Little Red Readings by Hubler Angela E.;

Author:Hubler, Angela E.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi

The Working Poor: A Day’s Work

A Day’s Work, published in 1994, is the story of Francisco, a young Mexican American boy, who accompanies his abuelo (grandfather) to the parking lot, where they compete with other day laborers for temporary work. The grandfather speaks no English, so the boy barters with a landscape contractor for his grandfather’s labor. Francisco lies to the contractor, promising that his grandfather is an expert at gardening, when in fact his grandfather, a carpenter, knows nothing of gardening. Set to work weeding, the pair mistakenly remove the ice plant while retaining the chicory weeds. The contractor returns and is furious, but grandfather intuits what has happened and promises to return and replant the ice plant and pull the chicory at no cost. The contractor is impressed with the grandfather’s honesty and implies that there will be future work for him.

Critical reception for A Day’s Work was positive, with favorable reviews from Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, and the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books. Additionally, the book made “best book” lists from the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the National Council for the Social Studies. The book is also included in the Accelerated Reader program and Scholastic’s Reading Counts! program. Typical of the praise the book received was this comment by Hazel Rochman in Booklist: “The family drama captures that universal immigrant experience in which the child must help the adult interpret the new world, while the wise adult still has much to teach the child about enduring values” (Review of A Day’s Work, 505).

On the surface the book appears to be a sympathetic look at the plight of Mexican American immigrants, the working poor. While even a cursory view beneath the surface shows this book to be a bourgeois fantasy, the surface appears to be all the critics gleaned from the book, judging by their reviews. As Judy Zalazar Drummond argues, the reader is asked to believe without question several unlikely facts in this story. Would a Mexican American mother allow her young son to accompany his grandfather into the rough-and-tumble world of day laborers, where potentially dangerous strangers come and go throughout the day? Would even a young boy and a carpenter grandfather not recognize ice plant, a common landscaping plant in southern California, a succulent with features that would suggest it is a member of the cactus family? Would a day laborer contractor in southern California really not know any Spanish? Why would he hire an old man and a young boy for labor better suited to young men who appear to be plentiful? Would such a contractor really reward incompetence with a promise of future work, or would he seek out someone else from the plentiful supply of cheap and easily exploitable day laborers? Or is Bunting suggesting that it’s so difficult and surprising to find an honest Mexican American worker that a contractor wouldn’t pass on hiring such a rare individual?

As is the case with Fly Away Home and Smoky Night, Bunting provides little in way of context.

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