THE MANGO TREE ...Suvimalee

II oli i UBI BONI TACENT. MALUM Vol. VII, No.1 January, 1972 Editor and publisher: F. Sionil Jose. Editorial Advirsers: Onofre D. Corpuz, Mochtar Lubis, Sulak Sivaraksa. Contributing Editor: Leonard Casper. Correspondents:, Willam Hsu, Edwin Thumb"". -- ARTICLES SOUTHEAST ASIA IN THE SEVENTIES ...................... Soedjahno7co 3 INDONESIA AND THE WORLD .............................. Mochtar Liibü 7 SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE PROMOTION OF JAPANESE- INDONESIAN CULTURAL :RELATIONS ............... Rosihan Anwa-r 12 SMALL FAMILY NORM FOR FILIPINOS.................. F. Landa Jocano 2-4 LIFE STYLE OF THE URBAN POOR AND PEOPLE'S ORGANIZATIONS .................................. Richard P: Poethig 37 NEIGHBORS IN CEBU .................................... Helga E. Jacobson 44 FICTION MOTHER GOES TO HEAVEN.............................. SitorSitumorang 17 BIG WHITE AMERICAN . .. .. .. Federico Licsi Espino, Jr. 30 A CHILD'S GARDEN OF TELEVISION .................... Erwin E. Castillo 35 POETRY TWO POEMS .......................................,........ Trisno Siimci'djo 2 CHINESE IMPRESSIONS: POEMS WRITTEN IN TAIPEI.. Cirilo F. Bautista 22 LIGHT AND DARKNESS MEET TWICE ..........;........ Gemino H. Abad 29 CARISSIMA . .. Tita Lacambra-Ayala 36 THE MANGO TREE ................................... Suvimalee Gunaratna 47 LITERARY NOTES: WRITERS AND AWARDS ........... Federico Mangahas 48 THE PRAYING MAN (Contimiation) .................... Bienvenido N. Santos' 54 INDEX TO VOLUME VI .................................................... 51 CONTRIBUTORS .. .. 51 531 Padre Faura¡ Ermitai Manila¡ Philippines.. Europe and the Amerlcas $.95; Asia Europe and .the Americas S10.00. Asia $8.50. A stamped self-addressed envelope or manuscripts otherwise they carinot be returned. Solidarity is for Cultural Freedom with Office at 104 Boulevard Haussmann Paris Be. Franc-e. Views expressed in Solidarity Magazine are to be attributed to th~ aulhors. Copyright 1967, SOLIDARIDAD Publishing House. ' Entered as Second-Class Matter at the Manila Post Office on February 7, 1968. 37 LIFE STYLE OF THE Alinsky asserts that there is no group of' people who are hopeless. Any people no matter how poor, can be organized URBAN POOR to become determiners of their own AND PEOPLE'S future. Literature. Provided A View ORGANIZATIONS of the Urb'an Poor In the past, views of the urban poor have been expressed by those who study urban communities. Government pro- grams related to the urban poor have Richard p~ Poethig drawn heavily on the pictures of the urban poor reflected in the writings So lon.gas the city contains a size- and studies of novelists, journalists, able lower dass, nothing basic can and sociologists. The urban poor were be done about its most serious first characterized by the novelists and problems. Good jobs mary be of- muckrakers of the 19th century. Char- fered to all, but some will re'mciin les Dicken's portrayal of the London chronically iinemployed. Slwms slums in his novel and Jacob Riis' jour- mciy be demolished, but if the hous- nalistic work on life in the New York ing thcit replaces them is occupied tenements, How the Other Half Lives, by the lower cl'1,ss, it will shortly presented. the images of poverty upon be turned into the new slu.ms. Wel- which .latter-day sociologists reflected. fare pciymønts may be doubled or Close on the heels of the no,velists and tripled and a negatúie income tax the muckrakers were the American instituted, biit some persons will Clergymen whose religious sensibilties conb1nue tn live in squa,lor and mis- were aroused by the conditions of the ery. .. The streets ma11 be filled urban slums. The Social Gospel Move- with armies of policemen, but viol- ment, led by Walter Rauschenbush, ent crime and civil disorder will played a maj or role in callng for social decrease v'ery little. If however, the reform in the industrial system of lower class were to disappear... America, which had relegated countless the most serious and intractable thousands to lives of quiet desperation. problems of the city wil disappear The literature which came out of this with it. (itals. mine) period continued to have influence long - 'Edward Banfield after its initial impact. Its reformist The Unheavenuy City* message colored the writings of the later urban sociologists who used em- There is no such thing as an apci- pirical data to picture life among the thetic group, culture or clasB. urban ,poor. - Saul Alinsky Literature during the New Deal The two quotes represent two views period in the U.S. was essentially re- of the urban poor. Edward Banfield, an fo,rmist in nature. The urban poor were urbanologist, suggests that the social treated as an entity apart from the problems of the city stem from the poor main body of society. Franklin Roose- who live in a state of improvidence and velt's "one-third of a nation - the il~ irresponsibility. Eliminate the poor, housed, il-clothed, il-fed" were to be says Banfield, and the city wil go on legi,slated into the main body of the na- to greater things. tion. "Dead End," a popular motion Saul Alinsky, an organizer of urban picture of the period, reflected many of poor communities, believes differently. the sociologists' notions of the social . disorganization and the familal disin- * Little, Brown & Co., Boston, Mass., 1970. tegration which were to be found in 38 Solidarity the life of the urban slums. It was mer evenings, the front stoops of the filmed on a street dead-ending on the sidestreet tenements provided the con- East River. The title was symbolic of text for conviviality, the exchange of the future of those who lived in the neighborhood information, and for slums. It told the story of neglected keeping a watchful eye on the activities children - the school drop-outs of that of the neighborhood youth. day - beginning their life of crime. A This personal note does not mean "wanted" criminal, who returns to the that all neighborhoods were alike or haunts of his youth, is the hero of the that the elements of family break- street gang. The moral of the story down, juvenile delinquency, crime were was of course, that crime does not pay, not to be found in poor neighborhoods. sinc~ the public enemy is finally gunned It is to assert that a pattern of social down by New York police. But the relationships did exist which provided image of poverty presented by the pic- organization and a continuing rhythm ture remains vivid in my mind's eye of life to the neighborhood. thirty-five years later - repressive, re-. Social Orgamization Among trogressive, disintegrative. the City's Poor A Personal View Wiliam Whyte was among the first Having grown up in New York City to discover the social organization during the 1930's, within walking dis- which existed in urban poor communi- tance of the scene of "Dead End," I can ties.! "Street Garner Society," his 1943 now reflect on the inadequacies of the study of the north End of Boston,. un- image presented. The neighborhood in covered the highly organized behavior which I lived was not repressive, re- and social controls which existed in an trogressive, or disintegrative. The fam- Italian urban slum neighborhood. iles from which my friends came were Whyte's work began a stream of urban not at the point of fallng apart. The poor neighborhood studies which have neighborhood, in fact, had a distinct continued to this day. Besides affrming character. the social organization which exists in Although reputedly the German sec- urban poor neighborhoods, these studies tion of the city, it was ethnically mixed. have shown the variety of social envi- The street corner society to which I be- ronments in which the urban poor live. longed included friends whose forbears Clinard in his authoritative work on were Czechs, Slovaks, Austrians, Hun- ISome better known studies were Wiliam garians, Russians, Italians, Irish, and F. Whyte, Street COTner Society, a 1943 Armenians. The city block provided the study of North End Boston; Michael Young normal social unit around which social and Peter Wilmott, Family and Kinship in activities took place. Relatives were East London, 1957; Jane Jacobs, The Death within walking distance or could be and Life of Great Amencan Cities, 1961, with reached by a quick trip on the subway. specific referenèe to Greenwich Vilage and Grandmother's birthday brought to- lower Manhattan; Herbert Gans, The Urban gether numerous aunts, uncles, and Villagers, a 1962'study of West End Boston; cousins. Friends from the neighbor- Ellot Liebow, Tally's Corner, a 1967 study of hood would drop by for pinochle or a Negro section of Washington, D.C. From poker games or just to kaffee-klatsch. Latin America: Wiliam Mangin and John T'urner, The Barriada Movem6'nt, a 1968 study The shops and the stores fronting on the avenues provided points of social of squatters of Lima, Peru; Liza Peattie, The View from the Barno, a 1968 study of a bar- exchange. They also provided after- rio of Guayana, Venezuela. From Asia: school and Saturday jobs. The side- Ronald Dore, City Life in Japan, 1958; Bar- streets were the playgrounds. A wide rington Kaye, Upper Nanking Street, a study range of ball games were ingeniously of a shop house section of Singapore; Mary contrived to fit into the limited space Hollnsteiner, Inner Tondo as a Way of Dife, available. For the adults on warm sum- 1967. Life Style of the UrbGf POior 39 Slum and Community Develop'ment Juan and New York, the social and psy- (1966), summarizes the findings of the chological characteristics of poor fam- past decade on urban poor neighbor- iles are reinforced in the behavior of boods: the young early in life. Lewis has enu- merated the characteristics of the "cul- Although some slums lewk unity, ture of poverty": disunity camnot be iussu'med to be (L gerneral phenomenon of the slum. 1. The lack of effective participation Rathef, eOJch slum neighborhood of the poor in the major institu- must be examined in the light of tions of the larger society.

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