Look to Suffering: Look to Joy Robert Redfield and Oscar Lewis Restudied

1978INo. 7 by Richard Criitchfield Look to Suffering: Look to Joy North America [RC-1-'781 Robert Redfield and Oscar Lewis Restudied

Part I: ~epoztldn1926-1956: Hidden Answers

The disagreement about Tepoztlan debate over Mexican village life. Part My answer is that we are both inves- began 50 years ago. Two American II, The World: Hidden Answers, tigating the human whole. Anthro- anthropologists went at different spans the past 20 years and concerns pology today, particularly American times to live in the same Mexican the formulations of Redfield's theory anthropology, has developed from village. The first found life in of the "peasant view of the good the study of small, isolated primitive Tepoztlan happy and satisfying. The life" and Lewis's theory of the "cul- tribes to the study of just about second found it unhappy and filled ture of poverty. Part I also contains everything human. The anthro- with fear, envy, and mistrust. excerptsfrom a letter from Mrs. Ruth pologist, although using a much M. Lewis, the author's widow, and more systematic and scientific Part II includes some remarks from approach, attempts, like the journal- Daniel P. Moynihan, who challenged The controversy did not stop there. ist, to characterize a person, a village, Lewis's theory in the late 1960s, and Each of the men went on to distin- a city, a people, a nation, or even a this writer's own provisional con- guish himself in the field of social civilization. ceptual model of the "universal anthropology and in time to peasant culture," based partly on the formulate his own theory on the way Most anthropologists have done work of Lewis and Redfield. Part Ill and views of life of poor people all their field work in villages (or in the describes Tepoztlan as it is today, over the world. These theories re- urban neighborhoods that are their and discusses the true identities of tained much of the essential charac- counterpart), and my own method the hitherto anonymous "Sanchez" ter of the original Tepoztlan impres- beginssimilarly. That is, when I go to family, including some remarks from a village I start with its ecological and sions they had formed as very young actor Anthony Quinn, who will play men. Both men are no longer living. economic system, or agriculture; the the leading role in a new film, The plowing, sowing, weeding, harvest- Their prolonged debate would Children of Sanchez. merely be of academic or historical ing, and threshing of the basic crops. interest did not their contradictory Since hard physical labor is the cen- views still significantly influence the The purpose of this Report is to try tral activity of traditional village life, I way we perceive the world's poor. and shed a little more light on how also engage in it alongside my This writer, a reporter by trade, we perceive the poor, who make up peasant subjects. This is the quickest stands outside the anthropological the vast majority of humankind, and way I have found to win their friend- arena. But as the first American to see what practical lessons for our ship and acceptance and also to get journalist to specialize in reporting future use can be drawn from the the feel of life in any rural commu- peasants, in their villages or uprooted long Redfield-Lewis dialectic now nity. If the villagers relax by drinking in cities, he shares some common that it is securely in the historical in the evening, as many do, I join interest with the two scholars, one past. them! I almost always use an inter- the American pioneer in peasant preter, preferably from the village studies and the second our pioneer in Anthropologistsvs. Journalists itself, whether I speak the language studies of the urban poor. Hence, I In further preface, I should like to de- or not. I find the presence of an have chosen to subtitle this fine what I see as the difference associate who shares the local three-part Report, Robert Redfield between theanthropological and the culture helps me to form a greater and Oscar Lewis Restudied. journalistic approaches to studies of sense of objective detachment. I also villagers or urban slum dwellers. The try to make stenographic notes of as anthropologist has the right to ask much dialogue as I can, preferring The first part, Tepoztlhn: Hidden why a reporter should be raking up the natural unfolding of information Questions, which covers the years the ashes of an old professional through normal conversation rather 1926 to 1956, is about the original debate at all. than written or tape-recorded inter- views. Even the best intentioned interviewer tends to "lead," con- sciously or unconsciously, his sub- ject along preconceived paths.

In this fashion, a look at agriculture naturally leads to an understanding of systems of marketing and con- verting crops to food for the family. From agriculture one also moves naturally into social life and religion and the way a certain people think and feel. So far the investigation does not differ much from that of the anthropologist. Like the anthropolo- gist, I also have had to study the Winnowing wheat in Mchoacan. larger civilization in which a village with Bedouin shepherds, primitive characterizations of the journalist all finds itself, its history, religion, agriculturalists, and highly sophis- that imprecise. Factual accuracy is philosophy, art, literature, and ticated modern farmers, and visited just as important to them. But as a present-day politics and economics. archaeological sites in Khuzestan journalist writing about villagers, I do Where possible, I also try to inter- province of southwestern Iran, once try to communicate the nature of a view the nation's political leader. the eastern edge of the greater certain way and- view of life, its Mesopotamian Plain, to learn more essence if you will, by choosing cer- The difference comes in the more about the origins of settled villages, tain fact, detail, and dialogue for technical aspects. Anthropologists the historical development of agri- emphasis, and then modifying them usually begin a village study with a culture and irrigation, and the devel- and rearranging them in ways that conceptual model to guide their opment of the first Elamite and satisfy my own intuitive feelings that choice and arrangement of the facts. Sumerian cities? the arrangement brings the overall They are likely to use technical pro- portrait closer to reality and truth. As cedures, such as any of a wide A second kind of village study can be a journalist, without any scientific variety of scientifically accepted undertaken to understand a complex claims or training but with a good psychological tests. They may use region not so much historically but as deal of practical experience with questionnaires to gather statistics to its contemporary condition. In peasants and the differences be- from a broad sampling of the village spring 1970 1 undertook this type of tween their culture and our own. I do people. Whatever their specific tech- study in northern India's Punjab a kind of verbal portraiture of village niques, they will follow a path of state to learn more about the impact life. This is not science. But it can get understanding marked "theoreti- of the so-called Green Revolution of one equally close to truth. The dif- cal," or "scientific," or "scholarly." new high-yielding dwarf wheat in ference is one of degree since southern ~sia.~ anthropologists also mix some art Journalists, with their different inter- with their science. As should be- ests, training, and variety of aca- A village can also provide a con- come evident, Robert Redfield was demic attachment, will follow venient focal point from which to as much a humanistic philosopher as another kind of search for under- study a special problem, as I did on an anthropologist and the power of standing. They, too, may study a the southern Indian Ocean Island of Oscar Lewis's later work owed as village as an ecological system, or as Mauritius in 1969. The World Bank's much to his artistry as his science. a social structure, or develop a case population experts had described Both reporter and anthropologist, in study of an individual or a family, or Mauritius as perhaps suffering the writing about villages, try to econo- study the characterization of a world's "first true Malthusian break- mize on their characterizations to the villager as one generalized type of down," and as a veritable laboratory point where a reader finds within human being, or to perceive an out- and "microcosm" of the global their portrayal some all-pervasive look on life, or view the village study problem of overpopulation4 qualities that identify it and as a history; all things anthropolo- distinguish it. gists do. But while an anthropologist or a journalist undertakes such studies All study of human beings lies in a They may study a village or another for similar purposes, both the borderland between science and art. form of small community to try to methods and results are very But both anthropologists and jour- gain understanding of the history of different. nalists, if they are honest and respon- that kind of community in a specific sible to the facts, aim to increase part of the world. In 1971, for Good anthropologists, of course, are understanding with as true a portrait example, I spent some weeks each not mere statisticians nor are the or as scientifically acceptable a study as they are able to perceive and write. As such, both are mutually complementary and equally valu- able.

Social Anthropology The study of peasants and their vil- lages is something quite new. In- deed, social anthropology, the sci- ence most identified with village studies, only began to explore peasant society 51 years ago.

The pioneer was a young American, Robert Redfield. In 1926, at the age of 29, he spent 8 months in a village 50 miles south of Mexico City. Four the communications revolution, and wealth and power is-is something years later his findings were pub- the transfer of industrial and farming fairly new and a creature of jets and lished as a book, Tepoztlan-a techniques have created a kaleido- modern communications tech- Mexican village5 In his preface, scopic world in which village and nology. Peasants commanded more Redfield disclaimed his study was urban studies are quickly dated. attention in earlier times. The Bible "an ethnographic monograph," provides a wealth of information on saying he did not have time to collect In the more leisurely nineteenth peasant life, right from God's curse enough data and that he had "merely century, most of what we learned upon Adam, through the Hebrew a fair knowledge" of Spanish and about remote and exotic peoples prophets (though as pastoralist none of the local Indian dialect. Red- came from journalists, natural nomads, they didn't like either field found Mexican village life good history expeditions, novelists, or peasant villages or cities), to the and said so. His impressions were missionaries. Today television teachings of Jesus, whose parables appropriated by a number of popular reaches everywhere but has been a and analogies are all drawn from journalists and travel writers and re- mixed blessing. With its size triviali- peasant culture. Books on peasant ceived wide currency in the United zation, it reduces the Watusi to the life go back to antiquity; the first we States. Though Redfield intended dimensions of the Flintstones, and its know about being Hesoid's Works his book to be a modest introduction competition has inflicted shorter and Days, a description of Boeotian to peasant culture, it set off a debate story lengths and shrinking attention rural culture in Greece in the sixth on the true nature of village life and spans upon the written press. A century B.C. Pharaonic Egypt has of peasant society that has rever- vacuum has been created. If the left us many accounts of village life, berated through five decades and is world's poor nowadays are not in such as Meches' description of the yet to be resolved: are peasant vil- revolt, rioting in the streets, or dying Nile community of Kerkeosis in 120 lages made up of relatively con- of famine, they stay out of sight and B.C. The greats of literature have tented and satisfied people or are out of mind. We rarely get a good always been fascinated by peasantry, they miserable and riven by suffer- grasp of why they revolt, riot, or perhaps none more so than such ing, fear, and hostility? starve, but are soon diverted by the nineteenth-century Russians as Tol- next sensation. It jars our nervous stoy, Turgenev, and chekhov6 The interest of American anthro- system and feeds our anxieties. It American literature is an exception pology in peasant villages since Red- also breeds, not only indifference to since we are one of the few peoples field first blazed the trail has coin- the fate of the poor, but ignorance, who never had a peasant tradition. cided with a historically unprece- which stands in the way of finding American novelists have written dented global mass migration of common sense foreign policy solu- about peasants- Pearl Buck's The peasants into cities. A field of study tions to what needs to be done. The Good Earth being the prime ex- originally designed to focus its atten- American failure in Vietnam was not ample- but those in other cultures. tion upon isolated, primitive tribes a failure of power but a failure of now expands its subject to include knowledge. This first defeat in a war The founder of anthropology, E.B. tribes, peasants, and poor city in our history should be taken as a Tylor, wrote about religion, lan- dwellers, or, in 1977, what amounts warning that in today's small world guage, and culture in general, in to just about three out of every four we cannot afford such a lack of what was then usually called eth- people on earth. Conceptual models wisdom about the rest of the people nography. Tylor studied culture but and definitions narrow enough to on this planet. not cultures and society, and in meet scientific acceptability barely Europe even today the study of have time to be developed before Our city-oriented global cosmopoli- people tends toward vBlkskunde they are old hat. Population growth, tan culture-cities are where the (folklore and the study of folk life)-which this writer studied for a like the Canadian Kwakuitl, the Zuni, Press, 19411. By then he had become year in 1958-59 in the Austrian or the Melanesian Dobu. one of America's most distinguished Tyrol-rather than volkerkunde (the and respected anthropologists. study of primitive tribal life), the Yet in actuality American anthro- direction anthropology took in the pology only paused to catch its The Tepoztlan study was, however, United States. breath and plunged from tribal resumed. But by another man, Oscar studies of North American aborig- Lewis. Lewis, then just three years In the early nineteenth century, vil- inals and South Sea islanders into out of graduate school at Columbia lage studies were made, but mostly Latin American, and especially University, began his study in by missionaries who lived for long Mexican, villages, there to study December 1943. Seventeen years periods with "heathen" well before peasants. Redfield went to Tepoztlan had passed since Redfield had lived anthropology came into existence. just four years after Radcliffe-Brown in Tepoztlan. Just as Redfield had Exotic peoples were also described and Malinowski established the form been, Lewis was 29. by explorers, members of natural of anthropological research. history expeditions, and journalists, In the meantime, Redfield had come such as Captain Cook and that re- to realize that a Latin American lentless discoverer of "darkest" village had to be understood, not in Africa, Sir Henry Stanley. It was not isolation as a primitive tribe, but as a until the late nineteenth century that part of the state and the civilization scholarly studies began to appear; around it. When one of his students one by Lewis H. Morgan on the published an account of a French- Iroquois Indians came out in 1851 Canadian parish, it occurred to him and another by Franz Boas on the that a peasant village, "intermediate Eskimos in 1888. Boas, originally a between the tribe and the modern biologist, and Morgan, a lawyer, at city," had a universal quality. He first had not called themselves an- speculated that it might be possible thropologists, but were regarded as to clarify the typical common such by the students they influ- characteristics of peasants generally. enced. Morgan did not found a "Peasant society and culture has university department, while Boas something generic about it," he was became the first Professor of Anthro- to write in 1956. "It is a kind of pology at Columbia University in arrangement of humanity with some 1899. similarities all over the world."' The research model for social an- thropology was not established until Lewis in ~e~oztla'n 1922 when A.R. Radcliffe-Brown The obscure young anthropologist published The Andaman Islanders who had gone to TepoztlBn, osten- and B. Malinowski The Argonauts of sibly to complete Redfield's earlier the Western Pacific. These two His study led anthropology in a com- study, did not publish his findings works set the conceptual model that pletely new direction, into peasant until 1951, under the title, Life in a American anthropology has fol- communities that were parts of Mexican Village: Tepoztldn Re- lowed ever since: a man or a woman much larger civilizations. A peasant studied. As a joint project of the goes to a small and self-contained village wasvery different from a tribe Inter-American Indian Institute of remote community and comes back because it had a relationship with the Mexico and the National Indian to report a culture as a unique whole, city and was dependent on the city lnstitute of the United States, the and as a whole that can be under- for its laws, religion, and many other expedition led by Lewis seems to stood as a system of functionally aspects of its culture. have had quasi-official status and to interrelated parts. Margaret Mead have been fairly well financed. still uses what she calls the "discip- Redfield never went back to Tepozt- Lewis's team included not only a lined use of the primitive society as a Ian, partly because he felt it was too number of Mexican anthropologists conceptual model" even when she is large (2,500+ people then, about and student researchers, but two analyzing the cultural character of 9,978 now-there are 18,623 in the agronomists, two doctors, two social whole modern nations or something municipio) and too close to Mexico workers, and an artist. Lewis spent as sweeping as teen-age problems, City. His most developed statement six months in Tepoztlan in 1943-44 or the need to keep grandma in the on the nature of peasant life, based and returned again during the home. Even today when most people upon the much smaller Mayan lndian summers of 1947 and 1948. think of anthropologists, they think village of Chan Kom, was published of individual scholars living for years later in The Folk Culture of Yucatan Tepoztlan Restudied was a bomb- with some isolated, primitive tribe (Chicago: University of Chicago shell. It was encyclopedic, running to 512 pages in contrast to Redfield's field's view that the Mexican Revo- and ritualistic aspects of life rather modest 247-page work. Lewis was lution of 1910-1920 had halted a than the everyday life of people and now 37, Redfield 54. Though the trend toward a merging of class dif- their problems" because he was book was dedicated to Redfield and ferences, saying "we found that the trying to prove his theories about the Lewis acknowledged his gratitude to Revolution had a marked leveling nature of peasant society and its re- the senior man for his help in getting influence." (For the rest of their lationship to urban-centered civiliza- funds for the 1947-48 research, careers the rather radical Lewis and tion. "Redfield's interest," he said, Tepoztlan Restudied was an all-out the conservative Redfield would "was primarily in the study of a single attack on Redfield's earlier book and differ on the impact of revolutions.) cultural process: the evolution from the theories on the nature of villages folk to urban, rather than a well- and peasant society he had devel- rounded ethnological account." Lewis described Redfield's analysis oped in the intervening 17 years. of Tepoztlan society as "oversimpli- Lewis accused Redfield of "a system fied, schematic and unreal." He In his summation Lewis described of value judgments which contains claimed his own study had involved the contrast between the impres- the old Rousseauan notion of primi- sions given of TepoztlBn village in the tive peoples as noble savages, and two books: the corollary that with civilization, has come the fall of man. Again and The impression given by Redfield's again in Redfield's writings," he study of Tepoztl6n is that of a went on, "there emerges the value relatively homogenous, isolated, judgment that folk (peasant) soci- smoothly functioning and eties are good and urban societies well-integrated society made up of bad." Lewis quoted Redfield as ob- a contented and well-adjusted serving in 1939 that the "usual view people. His picture of the village has of peasant life as something to be a Rousseauan quality which glosses escaped, 'an ignominy to be lightly over evidence of violence, shunned' may be wrong."12 disruption, cruelty, poverty, disease, suffering, and maladjustment. We Lewis also quoted the concluding are told little of poverty, economic passage of Redfield's book on the problems or political schisms. Mayans of Yucatan, A Village That Throughout his study we findan Chose Progress, Chan Kom Re- emphasis upon the cooperative and visited: unifying factors in Tepoztecan society.9 Thepeople of Chan Kom are, then, apeople who have no choice but to Lewis summed up his own counter- go forward with technology, with a impressions of the same village: declining religious faith and moral "twice as much field work," (an in- conviction into a dangerous world. Our findings on the other hand, accuracy as it was 12 to Redfield's 8 They are a people who must and will would emphasize the underlying months), had used "new methods of come to identify their interests with individualism of Tepoztecan studying culture and personality" those of people faraway, outside institutions and character, the lack (Rorschach and other psychological the traditional circle of their loyalties of cooperation, the tensions tests), and had relied upon "over 100 and political responsibilities. As such between the villages within the informants compared to about a they should have the sympathy of municipio, the schisms within the dozen for Redfield" (a dubious claim, readers of these pages.1 village and the pervadin quality of as it is unlikely Redfield would have fear, envy, and distrust.1% lived in Tepoztlan for eight months Such sentiments were anathema to and only talked to six people). Lewis Lewis. He complained that the Redfield was later to call these sum- said that, together with an El Sal- "same old values" kept reappearing mary characterizations "on the vador anthropologist, he had worked in Redfield's work, even his most whole, just."ll on "an intensive family study" to be recent. "Progress and urbanization published at a future date. (This are now seen as inevitable," Lewis Lewis wrote that his original inten- seems to be a reference to his re- wrote, "but they are still evil."14 tion was not to restudy Redfield's search on the "Martinez" family, Lewis's views sound strangely dated work but to continue it; "funda- eventually to appear in Five Families today, when most world leaders see mental" differences had quickly in 1959and Pedro Martinezin 1964.) increased urbanization as an evil and emerged. He pointed to several of threat to their nations' stability, but what he regarded as Redfield's errors Lewis speculated that Redfield had they must have had a certain trendi- of fact. He then disagreed with Red- placed his emphasis on "the formal ness in 1951. Lewis accused Redfield of "cultural Lewis also described the psychology Martinez and La Vida of seemingly primitivism" or the discontent of the of the Tepoztecan villagers as "a bringing poor Mexicans and Puerto civilized within civi~ization?~The psychology of living with problems, Ricans to life in his long tape- attack must have shocked the an- rather than solving them, of con- recorded autobiographical inter- thropological community of the early stantly adjusting to difficulties, view~.~~He interested a number of 1950s; certainly Redfield himself was rather than eliminating them." It is Americans for the first time in the stunned. the first hint we find of his eventual poor of other countries; his "culture theory of a global "culture of of poverty" hypothesis was to sig- Redfield has warned that with con- poverty ."I 7 nificantly influence the Johnson Ad- tinued urbanization would come ministration's "war on poverty." greater secularization and individu- Oscar Lewis Considered alism, family instability, a decline in Tepoztlan Restudied did not enjoy Yet, despite my great admiration for parental authority and respect for the popular success of Lewis's later many of the Lewis books, over the elders, and greater social disorgani- books on Mexico and he went off to years I have come to feel a deepening zation. Lewis took strong issue on India in 1952 to spend eight months sense of uneasiness and curiosity about them, as to what was the thing that seemed to lend them, those written after Five Families, that tiny touch of the spurious, that faint hint of staginess.

Several things have troubled me. Tepoztlhn, beginning with Five Fam- ifies, is no longer given its true name but fictionalized as "Azteca," though anyone in Mexico interested knows it is the same village?2 The characters are also given false names; we are told the true identity of the Sanchez family "must remain unknown," that the true names of the five families have been changed to "protect them," that the Martinez family "must remain anonymous."23

Why? In my own village studies, subjects insisted their real names and photographs be used. In some cases the question of parental authority, as a consultant with the Ford they materially benefited. It is some- said he found "no decline" in Foundation. During this time he did times said that Lewis's tape- Tepoztlan and, indeed, he was to manage to undertake a rather con- recorded autobiographies were in- make the harsh, authoritarian father ventional village study just outside spired by the tremendous popular the central figure in The Children of Delhi which was published in 1958 as success in Brazil of Child of the Dark, Sanchez and Pedro Martinez. Village Life in Northern It the autobiography of Carolina Maria was not until the publication of Five de Jesus, a SBo Paulo rag picker Lewis did find, as had Redfield 17 Families, Mexican Case Studies in whose published diary broke all book years earlier, "great value placed on the Culture of ~overty' that both sales records in Brazil when it work, strong ties to the land, the his fame and theories about the cul- appeared in 1960~~Carolina's death view of farming as the ideal occupa- ture of poor people were finally in March 1977 was front page news; I tion, the persistence of almost tribal launched. happened to be in Brazil at the time localism, the stability of the family, and it was clear she was a much be- the continued belief in 10s aires, ma1 Oscar Lewis was brilliant; more, after loved and respected figure and in her ojo, El Tepoztoco [evil winds, the Evil Margaret Mead, he remains perhaps old age had become something of a Eye, and a local legendary folk hero1 the best known and most widely read television talk show personality. In and herbal medicine."16 Thomas American anthropologist. A thought Child of the Dark, Carolina attacked Wolfe once said that every man's life too gloomy perhaps, a shade too Brazilian presidents by name in the was a search for his father; one trendy. But good. He performed a most scathing language, yet she wonders what Lewis's own must major, if shocking, public service in never felt she needed "protection" have been like. The Children of Sanchez, Pedro and, indeed, profited enormously from her notoriety. And Mexico is a force had been used in politics, the far more liberal country than Brazil. rich and the poor appeared to dislike one another, there was some quar- The lurid sections in La Vida and the reling, stealing, and violence and latter half of The Children of Sanchez "especially within many families are also bothersome to anyone who there were many kinds of frustra- has ever made village or urban slum tions, suspicions, and sufferings." studies. Episodes such as Roberto's spectacular prison escape in Vera- Redfield admitted it was if the two cruz or the two forcible seductions books were about "two different Consuelo falls prey to while trying to peoples occupying the same town." break into the Mexican film industry may certainly be true, but do they How did he explain it? Had they really fit in a book purporting to pre- changed so much in 17 years? sent a picture of representative Neither he nor Lewis, he noted, Carolina, author of Child of the Dark. lower-class Mexican life? thought so. but used exactly the same words to Lewis also had a pronounced urban describe it.26 No, the difference in the two descrip- bias. While his publisher notes he tions of life and character in Tepozt- was born in New York City and The Controversy Ian, Redfield said, "is to be found in "grew up on a farm in upstate New In 1951, publication of Tepoztlan Re- the difference between the two in- York," he did spend eight years in studied brought only the restrained vestigators." Manhattan attending the City comment from Redfield that it was College of New York and Columbia "rich in fact and provocative in "It must be recognized," hewent on, University and a good bit of the "city ideas." He noted Lewis had "cor- "that the personal interests and cul- slicker" shows through. In Tepoztlan rected and deepened" the "sketch of tural values of the investigator influence the content of a descrip- Restudied he described villagers the same people I wrote about many tion of a village." Any village study, who moved to Mexico City as years ago" and that Lewis had "put he said, was bound to be written "in gaining weight and looking "happier before other students my errors and a way in some significant degree and more relaxed." He described one his own in a context of intellectual determined by the choices made, girl as feeling, once she had escaped discussion." It was all to the good, he Tepoztldn, as if "a great weight had reasoned, because Lewis had "once perhapsquite unconsciously" by the been lifted off her shoulders." It more shown the power of social sci- person making the study. probably was true in her case; but ence to revise its conclusions and Lewis goes on to generalize, "Of move toward the truth."27 "There are hidden questions behind course, this sensation is common the two books that have been written among all people who shift from a Then two years later, in 1953, while about Tepoztlan. The hidden ques- small rural town to a large city.lQ5 delivering a series of lectures at the tion behind my book is, 'What do There is no "of course" about it; University of Uppsala in Sweden, these people enjoy?' The hidden most of the villagers I have known Redfield fought back?8 question behind Dr. Lewis's book is, become culturally disoriented, de- 'What do these people suffer pressed, and rather frightened when "When I was a young man beginning from?' " they go to the city. the study of anthropology," he told his audience, "I wrote a book about a It is the most damning criticism ever Most disturbing is the demon- large village in Mexico. Seventeen made of Oscar Lewis and his work. strable rigidity of Lewis's ideas. As years later, Dr. Oscar Lewis, who is Neither man was ever again quite a young man he found Redfield's now at the University of Illinois, able to let the argument go. description of Tepoztlan had a wrote another book about the same "Rousseauan quality" which ignored village." Redfield then quoted the Aside from the 12 months in the "pervading quality of fear, envy, passages from Lewis's book already Tepoztlan, Lewis spent little time in and distrust in interpersonal rela- cited. He went on, "The two villages. Research for the only tions." Twenty years later, writing in accounts of the same community do peasant family in Five Families was his preface to Pedro Martinez, he give these contrasting impressions: done during the earlier Tepoztlan found contemporary life in Tepoztldn the one of harmony and a good life, stay. So was much of the research hardly encouraged "a Rousseauan the other of a life burdened with suf- for Pedro Martinez, though Lewis did view" but was still characterized by fering and torn with dissension and go back to expand this with tape- "a pervading quality of fear, envy corroding passion." Redfield recorded interviews, he curiously and distrust in interpersonal rela- granted that Lewis had established does not specify for how long. The tions." A generation later, Lewis not that half the villagers were landless, India study was done from his home only found the village unchanged, some suffered serious want, brute and Ford Foundation office in New Delhi, with seven Indian students, as tried to generalize from these pic- Lewis's concern with "personal dis- Lewis himself acknowledged, doing tures of one community to a larger, harmony and unhappiness," Red- much of the field research. Aside global frame. field went on, now made it possible from some observation of Blackfoot to look at Tepoztldn with "somewhat Indians in Canada, Texas farmers, Understandably, Redfield in 1953 stereoscopicvision." He was not im- and Cuban sugar plantation workers, dismissed Lewis's charge that his pressed by the batteries of Lewis spent almost no time in perception of Tepoztlan was influ- Rorschach and other psychological villages. His best work was all done in enced by trying to prove a theory tests Lewis and his team subjected urban slums. about urban influences on peasant the villagers to, saying village life. society, saying he had not developed such thinking at the time he wrote his is not something that is given one as Lewis's dislike of TepoztlAn was evi- Tepoztldn study. Instead, he said, he out of a vending machine by putting dent. He found its peasantry neither had gone to Tepoztlan without any in the appropriate coins of method open nor friendly and wrote that theoretical idea at all and had merely and technique. There is no one "love, tenderness, kindness, gener- investigated what interested him. "I ultimate and objective account of the human whole. Each account, if it preserves the human quality at all, is a created product in which the human qualities of the creator - the outside viewer and describer -are one element.

None of us can truly sa y that his way of work is necessarily the best way or that it either should or willprevail over all others. Alladvance in knowledge is a dialectic, a conversation.. .. Among the many and variedmentalinstruments for the understanding of little communities is to be included a controlled conversation, a dialectic of opposites, carried on within 0neself.3~

Redfield argued that no one studying a village should be too concerned osity, and joy appeared much less saw the almost ritual meaningfulness often than anger, hate, irritability, of the Tepoztecan of his daily work," jealousy, fear, and envy.. . . There is a he said, "I saw the delight taken in great deal of hostility.. .expressed in preparations for the many festivals the form of malicious gossip, steal- and the pleasure, solemn but deep, ing, secretive destruction of prop- at their consummation. I saw the erty, ridicule, deprecation, envy, and pride the people had in their little sorcery.. . an oppressive atmos- mountain-walled country, so deeply phere."29 It is astonishing that grown into their thoughts and feel- Lewis eventually went on to apply his ings." Redfield said he was aware of "culture of poverty" thesis to all the his study's incompleteness. "I think I world's poorest workers and peas- was saying, 'Look! Here is an aspect ants including, in Mexico itself, at of peasant life you people up there least the lower third of the rural and may not have been thinking about.' I urban population." did not think of my book as a rounded study. Indeed, I expressly One man's Our Town may be the disclaimed it was. I thought of it as a next's Peyton Place; both contain statement of one phase of complex certain phases of the complex truth truth." that is small town America. Yet neither would be much help if one The village of Tzintzuntzatx about the methods of the natural and Years ago I was greatly impressed by over the past 20 years. Above all, behavioral sciences. "For," he a passage in his introduction to Five Chekhov's stories are endowed with concluded, Families: "This book has grown out a moral certainty, a clear vision of of my conviction that anthropolo- good and evil, that we do not find in understanding is increased and the gists have a new function in the the Lewis books. Lewis's characters needs of mankind are met b y an y modern world: to serve as students seem to share a common sense of andallhonest descriptions, and reporters of the great mass of moral ambiguity and spiritual empti- responsible to the facts and peasants and urban dwellers of the ness. While such may be true of intellectually defensible. To see what underdeveloped countries who con- many modern city dwellers, the great is there with the perceptions that stitute almost 80 percent of the strength of the peasants I have ob- our own humanity allows, to render world's population."33 1 thought served, even those uprooted in cities, our report so as to preserve the journalists should serve as reporters is their moral fiber and deep religious significance of these perceptions too, for if there was one big "story" faith. while submitting them to the of our times, the changes brought by questions and tests of our population growth must be it. fellows - that is our common duty, whatever the particular means we take to realize it. Understanding, and Almost from the first, once I under- The second part of this Report will her apothesis, wisdom, are the true took village studies myself, I was examine Redfield's concept of "the gods within the temple; science is bothered by the gloominess of peasant view of the good life" not, she is only a handmaiden and Lewis's viewpoint. As I remarked Lewis's hypothesis of "the culture of serves many others. with some surprise in a book of vil- poverty," as the intellectual horizons lage portraits, once I had actually of the two men reached beyond The Contemporary Challenge gone to live with villagers and Tepoztlsn and Mexico to the global When I arrived for my first visit to worked side by side with them in the ~ta~e.~5 Mexico in early April 1977, 1 had fields, I lost my preconceived notion never heard of Robert Redfield, of "Afro-Asian villages as dreary though I soon learned he is widely collections of huts, flies, grim fata- (February 1978) known and respected here. So is listic inhabitants, misery and no fun; George Foster, who studied the none of the settings were sad at all; Tarascan Indians and mestizos of they were cheerful and possessed of ~zintzuntzan?~a village on Patz- an intensity of life beyond all my cuaro Lake in the central Mexican expectations."34 In retrospect, I highlands, just down the road from a realize at least some of those village called Huecorio, where I have expectations were formed from been doing a short village study of reading Oscar Lewis. my own. Foster's account of Mexican village life, while he is not as Anyone writing about poor people deep as Redfield or Lewis, is better can ask himself, "Do these people balanced. He is less serious, has a lead a good life or a bad one?" Lewis good sense of humor, and is more reported the life of the poor as he fun to read. While he does not make saw it, even if he seems to have us think, as Redfield does, or shock ended up magnifying the nastier us, as Lewis does, Foster's rural aspects of this life. He may have Mexico is more relaxed and enjoy- focused too closely on the family. able. Individual and family life the world over tends to have strong elements Yet the books of Redfield and Foster of the tragic; man is essentially alone are rarely to be found outside and it is a short way to the grave. But libraries today whereas glossy paper- social life, in villages or anywhere backs of the Lewis books are dis- else, is much more of a comedy and it played alongside the guidebooks at goes on forever. almost every bookstall in Mexico City. The Children of Sanchez is cur- Chekhov's peasants, for example, rently being made into a Hollywood can be coarse, drunken, and brutal film, starring Anthony Quinn. The but others possess a "quietness of shadow Lewis cast in Mexico is still soul," a sense of joy in nature, a feel- enormous. And, I believe, by being ing for the land and their native so one-sided, distorts our perception village that ring so true I recall many of the Mexican poor. of the real life peasants I have known IOIRC-1 -I78

NOTES

1. A journalist specializing in reporting 10. lbid., p. 429. Additional Lewis quotes 4). 1 have, however, only followed the villages has four roles: (1) the village on pages and are from Tepotzldn technique Lewis used in Five Families, participant in work, drink, and other Restudied, "Summary and Conclu- which I consider his best work, where activity; (2)the creative writer, drawing a sions," pp. 427-448. dialogue was noted down steno- narrative from stenographically recorded graphically as it flowed naturally. Every dialogue; (3) the reporter (a craftsman, 11. Robert Redfield, The Little Commu- reporter knows how easy it is t6 "lead" rather like a shoemaker) who must keep nity, Viewpoints for the Study of a people during interviews, whether auto- up to date on current events and write Human Whole )Chicago: University of biographical, or whether a tape recorder very short articles summing up what has Chicago Press, 19551, p. 134. is used. Lewis tried to check this with his been learned in relation to these events. Rashomon-like technique of having The anonymous essays I do for The 12. Redfield, introduction to St. Denis. several family members relate their Economist of London usually run stories. As I observed earlier, Lewis's 600-800 words as compared to a typical 13. Robert Redfield, A Village That later books are powerful as a new kind of village narrative which may go 200 pages Chose Progress; Chan Kom Revisited literary art, but not science. of typescript or more; (4) the critical (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, analyst who must think what it all means 1950). This was Redfield's restudy of the 22. Tepoztlh village first appears with and whether generalized conceptions village described in his major work, The the fictional name, "Azteca," in Five can be drawn from his work (rather like Folk Culture of Yucatan (Chicago: Uni- Families, p. 24, as "a Mexican highland the anthropologist does). Each role versity of Chicago Press, 1941 ). village which I call Azteca, about 60 miles greatly affects, temporarily, one's own south of Mexico City." In Tepoztlih Re- life style. 14. Lewis, op. cit., p. 435. studied, Lewis also puts its location as about 60 miles south of Mexico City, 2. Richard Critchfield, "How Lonely Sits 15. lbid., p. 435. The concept of "cultural although Redfield in his Tepoztlh puts the City," Papers (New York: Alicia primitivism" comes from Arthur 0. Love- the distance at 50 miles, a more accurate Patterson Fund, 19711. joy and George Boas, in their Primitivism figure. and Related Ideas in Antiquity (Balti- 3. Richard Critchfield, "Sketches of the more: Johns Hopkins Press, 1935, p. 7. 23. Lewis, The Children of Sanchez, p. v, Green Revolution," Papers (New York: Five Families, p. xi; Pedro Martinez, p. x. Alicia Patterson Fund, 1970), condensa- 16. Lewis, op. cit., p. 445. This cloak of anonymity continues to be tion in The Golden Bowl Be Broken; preserved. In a letter I receivedfrom Ruth Peasant Life in Four Cultures (Bloom- 17. lbid., p. 447. M. Lewis, the author's widow, dated ington, Indiana University Press, 19741, March 23, 1977, Mrs. Lewis wrote, "I am pp. 98-213. 18. Oscar Lewis, Village Life in Northern very sorry to disappoint you but it will be India: Studies in a Delhi Village (with impossible for me to help you contact the 4. Richard Critchfield, "Riders To- Victor Barnouw) (Urbana: University of children of Sanchez, for obvious ethical gether," Papers (New York: Alicia Illinois Press. 1958 and professional reasons. The village of Patterson Fund, 19701, condensation in Tepoztlan is, of course, available to one The Golden Bowl Be Broken, pp. 45-98. 19. Oscar Lewis, Five Families; Mexican and all." Mrs. Lewis did obligingly give Case Studies in the Culture of Poverty me the names of an elderly couple in the 5. Robert Redfield, Tepoztlan-a Mexi- (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1959). village "who were never our informants can Village (Chicago: University of whom I would need to protect." Mrs. Chicago Press, 1930). 20. Oscar Lewis, The Children of San- Lewis did not appear to realize that the chez; Autobiography of a Mexican same week she wrote both the original 6. See Anton Chekhov, The Steppe and Family (New York: Random House, subject of "Sanchez" and his daughter Peasants, perhaps the two best stories of 1963); Oscar Lewis, Pedro Martinez; A "Consuelo" had identified themselves in nineteenth-century Russian village life. Mexican Peasant and His Family (New the Mexico City press in protests con- York: Random House, 1964); and Oscar cerning the filming of The Children of 7. Robert Redfield, introduction to Lewis, La Vida; A Puerto Rican Family in Sanchez by a Hollywood studio. Horace Miner's St. Denis, a French the Culture of Poverty- San Juan and Canadian Parish (Chicago: University of New York (New York: Random House, Mrs. Lewis also observed: Chicago Press, 1939) and Robert 1966). Redfield, Peasant Society and Culture I was in Mexico last month after an (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 21. For years, I have prefaced my own absence of four years and foundit quite 1939). villagestudies by noting, "As will be self- changed. The standard of living, but evident I owe a debt of gratitude to the especially the mode of dress and use of 8. Oscar Lewis, Life in a Mexican Vil- late Oscar Lewis and his technique of leisure, have become quite Americanized lage - Tepoztldn Restudied (Urbana: portraying the daily life of ordinary andmiddle-class. In the Sanchez family, University of Illinois Press, 1951. people by drawing upon detailed obser- the grandchildren dress better, eat vation, interviews and recorded conver- better, have more schooling than their 9. lbid., pp. 428-429. sation." ( The Golden Bowl Be Broken, p. parents. 1wouldhave to be therelonger to see if the changes go deeper. Other These were long, detailed, and intimate. 31. lbid., p. 168. than the use of birth control (after having Yet, given the option, only two of the five or six children), lsuspect that values twelve subjects, both single women, 32. George Foster, Empire's Children: and behavior are pretty much the same. chose to befictionalized. Indeed, as each The People of Tzintzuntzan (Mexico: The village, too, has this puzzling mixture study moved along, the urban Americans lmprenta Nuevo Mundo, 1948). Ralph L. of change and continuity, andit takesa responded just like the villagers had; they Beak in Chevan: A Sierra Tarascan Vil- lot of patient digging to sort them out. began to take the work very seriously, lage (Washington: Smithsonian Institu- wanted their stories to be as honest and tion, Institute of Social Anthropology, Mrs. Lewis, who worked closely with her fair as I could make them, and wanted to 1946) provides interesting confirmation husband in his field research and the be identified by name, though we did use of Foster's findings on Tarascan Indian preparation of his manuscripts-she drawings rather than photographs. culture, plus a good deal on Mexican prepared a long, detailed guide for ob- George M. Foster in his Empire's village witchcraft, which has startling serving and reporting behavior of Children, said of the villagers of Tzint- resemblances to that of rural Egypt. families for the original Tepoztlin study, zuntzan he studied, "an account is much for instance-disappointingly did not more living and human if real persons 33. Lewis, Five Families, p. 15. disclose the requested names of any take part, talk, and act .... Weighing the Mexican or American anthropologists prosand cons, I finally decided to use real 34. Critchfield, The Golden Bowl Be associated with them in the Mexican names whenever possible, and fictitious Broken, p. 4. studieswho might have been more forth- names only when subject matter made it coming. The reluctance of the Lewises to seem desirable. In ~e~oztldn,Redfield 35. 1 went into village studies eight years submit their work to what Redfield called also used real names. ago after the experience of four years in "submitting.. .perceptions. ..to the ques- Vietnam and a year covering the White tions and tests of our fellows," consid- 24. Carolina Maria de Jesus, Child of the House, disillusioned and troubled. The erably weakens their claim to have por- Dark (Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Francisco villagers I have since met, to put it simply, trayed representative behavior among Alves, 1960, original title, Quarto de have restored my faith in man. the Mexican poor. Redfield himself and a Despe~o1. good many anthropologists studying villages did not choose to conceal the 25. Lewis, Tepoztlin Restudied, p. 295. identities of their subjects. Sometimes in village studies the practice of anonymity 26. lbid., pp. 428-429, and Pedro Mar- can be carried to absurdity, as in A tinez, p. xxxiii. Village Economy: Land and People of Huecorio by Michael Belshaw, an econo- 27. Redfield, quoted on back cover, mist (New York: Columbia University paperback reprint of Tepoztldn Re- Press, 1967), in which the author gave his studied, University of Illinois Press, 1961. subjectsfictional names while describing them in sketches that made their iden- 28. These lectures appeared in book tities unmistakable and, in many cases, form, The Little Community, two years providing photographs of them. Within later and provide, pp. 133-138, the quotes days of staying in this village myself, I from Redfield, pages 7 to 8, unless knew who was who. otherwise identified. As early as March 1952, however, in a guest lecture on the The notion that an author is "protecting" evolution of civilization at Cornell Uni- poor people from local political or police versity, Redfield had criticized Levyis for authorities by not giving their names in "taking his own values" to Tepoztlan. He village studies is rarely valid because said anthropologists should not become these authorities are usually the first to so objective as to "not have humanity" know about thework in progress and the and quoted the New Yorker magazine identities of the subjects anyway. In- that libraries, not individual books, deed, the only ones who seem to be should present every point of view. See, affected by the practice are readers and final pages of Redfield's The Primitive the author's co-professionals. Journal- World and its Transformations ( Ithaca: ists almost never engage in giving Cornell University Press, 1953). anonymity even though the impact of what they write is much more immediate 29. Lewis, Tepoztl6n Restudied, pp. 292- and can be much more damaging. Nor do 295. most people seek anonymity. In 1971-72, I applied the methods tried out in village 30. Redfield, The Little Community, p. studies in a series of portraits for The 148. Washington Star on American life styles.