19781No. 21 by Richard Critchfield Lookto Suffering, Lookto Joy South America Part Ill: ~anchez,~e~oztl6n, and Today

The central figure in The Children of famous old restaurant long cele- producer Hall Bartlett came to his Sanchez is the authoritarian, self- brated as a meeting place of Mexican house for a meal in April while filming centered father, whose absence of intellectuals. It is not far from Mexico location shots in 's affection toward his four oldest City's main plaza, or the Zocalo, with Tepito slum, La Lagunilla market, children, who tell the story, made the its great Cathedral and Presidential and Chapultepec park. He said they book such a moving, strange . Hernandez lives in the same assured him that the picture would tragedy. house in Casa Blanca vecindad or be "decent" and "an example for slum tenement-"Casa Grande" in other families." As Oscar Lewis described his first the book-in the poor Tepito impression in October 1956: "The section, a ten-minute walk away. He "They promised to pay me and the father, Jesus Sanchez, walked in invited me to his home for an inter- children some money when the brusquely, carrying a sack of food view. picture comes out," Hernandez said, supplies over his shoulder. He was a "I'll take anything they give me. short, stocky, energetic man, with Hernandez, who looks incredibly fit Unless it's just a little. But they told Indian features, dressed in blue and who smiled and laughed fre- me, they'd show the picture all over denim overalls and a straw hat, a quently during our talk, guessed, the world." He said the author's cross between a peasant and factory "I'm about 70, but I still feel young." w~dow,Mrs. Ruth M. Lewis, visited worker." At that time Sanchez had His daughter Cristina (Consuelo) is h~min early February and also been "food buyer and kitchen married with two children and lives in promised the family some earnings manager for almost thirty years" of New Laredo, Tamaulipas, near the from the film. the "La Gloria restaurant" which Texas border. Berta (Marta) lives "catered to the middle class." He with her husband in Acapulco and In the 14 years since The Children of was then "about 48 years old." has "nine or ten kids-it's cheaper Sanchez was published, Hernandez by the dozen." Pedro (Roberto) sells continued, he and his 4 children Twenty-one years later, on June 1, clothes and furniture from his home together have received only a total of 1977, 1 watched a short, stocky, and occasionally works in an auto- 125,000pesos, which, even before energetic man, with Indian features, mobile factory "whenever they call devaluation, came to only $1,000, or blue denim overalls, a straw hat, and him." He is recovering from a broken $200 apiece. Hernandez also dis- a peasant look, approach very leg suffered in a car accident three puted Lewis's claim he did not pay brusquely up Mexico City's Tacuba months ago. Luiz (Manuel) also the four Hernandez children for their Avenue. Incredibly, he was carrying "sells thingsfrom his house." long tape-recorded autobiographical a sack of food supplies over his interviews, mostly done in the study shoulder. With considerable excite- Hernandez said his family originally of h~sMexico City home. In his intro- ment and mustering what tourist preferred to be anonymous because duct~onto The Children of Sanchez guidebook Spanish I could, I stopped "we didn't want people to know our In 1963, Lew~swrote (see xx-xxi): him and asked, "Perdon, per0 Usted real names as long as we didn't era Jesus Sanchez?" understand how SeRor Lewis was In obtaining the detailed and intimate going to use those interviews." Now data of these life stories, 1used no Indeed he was. that a film version of The Children of secret techniques, no truth drugs, no Sanchez is due for release in Octo- psychoanalytic couch. . . . The His real name is Santos Hernandez ber, the Hernandez family prefers to Sanchez family learned to trust and Rivera. Now, after almost 50 years, be identified. Hernandez said An- confide in me.. . . I did not follow the he is still food buyer and kitchen thony Quinn, who plays Jesus common anthropological practice manager of the Cafk de Tacuba, a Sanchez in the film, and Hollywood of paying them as informants. . . . 1 was struck b y the absence of "simpatico, very correct, very hard Hernandez said he felt Lewis tried to monetary motivation in their working." He said his family first met get at the exact truth, but that "the relationship with me. Basically, it Lewis when his daughter Cristina children were too young to know was their sense of friendship that led was engaged as his secretary.(Lewis what to say, to know how to answer them to tell me their life stories. . . . himself said he first met the family in his questions. They made up what- They have often toldme thatif their their vecindad.) Hernandez said, "I ever came into their minds." (The 4 stories would help human beings didn't want to tell him my story" but children ranged in age from 25 to 32 anywhere, they would feela sense of that he had finally agreed to a few when the book was published, but accomplishment. interviews when Lewis showed him Lewis had been interviewing them an agreement "I had signed sixteen off and on during the previous 7 Challenging this, Hernandez said the years ago." (This may have been in years.) 4 children received "$50 to $100 from connection with Five Families, in time to time." Playwright Vicente which the Sanchezes are first intro- Hernandez, of course, has a highly Lenero, who adapted the book to the duced. Sanchez's own story takes prejudiced viewpoint, as the portrait stage in 1972, when it had a success- up only 28 of The Children of San- of Sanchez is not a flattering one. ful four-month run in Mexico City, in chez's 499 pages and Lewis wrote "it Playwright Lenero, who made both a a separate interview also said Lewis was difficult to gain his confidence.") careful study of the book and Mexico had told him he had paid the Her- City slum life while working on the Hernandez said he had read "parts" nandez children for the original stage version, contended "Every- but not the entire book, though as ~nterviewsand had shared some of thing in the book was true." De- Los hijos de Sanchez it was a best the book profits with them. Journa- scribing life in Tepito, he broke off to seller in Mexico. list Joaquin Diez Canedo, who made exclaim, "Oof! Terriblement!" a study of Lewis's work, "Eleditor de "Was it true?" Lewis en Mexico," was also under Hernandez had not read the screen- the impression the Hernandez play but said his daughter Cristina He grinned. "Five percent. Not even children were paid. (Contrary to had. In March, in an interview with El half of it was true." Lewis's remark, few anthropologists Sol de Mexico, she claimed Italian do pay their informants. One who Screenwriter Cesare Zavatini (who "What, specifically, was not true?" did, George Foster, stated frankly in played the role of Elia Kazan in his study of Tzintzuntzan village that "He wrote that Cristina was a prosti- "America, America") had badly dis- he found it became "sometimes tute." (This appeared to be a refer- torted the book, especially by adding necessary to pay a man to devote ence to Consuelo's account of being a scene in which a mother gives birth time to the ethnologist which he coerced into sexual relations while In front of the entire Sanchez family. would otherwise devote to his cus- trylng to break into the Mexican film Cr~stina(who like all four children has tomary manner of earning a living.") industry.) Hernandez said Roberto's the last name of Hernandez Ramirez, prison history, one of the more sen- in the Mexican custom of taking both Hernandez spoke of Oscar Lewis sational parts of the book, was, how- parents' names) denounced the w~thadmiration, describing him as ever, in the main accurate. scene as "against Mexican tradition" and declared "This picture is against the dignity of my family and my country." (In Tepoztlh, Sara Rojas, a friend of the Lewises, told me Mrs. Lewis had told her during her visit in February that the movie would not be like the book.

Cristina has claimed she possesses "promises and agreements made when we originally agreed to help Dr. Lewis write one of the most honest portrayals of lower-class family life ever written." She has said, "I have sufficient documents from 0scar Lewis with me, including arrange- ments for payment to be made if the book was translated to the screen.

At last- the author (right) finds the raal Jesus Sanchez (Santo Hernandez Rivera)on a Mexico City street. No matter. Oscar Lewis was an "Oscar said, 'No, I'm writing about The Film honest man, very good, but his someone else,' " Mrs. Rojas went on. Can a serious anthropological study promises have been ignored." The "And he brought another man and of slum City be a box family appears anxious to get pub- said, 'This is the Sanchez of the office success? Hollywood is betting licity and Hernandez said National book. He works in a restaurant.'" it can and is finally filming "The Geographic magazine had recently Children of Sanchez" to prove it. interviewed him for five hours and Until now the poor two-thirds of the We may have simply had trouble paid him for it. world have been studiously ignored with translations, but for a time Mrs. by most commercial filmmakers. Rojas certainly confused things. Finding Hernandez was not easy. Such notable exceptions as "Pather Finally, it was playwright Lenero who Mrs. Lewis declined to provide his Panchali," "La Strada," and "Zorba said that Sanchez could not have name and address or those of any of the Greek" have mostly been filmed Lewis's subjects, though she did give died eight years ago as he had abroad. Luckily the star of the last me the name of Sara Rojas, an old attended the play and Lenero had two, Anthony Quinn, will play the friend in Tepoztla'n who was never an met him and all four Sanchez title role in "The Children of ~nformantwhom she "would need to children. Lenero recalled the true Sanchez." protect." family name had been Hernandez and that at that time, 1972, the father Quinn seems just right for Jesus Mrs. Rojas told me Sanchez had died was still working at the Cafe de of diabetes in Mexico City eight years Tacuba. When I encountered Her- Sanchez, who was in his 50s at the time of the story. Quinn himself has ago and that she had attended the nandez outside the restaurant, there 10 children, is Mexican, and feels funeral and met his sons among the was no doubt who it was; it is a of the mourners. She said his wife had also tribute to the veracity of Oscar strongly about the survival since died. In May and April three Lewis's portrait that the man's family as an institution. "In all photographs had been published in identity was unmistakable. humility," he said, "I don't see any- the Mexico City press of a man body else who, at this moment, is ~dentifiedas the real life Sanchez. In better suited to play Sanchez." He one of these, published in El Sol de Does the question of ethics-did said he and his son, Duncan, who will Mexico April 4, he was named Jose Lewis not pay the family as he him- play Roberto in the film, spent a good Chavez Trowe, which turned out to self claimed or did he pay them as deal of time in Mexico City slums be a completely incorrect name. Hernandez, Lenero, and Cristina "trying to imbue ourselves with the claim?-really affect thevalue of The feeling of a poor inhabitant of the Children of Sanchez? capital."

Mrs. Rojasfelt the photographs must No, if the book is judged as a work of Though Quinn's father came from be of pretenders trying to cash in on literary art rather than the kind of Ireland, he fought with Pancho Villa the film. But further questioning of pure anthropology that has to stand against General John J. (Black Jack) her revealed that the Sanchez she up to scientific scrutiny. Ethics and Pershing's "punitive expedition" to knew-his name was Aurelio San- literature have seldom been closely capture Villa, which boomeranged chez and his wife's name was allied. Nancy Milford has told us in against President Woodrow Wilson Antonia Ferrada- had driven a bus, Zelda (New York: Harper B Row, though it toughened up the Ameri- as had his son, and that he stuttered 1970) how F. Scott Fitzgerald ruth- can army for trench warfare in badly and had suffered from diabetes lessly used passages from his wife's France (the U.S. press found Villa for some years. It turned out that this diary and letters, even when she was more exciting than the New York couple were the Agustin Gomez and mentally ill, in Tender is the Night. Yankees.) Quinn is a native of Rosa Hernandez of Five Families, We know that Theodore Dreiser Chihuahua and his part-Indian who originally had come from lifted long passages from news- mother's name was Oaxaca. "It has ~epoztlh. (See page 71, "His papers without attribution in An bothered me to hear people say that I stammer had become worse and he American Tragedy, that Sinclair don't love Mexico," Quinn said. "I had developed diabetes" in the story Lewis practically did an anthropo- have never lost my Mexican spirit. of the Gomez family.) logical study of Sauk Center, Minne- sota, in Main Street, and that even Though he has made 145 films, some Mrs. Rojas then remembered that Leo Tolstoy did not simply base the shot in Mexico, Quinn has never Lewis was the godfather of one of characters in War and Peace upon worked with the Mexican film indus- the Sanchez-Gomez children and his family and friends, but drew the try before. "The Children of San- that when The Children of Sanchez most clinically accurate portraits of chez," due for release in October, was published, Antonia Ferrada them. Lewis, in the end, achieved a was shot at Mexico City's Churu- (Rosa Hernandez) had protested, kind of truth about the human pre- busco Studio, with scenes filmed in "Compadre, you only came to write dicament and that, surely, is what the slum district of Tepito, La bad things about us." counts. Lagunilla market, and Chapultepec park. The almost entirely Mexican "We need to go back to the family," "social theater," i.e., life in the cast, who will speak English in the he said, "because that is the basis of slums, where he got his start. "I film, includes Katy Jurado, Lupita everything. I never go to erotic suffered a great deal," he said Ferrer, Helena Rojo, and Lucia movies and I didn't even see 'Last quietly. Mendez. Tango in .' But then I'm not offered sexy pictures anyway, on Anthony Quinn hopes to make it an account of my age. Current films lack ~epoztlinToday "honest and worthy" film and since reality. 'King Kong' and 'Jaws' are There are handsome villas every- he knowsfrom his own youth what it tremendous exaggerations. Nowa- where, and in the lovely valley below, means to be poor and a Mexican, it days, there are enough problems, the vast walled estates of million- may be the most truthful picture of enough dramas, in life itself." aires, trailer camps, and a YMCA Mexican slum life we are likely to get. recreation park have replaced the old A serious man, Quinn is also the Though Quinn feels movies are fields of corn and beans. Time and an author of four books and feels "made by a team," he is putting a English language daily are sold in the movies should portray actual life. good deal of himself into his role of plaza, TV antennas sprout from Sanchez and is evidently making him every rooftop, a new cinema shows a more sympathetic figure than Kung Fu and bloody and macabre Lewis did. "I hope Italians, French, Mexican shoot-'em-ups. Express English, North Americans, and buses leave every hour for Mexico people all over the world will be able City, 77 kilometers and 70 minutes to identify themselves with San- away over a new four-lane super- chez," he said. "I hope I'm an honest highway completed in 1965. Some man and what I'm interested in is 3,000 bus fares are sold daily to the humanity." Quinn said he was sorry city of Cuernavaca, 15 miles below there would not be a Spanish version on the plains to shoppers and a good of the film, which had turned out to many commuters to schools and be too costly. "Mexican movies have jobs. Kellogg's Corn Flakes, Nescafe, concerned themselves very little with and ice cold beer are standard fare in the country's political and social en- the grocery shops. The German vironment," he said. "I would like to colony is the biggest, but there are do a film about Pancho Villa, for plenty of rich Mexicans, Americans, instance, but it would require com- Italians, and French, and an artists' plete freedom, with nobody, abso- colony of Mexican painters and film lutely nobody, behind my shoulder stars, and even Hollywood invades telling me what I must say." now and then to shoot a movie, such as "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance What may help Quinn most in por- Kid." On weekdays the plaza and traying Sanchez is what he called the market look dingy and desolate, but

Anthony Quinn.

Anthony Quinn and the mnidentified as the real Jesus Sanchez during the filmng of "Los Hijos de Sanchez. " on Saturdays and Sundays thou- was 9,978 on June I,1977, and if one the middle class: professionals, sands of tourists pour in from Mexico counts the 7 small outlying hamlets white-collar employees, skilled City, jamming five hotels and ten now alyost indistinguishable from workers, artisans, shopkeepers. restaurants. Real estate values have Tepotzlan proper, the municipio has Today most menial work, from skyrocketed; land currently sells for 18,623 people, and has become a washing dishes in the cafe's to 200 to 250 pesos (about $10) per fair-sized town. peddling souvenirs in the market, is square yard. done by immigrants from neighbor- Though a good many Tepoztecans ing Guerrero state. Another measure remain part-time cultivators, grow- of prosperity is the dramatic fall in These are prosperous times for ing corn, beans, and alfalfa on 2,100 the number of men who temporarily ~epoztl& and the Indian peasant hectares of land from a large migrate to the United States as agri- village Redfield and Lewis wrote hacienda 4 miles down the valley cultural workers. In 1948, there were about is no more. Its population, turned over to Tepoztlh in 1929 about 30, in 1957, more than 600; 2,500 in 1926 and 3,500-4,000 in the after the Revolution, there has been today there are less than a dozen. Lewis books of 1951,1959, and 1964, an enormous shift of peasants into

Above left: ~e~otzl~n-avillage be comes a town.

Above right: A young Taraswn Indian at an ancient temple of the Taraswn Em pire, where human sacrifices mere once made.

Below ~e~oizgnmarket This prosperity has been almost en- barrios, each with its chapeland Fifty years ago, according to Red- tirely fueled by land sales, mostly patron saint, formedlittle field, the Tepoztecans were "Indians since Tepoztlh became fashionable communities within the larger of almost pure lndian blood" who among the rich after the superhigh- village. A paved road connecting spoke their ancient lan- way was built and since Mexico City Azteca with the main highway cut guage. Many engaged in pre-His- has become so badly polluted by across the village andendedabruptly panic hoe culture of maize, called smog. The shift from peasantry into at the plaza. Here were the municipal tlacolol; they grew plums and burned middle class occupations, however, building, the central church, the mill, charcoal to supplement what was a began earlier and also reflects a few small shops, and a bare park. bare subsistence livelihood. Redfield Mexico's remarkable advances in Extending up and down the slope found their homes, cookery, medical education the past 20 years. Unless the old terracedstreets, laboriously cures, and belief in sorcery followed the Mexican economy itself goes constructed of blue-gray volcanic ancient Aztec customs. Lewis, in his into protracted decline, there seems rock, were lined b y small, one-story studies from 1943 to 1960, recorded no turning back. adobe houses with their patios of the transition from Indian to mestizo semitropical plants and trees set culture (being "lndian" in Mexico is And yet you can still feel the years behindlow stone walls. more a matter of life style than of under you in TepoztlQn, as every- race). In 1947 Lewis found only half where in Mexico. One can ascend the people spoke Nahautl. I was told the cliffs that surround the commu- Today TepoztlQn looks the same today only about 20 percent do, and nity on three sides to an Aztec stone except that almost all the old houses no one under 25. Hoe culture has all temple where children were sacri- have been rehabilitated or torn down but disappeared and charcoal burn- ficed to the rain god, , in 1580, and replaced in the past 10 years. ing, now illegal, is practiced only by a by having their hearts cut out and the Lewis, in the 1940s, described the few men in the outlying hamlets. blood given in offering. There is still a streets of ~epoztla'nas "uniformly Wood gathering and selling, though record of how Tepoztldn, along with quiet and rustic and stamp Tepoztlsn also illegal on government forest 24 other towns of pre-Hispanic as a rural village." Redfield said of reserves, is still flourishing and about Huaxtepec province, gave tribute of the same streets in 1926 that they half of Tepoztldn's poorer people still 46 warriors' costumes with shields to were "very still; in them no wheel use wood as a cooking fuel. Montezuma's Aztec court. One can ever moves." Today the steep see fragments of a heavy wall said to cobbled lanes remain the same but A young Chilean anthropology be part of the house of Martin cars move over them; on weekends student, Claudio Zomnitz, who ,is CortBs, the Spanish conquerer'sson. there are even traffic jams. At the spending the summer in Tepoztlan And the old men can still relate same time a good many Tepoztecans doing research into its politics, told almost bullet-by-bullet accounts of ride horseback, apparently since me, "Redfield, if he is remembered at the fighting that waged back and what village fields remain are so far all, and only by a handful of old forth through TepoztlQnbetween the away. (Lewis described the villagers people, is remembered well. Lewis is Zapatista guerrillas and the federal walking two to three hours each way not remembered so kindly. People troops during the Mexican Revolu- as late as the 1960s.) here in ~epoztldnknow that Lewis tion of 1910-1920. didn't like them and that he wrote a lot of bad things about them." Redfield in 1926 described ~epoztldn Neither Redfield nor Lewis quite pre- as it still looks: "It remains hidden in pares you for the spec,tacular scenic Sara Rojas, an elderly woman who large part until it is actually entered. beauty of Tepoztlan's setting. was a friend of the Lewises, told me, A density of trees conceals the Nestled into a sloping alluvial valley, "Few remember Oscar Lewis today. houses.. . . The great central church the settlement of houses is sur- It was a true story, but people here on the plaza is by far the largest rounded by very sheer cliffs and fan- didn't like it." Lewis's main peasant building in Tepoztla'n; its great walls, tastic and massive rock out- study was of a man named Juan crenelated to serve as battlements, cropping~.These are partly forested Rodriquez, who died in 1973 at the and its two tall bell towers dominate with pine, fir, oak, and madrona, and age of 84. Rodriquez first appeared a village that, in the rainy season, with breathtaking vistas of stone as Pedro Martinez in Five Families escapes into and is lost in foliage." In cliffs. Mist and mossy green in every and later as the subject of a book- Five Families, Lewis begins, direction, it looks very much like the length tape-recorded autobiography, Bavarian or Tyrolean Alps (this may Pedro Martinez. explain ~e~oztldn'spopularity with The ancient highland village of rich Germans). Redfield later wrote Modesta Rodriquez, his daughter, is Azteca t Tepoztl&l lay quiet and his first impression of Tepoztldn was the last family member still living in serene on the mountain slope in the of its beauty; mine was to wonder ~e~oztldn,her sons, schoolteachers, early morning darkness. . . . why either Redfield or Lewis chose having migrated to Mexico City. Mrs. Spreading from the top of the slope such a unique and exotic setting to Rodriquez, today 50 and thewife of a to the broad valley below, eight portray Mexican peasant life. Tepoztecan who cultivates the land for a living-her house was one of Mexico Today calories per day just as they do in the poorest I saw in ~e~oztlh-said Mexico in 1977 is about to thrust Uganda. Half the Mexican popula- she had never read any of the Lewis itself upon the American conscious- tion is under 17, as in Bangladesh. books, although as Macrina, she is ness in a way neither Redfield nor Agriculture in the most backward an important character in Pedro Lewis ever imagined. This is because parts of the country hasn't changed Martinez. She expressed no interest Mexico has a population growth rate much since the Spanish conquest of in seeing the copy I carried in my of 3.7 percent, just about the highest 1519. Add low standards of housing, hand, other than to remark, "My on earth. When Redfield went to education, and health, inflation in fa-ther had one." She said Lewis paid Tepoztldn in 1926, Mexico's popula- recent years of 30 percent, a present her father "200 to 300 pesos" for tion was roughly 15 million people. In $3.2 billion trade deficit, foreign in- periodic tape-recorded interview 1951, when Lewis's ~epoztldnRe- debtedness of $25 billion, an extreme sessions and gave him 1,000 pesos studiedwas published, there were 25 gap between rich and poor, and an after the book was published. The million. There are 63 million now. almost complete lack of popular interview was cut short when her There are projected to be 133 million political participation. These have husband, drunk, arrived home from in 23 more years. This will be half as been the conditions that produced the fields on horseback and began many people as the United States the "culture of poverty" hypothesis. carrying on about how "Ameri- will have. canos" could never understand the In February 1977, Mexico's new life of a peasant. (But they try; Until very recently many Americans President, Jose ~dpezPortillo, went American anthro,pologists are still thought about Mexico, if at all, as a to Washington to ask for a relaxation studying Tepoztlan, the most recent particularly friendly, reliable, "good of U.S. immigration rules, the elimi- being Philip Bock of the University of neighbor," drowsing peacefully nation of restrictions on Mexican New Mexico.) under its sombrero in the shadow of imports, and more American invest- a cactus and a Spanish colonial ment in industry (28 percent of it is Since the Tepoztldn of Redfield and church, much the image Redfield American-owned). ~d~ezPortillo Lewis no longer exists, we shall projected in his original study. The was really asking for the same in- never know whether life there was years that Redfield and Lewis creased investment and liberalized happy and satisfying, or unhappy studied Mexico were years of trade all the poor countries of the and filled with fear, envy, and mis- stability and advance. During most Third World are asking of the rich. trust. The first day or two, inter- of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, His most immediate concern was viewing mostly older people about Mexico sustained a yearly economic Mexico's illegal migrant workers, at the work of Redfield and Lewis, I did growth rate of at least 6 percent, one the moment the country's main sense some suspicion, fear, and of the best development records safety valve. hostility. But after a week, and anywhere. In the 51 years since Red- becoming acquainted with younger field went to TepoztlAn, 20 percent of How much can be seen in just one Tepoztecans, I found TepoztlAn's what were mostly peasants have small village, Huecorio (population people as cheerful, outgoing, and become industrial workers, another 1,112) in Michoacdn state where I forward looking as any semirural 16 percent are in services. Mexico's lived while writing this Report. As we people to be found in Mexico. The soldiers have stayed out of politics, have seen, ~epoztlhwas lucky to be old men, still dressed in their loose, its civilian presidents have peacefully near Mexico City so that land values white calzones, tattered sombreros handed over power every 6 years for have soared. In one of his last and huaraches, and still carrying 42 years. Around 8 million Mexicans comments about ~e~oztlsn(and a water to their homes from the live in the United States, 35,000 condensation, Tepoztldn, published nearest fountain, like the old women retired Americans live in Mexico and, by Holt, Rinehart and Winston in queuing up to have their corn until tourism declined about 30 per- 1960), Lewis asked, "Will Tepoz- ground, were just about the only cent two years ago, 3 million tecans continue to sell their ancient relics of a past that is likely to die with Americans were going to Mexico lands and thereby convert Tepoztlan them. The closeness of its soaring each year to view its scenic beauty, into a miniature Cuernavaca?" They cliffs and forests, the dense foliage pre-Hispanic ruins, colonial archi- did and it is. all about, the tropical snicker of tecture, the art of Orozco and Rivera, cicadas after dark, give Tepoztldn its and the beach at Acapulco. Villages like Huecorio, therefore, are own haunting, slightly claustro- today much more representative. phobic air. It is a place of incredible But most gains have been eaten up Quiet and serene, Huecorio spreads beauty, perhaps the most beautiful by runaway population growth. By from the marshy shores of Lake place in all Mexico, but even were it any measure Mexico falls within the Patzcuaro, famed for the butterfly still a village, I would never choose to 122 countries of the Third World's nets of its fishermen, up the rocky, study peasant culture there. poor south in 1978. It has a yearly per eroded slopes of extinct San Miguel capita GNP of $740, one-eighth of Volcano. The air at 6,100 feet is what Americans have. Its rural bracing, the view spacious and people consume an average of 2,064 scenic: forests of pine, fir, and madrona cover the misty peaks Huecorio has 134 full-time farmers, 2. Finding nonfarming jobs; a grow- around the island-strewn lake's 30- exactly what it had in 1926, the year ing number of former peasants have mile shoreline; the lower slopes are a Redfield went to Mexico. But as become tailors, shopkeepers, and patchwork of tiny fields enclosed in agriculture has been forced to drivers. rock walls, golden with the wheat absorb more people, there are also harvest in spring and green with now 38 part-time farmers and 60 field 3. Educating their children. In 1962, beans and corn in summer. laborers. The standard daily wage for Huecorio had only three college field work is $2. graduates, all teachers from the Huecorio, like ~e~oztlanstill, is pic- same family. Today 26 youths are turesque: a mossy church and a Since the pioneer studies of Redfield attending university and Huecorio patron saint, small plaza, and and Lewis, hundreds of American has produced a doctor and several cobbled streets lined with walled-in anthropologists, sociologists, and lawyers and engineers. adobe houses, half-hidden in flower- economists have made studies in ing bougainvillea. Traffic rumbles Mexico, making it the most The shift into nonfarming occupa- through on a new paved road, tele- thoroughly researched poor country tions and education costs money. vision antennas bring Bonanza and in the world. Most of the scholars Most of it has been financed by what Perry Mason and Nescafe, and over the past 50 years, including both is Huecorio's real lifeline to survival: Cheerios and canned beer are Redfield and Lewis, have concluded migration to the United States. standard fare in half a dozen shops. that Mexico's peasant women want This lake region was the heart of the fewer children. They would practice Huecorio's men first began migrating Tarascan Indian empire in the four- birth control if the Roman Catholic to California and Texas to work five teenth to sixteenth centuries. Great Church would accept it. They are or six months each year in 1943 stone pyramids where the hearts of afraid to use contraception now in during the bracero program initiated captives were once torn out as offer- the face of opposition from the priest during the farm labor shortages of ings to the fire god, Curicaveri, still and community pressure (as was World War II and kept up until the stand, if in ruins, and a few pure noted in the chart on the "universal mid-1960s. Then Congress, under Tarascans survive; they have re- peasant culture" in Part II, fear of the pressure from organized labor, put treated to the islands of the lake, neighbors' censure or "what will an end to it. Or, rather, put an end to human relics who fish from ancient people say" governs villages more its legality. canoes. than government fiat or fear of God.) Today a three-day bus trip and Huecorio's people are the mestizos With little fall in family size or barbed wire fencing in the tawdry of modern Mexico; the mating of birthrates, Huecorio's population outskirts of Tijuana stand between Spaniard and Indian took place 18 has grown from 421 in 1922 (4 years Huecorio's men and el norte, that generations ago and only the rich before Redfield's first study), to 844 land of milk and honey, $940-used black hair and lustrous skin of the in 1963 (the year The Children of Chevrolets, apartments with heat, Tarascan remain. Yet scratch the Sanchezcame out) to 1,I 12 now. air-conditioning, and telephones, surface and you will find many and jobs that range anywhere from age-old beliefs-fears of eclipses, The villagers have adjusted by: $40a week (dishwashing)to $7.50 an sorcery, evil winds, and spirits, a faith hour. in healing herbs, and the practice of 1. Eating more corn and less other el robo, or bride theft-the beliefs food. Alarmingly, Huecorio today If you happen to be a poor Huecorian that Redfield found so fascinating consumes only 15 percent of what it and want to save enough to buy a and Lewis so disturbing. produces. An average Mexican eats new bull, milk cow, irrigation pump, Huecorio's problems, unlike Tepozt- just under a liter of corn per day and land, a sewing machine, or get lsn's today, are the classic ones of beans and tortillas have been married, it is worth the risk. In too many people for too few Mexico's staff of life since its pre- Tijuana you pay $100 to $250 resources. The village has only 915 Columbian civilization. Today Hue- mordida (bite) or a bribe to a fellow acres of arable land, less than one corio can grow only enough corn to Mexican who waits with a car across acre per inhabitant, and holdings are feed its present population for 156 the frontier. Then it is a mad dash further subdivided into tiny dis- days of the year. This means, like and scramble over, under, or through connected plots. After the Mexican Mexico itself, it must buy corn by the barbed wire, praying to God a car Revolution, 134 men were given 3 selling much of its fruit, vegetables, full of U.S. Immigration agents acres apiece from a confiscated eggs, milk, cattle, pigs, and fish. doesn't catch you and send you hacienda. But Huecorio's average Mexico today supplies the United back. family holding is only 13 acres and States with most of its winter vege- though there is some good alluvial tables. Those lettuce and tomato This illegal immigration has become land near the lake, much of it is on salads we enjoy in January can be America's most efficient and cheap- the wind- and water-eroded slopes said to be depriving some villager of est (indeed, costless) form of foreign of the volcano. needed vitamins and minerals. aid. And it had better not be stopped. For a good many of Mexico's 90,000 fed agriculture, and if Mexico had the necessity of looking at raw materials villages like Huecorio, this cash in- money to invest in reconstituting its in global terms. The commodity come is what keeps them going. In exhausted soil. None is in prospect. stabilization sought by poor coun- Huecorio, a laborer cannot make tries would be welcomed by most much more than $800 a year. In the Migration to Mexico City is one American consumers and manu- San Fernando Valley, he can make alternative. But its population is facturers. Aid also produces jobs in that much in a month. By sharing a thought to be pushing 12 to 14 the donor country. And, most im- $250 one-bedroom flat with any- million and, at current rates of portant, the alternative to coopera- where from 4 to 8 other men, he can growth, will double in just 6 years. tion is not necessarily the status quo save $3,000 to $5,000 a year. Without This could make it the largest city on ante. A collapse of Third World this money Huecorians could not earth. Already, air pollution from in- economies would be just as disrup- educate their children or move from dustry and 1.5 million cars at 8,000 tive to the industrial world. And a peasantry into the working, or in feet (the thinner oxygen at the high collapse of the Mexican economy, some cases, industrial middle class. altitude makes people more sus- with the present flow of illegal immi- Though 85 men and 14 women from ceptible to the upper respiratory dis- grants turning into a flood, if not an Huecorio work in Mexico City orders), it has the worst eye burning, inundation, would certainly bring (usually leaving their families in the throat searing smog I've experi- home to Americans the hard realities village), their savings are small com- enced anywhere. of the human condition imposed pared with the 130 or so men from when population growth outruns Huecorio's work force of 247 who Almost certainly migration, illegal or economic resources. seasonally migrate to the United not, will grow. This will bring the States. Third World and its problems right to So a new chapter is beginning that the average American's doorstep. neither Redfield nor Lewis could A few of the migrants are bitter have foreseen. There is an older, about abuses, the bribes, getting Pres~dentCarter has repeatedly de- deeper, more intangible legacy of the slapped around by Immigration clared his faith in new, wider inter- Indian past in Mexico. On the agents or jailed for a night or two. national systems to tackle global surface, its people are merry, their But most have loved life in Texas or problems. "We know," he said, courtesy affable and warm, their California and refuse to hear a word "that a peaceful world cannot exist fiestas noisy and exuberant, their against it. They always come home; one-third rich and two-thirds hun- family attachments and affection for it is rare for anybody to settle in the gry." But if Carter's ideals are to their children warm and evident. Yet United States. come to anything, generosity of underneath is the brooding intro- more than spirit will be required from spection that so absorbed Lewis. Typically Fidel, 40, a father of 9 and a the rich. A Marshall Plan for the Third The insecurity of the Mexican veteran of 6 trips as far as Illinois, World is a political impossibility at psyche has never been stronger. And Wisconsin, and Montana, says, present. And so is the kind of trade with good reason. Much compas- "Sure, I liked everything about el liberalization the poor countries (in- sion, wisdom, science, and gen- norte. Nobody treated me badly and I cluding Mexico) seek because, in the erosity will be required on our part in said goodbye to ignorance. Best of short run, it would increase unem- the years immediately ahead. And all, there was sufficient work." A few ployment in the rich countries (or so we are very lucky men like Redfield are chauvinistic ("I am a Mexican the AFL-CIO, in opposing continua- and Lewis blazed a trail to help us and I would not change my country tion of the bracero program, argued. through this wilderness. for anything"), or macho ("An Mexicans disagree, saying they meet American woman rules the house a demand for menial work that but herea man is boss"), or object to Americans will no longer accept). all the regulations and taxes in American life ("I felt like a slave"). To k New International Economic Order most Huecorio is the place where may be for the millennium. More aid they were born, where they have could be for now. But experience their homes, land, animals, and shows it needs to go to the poor permanent livelihood, and where directly; we do not know enough there is safety and tranquillity (it about the poor, especially out in the would be hard to exaggerate the world's two million villages, to make serenity of rural Mexico). such aid really work; nor does the public know enough about the poor to support aid on the scale required! Huecorio and all like villages might 1 See my "Small IS Beautiful (if Enor- havea happy ending if Pope Paul had mously Problematical) In Northeast The need to aid the poor does not a change of heart about birth control, Brazil [RC-3-'761, AUFS Reports, East if agronomists found some way to have to be couched in moral banali- Coast South Amerlca Series, Vol. XX, grow more on small holdings in rain- ties. The energy scare has shown the No. 1, 1976.