Children of Sanchez (Paperback)

by Oscar Lewis (Author) "I CAN SAY I HAD NO CHILDHOOD, I WAS BORN IN A POOR LITTLE VILLAGE in the state of Veracruz..." (more)
Key Phrases: single centavo, twenty centavos, zoo pesos, Casa Grande, The Children of Sánchez, Mexico City (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
A deep and intimate account of an actual family from the slums of Mexico City.

Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (February 12, 1979)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394702808
• ISBN-13: 978-0394702803
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #145,330 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hardcore realism, November 15, 1999

By A Customer

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!

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An unbiased approach to anthropology, November 18, 2004

By	Anthony M. Weed "Volunteer in a Mexican Orpha... (Cumberland, ME USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Get inside the heads of this amazing family, September 26, 1998

By A Customer

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 .