The Children of Sanchez Read Online Free

cruelty of the poor to the poor. These stories also reveal an intensity of feeling and human warmth, a strong sense of individuality, a capacity for gaiety, a hope for a better life, a desire for understanding and love, a readiness to share the little they possess, and the courage to carry on in the face of many unresolved problems.
    The setting for these life stories is the Casa Grande
vecindad
, alarge one-story slum tenement, in the heart of Mexico City. The Casa Grande is one of a hundred
vecindades
which I came to know in 1951 when I studied the urbanization of peasants who had moved to Mexico City from village Azteca. I had begun my study of Azteca many years before, in 1943. Later, with the help of the villagers, I was able to locate Aztecans in various parts of the city and found two families in the Casa Grande. After completing my study of village migrants, I broadened my research design and began to study entire
vecindades
, including all the residents irrespective of their place of origin.
    In October, 1956, in the course of my study of the Casa Grande, I met Jesús Sánchez and his children. Jesús had been a tenant there for over twenty years and although his children had moved in and out during this time, the one-room home in the Casa Grande was a major point of stability in their lives. Lenore, their mother and the first wife of Jesús, had died in 1936, only a few years before they moved into the Casa Grande. Lenore’s elder sister, Guadalupe, age sixty, lived in the smaller Panaderos
vecindad
on the Street of the Bakers, only a few blocks away. Aunt Guadalupe was a mother substitute for each of the children; they visited her often and used her home as a refuge in time of need. The action of the life stories, therefore, moves back and forth between the Casa Grande and the Panaderos
vecindad
.
    Both
vecindades
are near the center of the city, only a ten-minute walk from the main plaza or Zócalo with its great Cathedral and Presidential Palace. Only a half-hour away is the national shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico, to which pilgrims flock from all parts of the nation. Both Casa Grande and Panaderos are in the Tepito section, a poor area with a few small factories and warehouses, public baths, run-down third-class movie theatres, overcrowded schools, saloons,
pulquerías
(taverns where
pulque
, a native alcoholic drink, is sold), and many small shops. Tepito, the largest second-hand market in Mexico City, also known as the Thieves’ Market, is only a few blocks away; other large markets, La Merced and Lagunilla, which have recently been rebuilt and modernized, are within easy walking distance. This area ranks high in the incidence of homicide, drunkenness, and delinquency. It is a densely populated neighborhood; during the day and well after dark, the streets and doorways are filled with people coming and going or crowding aroundshop entrances. Women sell
tacos
or soup at little sidewalk kitchens. The streets and sidewalks are broad and paved but are without trees, grass, or gardens. Most of the people live in rows of one-room dwellings in inside courtyards shut off from view of the street by shops or
vecindad
walls.
    The Casa Grande stands between the Street of the Barbers and the Street of the Tinsmiths. Spread out over an entire square block and housing seven hundred people, the Casa Grande is a little world of its own, enclosed by high cement walls on the north and south and by rows of shops on the other two sides. These shops—food stores, a dry cleaner, a glazier, a carpenter, a beauty parlor, together with the neighborhood market and public baths—supply the basic needs of the
vecindad
, so that many of the tenants seldom leave the immediate neighborhood and are almost strangers to the rest of Mexico City. This section of the city was once the home of the underworld, and even today people fear to walk in it late at night. But most of the criminal element has moved away and