California Dream

In the touching story " The Circuit", Fancisco Jimenez told a story about a Mexican immigrant family move to California with full of the dreams. For them, California was an adventure. The parents' eyes "sparkled" every time they talks about California. To them, the life will be better in California. Through children's eyes, Francisco illuminates the California dreams into the reality. For many people, California is a good place to start a new life. The early Golden rush, and bright images of California gave people endless hope. They think the life will be as easy as "people there sweep money off the street. " (Francisco Jimenez, Under the Wire) However, in the reality, life is not always that easy. Especially for immigrants, the dreams of better opportunity, better life style, better weather and even better education, may not be perfect as they imagined. Will the reality make their dreams gone sour?

In the fiction short story, the Mexican family hoped to move to California to find better opportunities. Before they move there, all they think about is how they don't have to "get up at four in the morning to milk the cows" (Francisco, page 2). In reality, sometimes they don't really have choice about the first job. All they could think of is make the basic living need for their family. When the Mexican family, in Francisco's novel, first arrived in California, they only have "seven dollar" with them. They have to wait two weeks for the next job open, the strawberries pickers. Although the story is fiction, many immigrants really do have the same situation. The different language speaking and sometime illegal working status could be very difficult for the immigrants. In California, many immigrants can only find blue collar jobs because their illegal working status. The farmer fields, restaurant helpers are most like their only choices. Due to their situation they have no choice to take those jobs alone with the cheap labor. Outside the Home depots stores, it easily find groups of Mexicans standing there wait for people driving by and pick up them just for temporarily jobs. Sometime even $50 dollars per day will satisfy their needs. For many of them, $50 may support their whole family for weeks.

Beside the great opportunity, people also dreamed about the better life style California might have. Come to the life style, people couldn't exist but think about the big Hollywood sign. Francisco's fiction Mexican children got their imagination from some Hollywood movies and cousin's stories. They must think about the fancy life style Calfornia people have. The world leading entertainment culture, the fashion, the music, and the freedom living style are the temptations people couldn't escape. Some migrants think move to California is a good way to "escape their community". In small towns or even some countries, people have to live with others judgments, such as neighbors or colleagues. Truly, Californians have more freedom to be themselves. The busy life style, tight working schedules make people have no time to interfere other's life. Friends and family may only call each other once a week, once a month, or even once a year. However, more people criticize about this issue. In Francisco' novel, the Mexican child loved to have family gather around. He enjoyed to listen to the stories his family told. He might not notice, but the warm feeling about the family may be more important. This feeling maybe is what Californians missing.

Equally important to the better opportunities, the sunny weather of California has been taken in many migrants' consideration. California always has the bright images of its natural condition, such as the sunshine, the blue sky, and endless ocean side. The Mexican boys, in "Under the Wire", thought their favorite "Noon train" must from California. In their mind, California is full of sweetness as the "oranges, apples, and candies" they got in the brown bag. However, in the true-life, because the State grown too fast, California's environment has been "threatened"(James J. Rawls, California, CDR29) in many ways. For example, Santa Barbara had wild mountain fire destroyed thousands homes for recent year summers. The Cosco ship spilt 53,500 gallons oil into San Francisco bay in 2007, and killed thousands animals. The pollution has taken California's sunny image away little by little. Fortunately, California has a number of priority conditions of the natural. Associate with it good resource of, high-technology, the State is working on their way to improve the current situation, by developing the solar, wind and geothermal power system to reduce the pollution and keep the Californian sunny dream real.

At last, many migrant families brought their children to California, like the narrative Mexican family, just hope the children could have better education. Getting away from their poverty back Mexican, the children may have more chance to go to school and escape the daily "milking cow" routing. The education system of California or America is much different than other countries. Here, American advocates the free education system, where children could have more freedom to choose the projects they want to study. The teaching style is also different. American professors promote students doing more hand-on work, instead of just reading the material from the textbook. By this way, students actually could remember the concept more and be able to use it in the real world. Nevertheless, California tuition has been increased almost every year. According to Los Angeles Times, University of California students may face 32% increase by 2010. That means $2,500 dollars more. Due to the economic declining, many families couldn't afford the fee. Exceeding their ability, some students even have to give up for couple semester and come back later. Many students have to work themselves to help the family out.

All in all, same as Francisco described in his novel, California dreams are not pretty as people imagined. No doubt, California may have more opportunities, glamorous life style, good natural conditions, or maybe even better system. But, defining the California dreams, people may have to pay more than they think. Achieving the goals, making the dreams come true will never be easy. Those colorful dreams of California won't just become true by themselves. No matter where people live, hard work is a must.