorial jobs and studying hard in high school, Frank received several scholarships and was admitted to Santa Clara University on the basis of his fine academic record. “And although my father taught me that all work was noble, I did not want to pick crops or labor as a janitor all of my life” (16).
Frank meets his new roommate, Smokey Murphy, who is friendly, athletic, and outgoing. He also meets the other students on their floor, the chaplains, and other members of the campus community. Frank and Smokey talk about their experiences, and Frank is heartened by Smokey’s openness about his own working-class background. The two young men realize that they have a good deal in common. As they turn in for the night, Frank is nervous about the English placement test he must take the next day, and he experiences doubts about whether he should be in college instead of helping his family. “The more I thought about it, the more confused I became” (26).
Chapter 3 Summary: “Initiation”
Smokey and Frank are awakened early in the morning by members of the Orientation Committee and ordered to learn the words to the university’s rally song. Frank resents this and other initiation ceremonies the upperclassmen force the freshmen to undergo, as well as the upperclassmen’s treatment of girls. “I wondered if the girls felt as lonely and alienated as I had felt in the first grade when classmates excluded me from playing with them because I did not know English” (33). Frank signs up for his classes and takes the English placement test.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
In the first few chapters we meet Frank, his parents, and siblings, and learn something of his personal history. Frank is from a poor, working-class, and close-knit Mexican-American family. Despite the hardships they have endured, they support one another and sacrifice themselves for each other; these sacrifices have now allowed Frank to go to college.
Santa Clara College forms a complex setting for the book. On one level, the world of college feels different and alien to Frank—the students appear better dressed than him, for example—yet with its Spanish-style architecture and supportive Catholic priests, it also is reminiscent of home. Reaching Out frequently switches between the dual settings of college and home. The college represents intellectual, personal, and spiritual growth. It is a wider world where Frank deepens his knowledge, expands his friendships, and meets his soulmate, Laura. College represents Frank’s ability to rise above his circumstances. Home represents comfort but also the hardship and difficulty from which Frank is trying to escape. Yet Frank maintains his ties to home and family. He thinks constantly about them and desires to help them. Already in this first section, we see the beginnings of a tension between Frank’s duties at college and at home.
During his conversation with Smokey Murphy, Frank first hints at his father’s emotional trouble. We learn that he became depressed after his failure to sharecrop strawberries for a Japanese farmer. The strawberry crop died after a chemical company treated them for blight and the chemical proved too strong. From this point on, Mr. Jiménez adopted a fatalistic outlook on life: “From that day on, my father’s spirit began to die too”; “We must be cursed” (25). By introducing the father’s emotional trouble at this stage, the author establishes one of the book’s major conflicts. The author also contrasts the quiet, thoughtful Frank and his more gregarious college mates, introducing a tension to be exploited later.
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