The Children of Sanchez Read Online Free Page B

actually have entered very few apartments. It is not common to invite friends or neighbors in to eat except on formal occasions such as birthdays or religious celebrations. Although some neighborly help occurs, especially during emergencies, it is kept at a minimum. Quarrels between families over the mischief of children, street fights between gangs, and personal feuds between boys are not uncommon in the Casa Grande.
    The people of the Casa Grande earn their living in a large miscellany of occupations, some of which are carried on within the
vecindad
. Women take in washing and sewing, men are shoemakers, hat cleaners, or vendors of fruit and candy. Some go outside to work in factories or shops or as chauffeurs and small tradesmen. Living standards are low but by no means the lowest in Mexico City, and the people of the neighborhood look upon the Casa Grande as an elegant place.
    The Casa Grande and the Panaderos
vecindades
represent sharp contrasts within the culture of poverty. Panaderos is a small
vecindad
consisting of a single row of twelve windowless one-room apartments which lie exposed to the view of passers-by, with no enclosing walls, no gate, and only a dirt yard. Here, unlike the Casa Grande, there are no inside toilets and no piped water. Two public washbasins and two dilapidated toilets of crumbling brick and adobe, curtained by pieces of torn burlap, serve the eighty-six inhabitants.
    As one moves from the Panaderos to the Casa Grande, one finds more beds per capita and fewer people who sleep on the floor, more who cook with gas rather than with kerosene or charcoal, more who regularly eat three meals a day, use knives and forks for eating in addition to
tortillas
and spoons, drink beer instead of
pulque
, buy new rather than second-hand furniture and clothing, and celebrate the Day of the Dead by attending Mass at church rather than by leaving the traditional offerings of incense, candles, food, and water in their homes. The trend is from adobe to cement, from clay pots to aluminum, from herbal remedies to antibiotics, and from local curers to doctors.
    In 1956, 79 percent of the tenants of the Casa Grande had radios, 55 percent gas stoves, 54 percent wrist watches, 49 percent used knives and forks, 46 percent had sewing machines, 41 percent aluminum pots, 22 percent electric blenders, 21 percent television. InPanaderos most of these luxury items were absent. Only one household had TV and two owned wrist watches.
    In Casa Grande the monthly income per capita ranged from 23 to 500
pesos
($3 to $40 at the current rate of exchange). Sixty-eight percent showed per capita incomes of 200
pesos
or less per month, ($16), 22 percent between 201 and 300
pesos
($24), and ten percent between 301 and 500
pesos
. In Panaderos over 85 percent of the households had an average monthly income of less than 200
pesos
, or $16, none had over 200
pesos
and 41 percent had less than 100
pesos
.
    Monthly rent for a one-room apartment in Casa Grande ranged from 30 to 50
pesos
($2.40 to $4); in Panaderos from 15 to 30
pesos
, ($1.20 to $2.40). Many families consisting of husband, wife and four small children managed to live on from 8 to 10
pesos
a day (64
¢
to 80
¢
) for food. Their diet consisted of black coffee,
tortillas
, beans and chile.
    In Casa Grande there was a wide range of level of education, varying from twelve adults who had never attended school to one woman who had attended for eleven years. The average number of years of school attendance was 4.7. Only 8 percent of the residents were illiterate, and 20 percent of the marriages were of the free-union type.
    In Panaderos, the level of school attendance was 2.1 years; there was not a single primary-school graduate; 40 percent of the population was illiterate; and 46 percent of the marriages were free unions. In Casa Grande only about a third of the families were related by blood ties and about a fourth by marriages and
compadrazgo
. In Panderos half the families were