Rose has been sent by The Teacher Corps to the low-income community of El Monte, California. El Monte is steeped in poverty, and Rose familiarizes himself with the community. Despite growing up in South Vermont, Rose soon realizes that “one poor slice of a county is not another” (88). Unlike Rose’s childhood neighborhood, which was mostly older and blue collar, El Monte is much more diverse; he explains it is home to “working-class whites and poor Mexican Americans and Mexican nationals who were laboring in warehouses and foundries and orange groves to support families here and across the border” (88). Luckily, Rose’s Teacher Corps mentor and his fellow interns are Mexican American, and they serve as his “linguistic and cultural” liaisons to the El Monte community (88).

Rose splits his time between working with students in two El Monte elementary schools and taking courses at the University of Southern California (USC). Rose asks to be assigned to Rosalie Naumann’s classroom, where Naumann, the school’s reading specialist, works with the school’s struggling readers. She selects “fifteen of the school’s poorest readers—fourth and fifth graders” to be Rose’s special project; Rose initially balks at this because he has never taught before, but Naumann reassure him that if he does with he “think[s] is best,” the students will respond (93).