Join us in welcoming author Francisco Jiménez as he reads from his new book Taking Hold: From Migrant Childhood to Columbia University.
Thursday, May 28
7 – 9 pm
Rinconada Library, Embarcadero Room
1213 Newell Rd.
Please Click Here to RSVP”
Sponsored by the Friends of the Library and the MidPen Media Center‘s Made Into America project.
“Taking Hold….” summary
Jiménez leaves everything behind in California-a loving family, a devoted girlfriend, and the culture that shaped him-to attend Columbia University in New York. Carrying memories of years of poverty and prejudice with him, he enters into a world culturally different from his own. Will he find community? Will he be able to excel among his Ivy Leagues classmates? How will he support his family back home now that his devoted father is too ill to work?
Continuing the best-selling life stories told in The Circuit, Breaking Through, and Reaching Out, Jiménez chronicles his efforts and struggles as he continues his education at Columbia University. Francisco Jiménez emigrated from Tlaquepaque, Mexico, to California, where he worked for many years in the fields with his family. He received both his master’s degree and his Ph.D. from Columbia University and recently retired from Santa Clara University after over forty years, where he was most recently the chairman of the Modern Languages and Literature Department.