The Children of Sanchez: Autobiography of a Mexican Family

by Oscar Lewis

Book Overview

A pioneering work from a visionary anthropologist, The Children of Sanchez is hailed around the world as a watershed achievement in the study of poverty--a uniquely intimate investigation, as poignant... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394702808
• ISBN13: 9780394702803
• Release Date: February 1979
• Publisher: Vintage Books USA
• Length: 499 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.2" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Great insight into the lives of the Mexican poor

Closely follows the lives of a family of poor people in 1940s - 50s Mexico. Great insight into the life of the generation that formed modern Mexico. Classic.

An unbiased approach to anthropology

This book for me is one of the most unbiased approaches to anthropogy I have ever read. It shocked me that he chose to take their interviews and turn them into stories using their own language. It is as if the people were talking to the reader. The conflicts are so real and believable that I do not think that Oscar Lewis allowed his own thoughts to even be part of his work. This is not a liberals approach to changing peoples positions on an issue. It is allowing people to see what it was like to be a struggling lower class family in the 1950s. We a given a window into a family of 4 children and their struggles from early childhood to becoming adults. We also are given a small snipet of the Father's perspective of his childrens accomplishments. This family's life is definately not the most glamorous look into their lives but it is very honest. We get to see them go through the struggles of poverty and being parents in a country that the only way to survive was to overcome the struggles that were given to them. I disagree with anyone who thinks Lewis is some how trying to make us simpathize with this Family. I feel he is trying to let us discover the Sanchez family for who they are and what is important to them. I have made a point to read more of his work and I have found only an honest acessment of people and the conditions they live in. Be warned this book tells the story through a Mexican perspective and their morals do follow western views so tightly. The content that is discussed is hard and should be read with maturity.

Hardcore realism

This book certainly lacks scientific data and all the other scholarly details usually found in an anthropological study. But there's nothing scientific about poverty. Footnotes and graphs have no place in this kind of examination. It's an emotional book, intimately conveying the scorn and contempt of family that's half-starved and forced to live in claustrophobic conditions."The Children of Sanchez" documents all the petty hostilities within the fragile family unit. And it documents them accurately. Living in Mexico City is hard. Rich or poor, chilangos are constantly forced to deal with incredible violence and instability; the city is unforgiving and cruel, with terrible pollution levels and wild corruption. Lewis has perfectly captured the daily horrors of this urbanized mess. Using the Sanchez family as a case group representative of many families in the capital, he shows how people are slowly crushed by their relatives, the justice system and the congestion.Nothing in this book is false or misleading. I have lived and worked in Mexico City; I have lived with a middle-class Mexican family; and I have started a family in Mexico. The experiences of the Sanchez family mirror my own experiences. I have met and have known many people like the people in this book. I have seen my own family spend countless hours attacking each other. And I have seen people desperately trying to make ends meet in a city with no opportunities.Read this book. It's all true!

The perfect biografy of a 3world country

Genero: Para mi hay dos clases de géneros en esta obra, uno para las personas que solo leen el libro y pasan las paginas, y otro para los que leen entre líneas y descubren su significado real. La primera clase de genero, para este libro, sería una novela de personajes, pues son 5 personajes principales en la novela, y se centra en ellos, tiene una trama que se desarrolla a titulo de autobiografía utilizando para ello los pasajes comunes de la vida de una familia en la que cada uno de sus integrantes principales tiene un capitulo especial en cada una de las partes en que esta dividido el libro, es por ello que resulta un tanto paradójico, recoger en una sola obra ensayo, biografía, historia y novela, solamente un estudioso como Oscar Lewis podría desarrollar con tanta riqueza y detalle un estudio antropológico tan profundo y tan actual teniendo en cuenta que fue escrito sobre una familia que se inicia a finales de los años 40s y que aun hoy es constante en toda una América latina, de clases socioeconómicas tan marcadas. La segunda clase sería, la parte científica que reúne el análisis del entorno de una sociedad pobre, machista, religiosa, ignorante, orgullosa, pero en el fondo buena; de allí la importancia de esta obra, en la que sin perder el interés novelesco, se descubren narrados por ellos mismos los profundos caracteres sociológicos de los integrantes de esta familia, por lo que se puede llegar a concluir que el autor reúne en su obra, sinconfundirlos diversos géneros literarios, permitiéndole al lector conclusiones, (amar odiar sus personajes, convertirlos en buenos y malos), para entender finalmente que todo ello lleva a una explicación realista, sincera, dramática y definitiva sobre el porque Latinoamericano y es que al analizar la obra y hacerle una comparación con la realidad que vive este país hoy al terminar el siglo se podría juzgar a autor y su obra como únicos.Tema: El libro habla sobre una familia mejicana, pobre, el padre, Jesús Sánchez nació campesino, se fue joven a la ciudad, después de la muerte de su madre, como muchos otros, para buscar fortuna y como les paso a todos estos le toco trabajar como obrero, portero o aseador, se caso ya en la ciudad con Leonor y tuvo 4 hijos, Manuel, Roberto, Consuelo y Marta, el libro empieza en si cuando la madre se muere, todos estaban muy chiquitos, y cada uno cuenta su historia desde ese momento hasta que ya son adultos y con familia. El libro se divide en tres partes, en las cuales los cuatro hijos narran sus historias de una manera simple, en la primera parte es desde la muerte de la madre, hasta que cumplen la mayoría de edad, el otro es cuando son jovenes-adultos, y el ultimo ya cuando son padres y Jesús es abuelo, este solo narra al principio, sobre su vida en el campo y la llegada a la ciudad, y al final cuando considera que como padre ha fracasado. Cada historia que narran esta llena de aventura, de amor, de drama, de sentimientos humanos

Get inside the heads of this amazing family

This book is a remarkably intimate study of a family in Mexico City. How Oscar Lewis managed to get them to open up about their experiences, fears, loves, hates, dreams and suffering in such explicit detail is a mystery. Lewis must have assisted them to articulate their feelings and perspectives because their tales are beautiful to read. Five members of the Sanchez family give independent accounts of their lives of hardship. The same events in their lives are viewed from each family member's perspective providing a unique insight into the familie's life. It is particularly amazing how openly they talk about each other. I have to assume that none of them will ever read the book. Reading the account of their lives is a sociological experience that is difficult to imagine getting from a book but also a beautiful piece of writing. In my opinion a unique and outstanding achievement .