The urban poor of Puerto Rico: a study in development and inequality

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Occupation

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Agricultural laborer Professional Clerical Sales worker Artisan Operative Service worker Proprietors, managers Laborers * Does not include unemployed or out of labor force.

Union, but does not belong

Union and belongs

!6

JOBS AND OTHER SOURCES OF INCOME

JOBS AND OTHER SOURCES OF INCOME

ties in socioeconomic status, they do not see themselves as a separate social

TABLE

segment cut off from other class groups in the society. Their sense of group

consciousness and cohesion does not extend beyond the boundaries of the immedi ate community. Aspirations for the future are always voiced in terms of individual or familial upward mobility rather than in terms of class solidarity. They are more concerned about the status differences among themselves and with improv ing their position in the shantytown community than with narrowing the status gaps between themselves and other class groups in the metropolis.

INCOME DIFFERENTIATION

10

SHANTYTOWN AND PROJECT FAMILIES BY ANNUAL FAMILY

INCOME AND NUMBER OF PERSONS EMPLOYED PER HOUSEHOLD

Annual Family Income—Shantytown Families

Number of persons

employed Less than $500

$500$999

Total N

16

8

None

11

1

5

per

household

1

2-4

Despite limited opportunities for upward mobility and job insecurity, most

$2000-

$2999

$3000 and over

Tot,

15

10(

30

31

6

21

18

12

52

1

9

11

13

34

1

24 64

4

12

2

14

Annual Family Income—Project Families

migrants feel that they have definitely improved their life chances by moving to

the city. They have a wider choice of jobs, they earn more, and their incomes

$1000-

$1999

Total N

are higher than if they had remained in the rural area. With the decline of agri

3 29 4

culture, incomes in the rural area have steadily deteriorated. In 1962, for example,

per capita income in the rural area was $408 compared to $945 in the urban

20 4

area, while 68 percent of the families with incomes under $20004 lived in the

and subsidiary economic activities, to be discussed presently. When a family is

rural area (L Silva Recio, 1971: 131).

In comparison, 54 percent of the families sampled in Los Peloteros in 1959 had

dependent exclusively on the salary of the head of the household, as in over half

annual incomes under $2000, while another 41 percent had incomes between

the cases in the Peloteros sample, income is limited by the man's earning capacity,

(Table 9). The extent of socioeconomic differences in the

which rarely exceeds $3000 annually. However, where more than one person is

shantytown can be shown by the fact that incomes ranged from under $500 to

working, total annual income often exceeds $3000 and may go as high as $5000.

over $5000 annually. Some of these differences are due to the occupational skill

The burden of supporting the household is shared by several wage earners.

$2000 and $3999

of the breadwinner and his corresponding salary level, discussed in the previous

Older children may contribute to the support of the household if they are work

section. Another important source of income differentiation is the number of peo

ing and still living at home. Thus, Dona Lourdes took care of the house and of her

ple working in the family. Where no one is working, income almost always falls

grandchildren while her three children worked. One son and daughter were

below $500 annually (Table 10). This group depends largely on public welfare

separated from their spouses, while the youngest son was recently married, and his young bride also lived with them. Though she had no independent income,

TABLE 9

TOTAL ANNUAL FAMILY INCOME OF SHANTYTOWN AND PROJECT FAMILIES

Number of Shantytown Families

Number of Project Families

Total N

Peloteros have worked at some p'b^t in their lives; less than 30 percent of the

TABLE 11

$500 -$999 $1OOO-$1499 $1500-$1999 $2000-$2499 $2500-$2999 $3000-$3999 $4000-$4999

SHANTYTOWN FEMALES BY EMPLOYMENT STATUS AND OCCUPATION Employment Status Presently

Occupation

Total N

$5000 or more 4 An annual family income of $2000 is considered the poverty line i

However, the most common pattern of multiple family employment in the shantytown is for both husband and wife to be employed. Most women in Los

female sample in the shantytown have never been employed (Table 11). However,

Under $500

to $3000 and over in the United States.

the house belonged to the grandmother and all the children considered her the

boss.

ico compared

Presently unemployed, previously employed

employed

22

45

27

employed

Other occupations Domestic service Operative

8

22

4 6

18 2

Service

4

3

Never

8

JOBS AND OTHER SOURCES OF INCOME

JOBS AND OTHER SOURCES OF INCOME

where her husband is steadily employed, the wife's salary is usually considered supplementary and she may work only sporadically, as

the need arises. Thus,

Dona Ana has worked in a factory from time to time, and she really needed the extra income when the children were young and there were so many mouths to feed. However, now that the children are older and at least supporting them

selves and her husband's salary has increased, she has stopped working.

The effect of a woman's employment on the husband's status in the family

depends largely on his retaining his role as chief breadwinner. Where the husband is unable to support his family because of illness, unemployment, or other factors, the wife's salary may act as a substitute rather than as a supplement. As she assumes his role as economic provider, her authority in the household increases and his correspondingly diminishes. The woman eventually takes over as head of the household, pushing the man into a subordinate position, and she may eventu ally force him out of the family completely. For this reason many men discourage their wives from working because they fear it casts doubt on their own ability as providers and gives the woman too much independence. With rising costs of liv

ing, however, it

has become

increasingly

necessary

for

both

spouses

to

be

employed, particularly in upwardly mobile families with middle-class aspirations. In upwardly mobile shantytown households, incomes are often pooled to achieve a common goal such as the children's education or a better home in an urbani zation. One Pelotereno couple, for example, were putting two children through college on their combined salaries. They owned a home in an urbanization, but rented it out in order to keep up the mortgage payments. They were willing to sacrifice their own comfort in housing for the sake of their children's education. As with the men, the kind of jobs open to women from the shantytown are

very menial because of their low educational levels. Factory jobs are considered the most desirable, but many women are forced to take service jobs or work as domestics (Table 11). Julia, for example, left school in second grade because of a vision problem and began ironing for a private family. She now makes $42 a week in a laundry because it was the only work she ever learned.

Women may be forced to undertake illegal activities as a way of supporting their families, if their husbands are not adequate providers. Don Lucho's wife, Raquel, sold cahita or illegal rum in the shantytown to feed her eight children,

because her husband was an alcoholic and unemployed most of the time. Even when he worked, he spent most of his salary on drink for himself and his

friends. Yet he resented her economic independence so much that Lucho himself

once turned Raquel into the police. She had to put up a bond of $45 and pay a $100 fine; but upon her release, that same night she went after two more gallons of canita, since she had no other way to support her family.

There are periodic raids on the shantytown to uncover the manufacture of canita or other illegal activities. On one occasion the men escaped by hiding in the waters of the Channel for two hours. These raids never succeed in completely eliminating illegal activities because too many people, like Raquel, are dependent

29

ing only as middlemen. No attempt was made in this study to determine the extent of illegal activity in the shantytown, but it would not seem to constitute a major source of income for most Peloterenos.

The poorest elements in the shantytown are found among the aged and among fatherless families where the husband has died

or deserted

his

family. These

families depend largely on the minimal allotments5 provided by public welfare or old age assistance, supplemented by subsidiary economic activities. Thus, Dona

Cantica and her aged husband received only $68 per month in old age assistance. He had been a dockworker and received $1000 in compensation after he broke his back in an accident. But this was quickly consumed in medical expenses,

since both were chronically ill. Dona Cantica was an epileptic and also suffered from an eye ailment which had severely impaired her vision. She used to sell cooked chestnuts or frozen lindberghs (flavored ice cubes) to children in the neighbor-' hood to add to their meager income.

Carmen, a young widow with five small children, received $50 a month from public welfare and also worked three days a week as a laundress. She later took up with an older man who, as she pointed out, could afford to support her because his children were already grown. With his support, she no longer needed to work and could stay home with her children. He also fixed up her house in

Los Peloteros so that they were able to sell it for $1200 and buy a better house a few blocks away. Most Peloterenos would not frown on extramarital relationships

of this type because they are fairly stable and fulfill an obvious economic need. Chiriperos are skid-row type characters who live largely off the charity of the

shantytown community. They are older men, usually alcoholics, who do odd jobs

or chiripas around the neighborhood (like minor repairs or running errands) and in return are fed or paid a few cents or given some empty bottles to collect the deposit. Many have been married at some point in their lives, but have long since been abandoned by their families because of their extreme state of degeneracy. Outside of these isolated cases, however, it is clear that the shantytown cannot

support its residents. It is far more dependent on the resources of the outside world than the peasant village, whose residents still retain a basic means of sub sistence through the land. Only.aSew resident storeowners of cafetins (bars) or colmados (grocery stores) earn their living within the shantytown. The rest are

employed within the wider urban community or are dependent on public welfare

and Social Security payments. This total economic dependency on the outside world makes shantytown residents even more vulnerable to the fluctuations of an unstable urban labor market. Such vital factors as wages and employment rates are controlled exclusively by the international and island economy, and they are

totally dependent, in times of recession, on public forms of assistance for survival. Though commonly considered simply a dole for the poor, public welfare serves an important function for the entire economy in sustaining a supply of cheap reserve

labor for the fluctuating urban labor market (see Piven and Cloward, 1971).

on them for an income. Activities like bolita or the illegal lottery usually have the

support and protection of higher status persons, with shantytown residents act-

r> The allotments under Social Security are substantially higher, but were not extended to the island till a few years ago.

Under $9

Husband and wife disagree on amount.

Total N

Persons per Household

$3000 and over

$1000-$1999 $2000-$2999

Under $500 $500 -$900

Total N

Annual Family Income

TABLE 12

WEEKLY FOOD EXPENDITURE OF SHANTYTOWN FAMILIES BY

1

3 4

2

6

3 11

1

7

2

7 10

6 1

1

2

2

$15-$19

7

$10-$14

$20-$24

Weekly Food Expenditure

$25 and over

ANNUAL FAMILY INCOME AND BY NUMBERS OF PERSONS PER HOUSEHOLD

Do not coincide*

32

JOBS AND OTHER SOURCES OF INCOME

JOBS AND OTHER SOURCES OF INCOME

33

indexes of the standard of living of shantytown families. Thus, the Pelotereno family that can afford an elaborate church wedding will also tend to have a larger home, more furniture, and a better diet. No family with an annual income

over $3000 is without a radio and refrigerator, and most also own a television set.

Roval Crown

On the other hand, families with incomes under $1000, can afford no luxuries and struggle to meet minimal necessities.

ASPIRATIONS AND ATTITUDES TOWARD SOCIAL MOBILITY Despite their low standard of living and their total dependence on the urban economy, Peloterenos are remarkably optimistic and believe strongly in the value of work, thrift, and individual initiative. Even the poorest families aspire toward a

better future for themselves and their children. We found little of the hopelessness and apathy that Lewis claims characterizes families in the culture of poverty (O.Lewis, 1966: 47).

Formerly, the Puerto Rican poor depended heavily on luck as their only means of escaping from their miserable condition (see Mintz, 1956: 364-367). They tried to win on the lottery, or on the illegal numbers game {la bolita), or even at a cockfight. In the city, betting on horses has become increasingly popular among all sectors of Puerto Rican society, and the huge racetrack on the outskirts of the metropolitan area is usually filled to capacity. Some of the poor continue to try their luck at gambling, particularly if they see no other way of attaining their

Small tiendas located in the shantytown provide residents with most of their daily needs. {Courtesy Puerto Rican Urban Renewal and Homing Corporation) at home by chancletas or slippers. The cheap, Japanese style, rubber sandal has become very popular among the Puerto Rican poor, especially for use at home. The emphasis on store-bought goods carries over to events such as weddings and funerals. The wedding cake, for example may be purchased at one of the

finer bakeries and in 1959 could cost as much as $15. To cut expenses, the wed ding gown may be rented or purchased secondhand, but it is seldom sewn at home. When they can afford it, families will go to considerable expense to finance a wedding because it is an important reflection of social standing, even within the shantytown. The church in which the wedding is performed, the

number of attendants, and the elaborateness of the fiesta following the ceremony are all status considerations.

In all life-crisis ceremonies there is a conscious attempt to emulate the stand

goals. Thus, Paulita, now a mother of seven young children and separated from her husband, claims that the only way she will ever be able to leave public housing and have a nice home in an urbanizacion is if she remarries a man of means (unlikely in her condition) or if she wins in the lottery. She says she buys

tickets occasionally when she is downtown and has a few extra cents on her. On the whole, however, the fatalistic belief in luck of an earlier era has been replaced by an emphasis on hard work, thrift, and other values normally associ ated with the Protestant ethic. For example, Paulita's estranged husband, Tito, argues that anyone can find a job if he really looks for it. Even Paulita claims she would like to work, if she could find someone to take care of her children: I am so proud ... I prefer to work and not have them giving me help. . . . Now, if one were disabled, right? But while a woman is young she can work. Many of the poor feel that>gublic welfare is demeaning and only suitable for those who are too old or ill to work. They resent the constant prying into one's private life that public welfare imposes: checking to see if one is working (even

taking in a few pieces of laundry) or if one's child is legitimate or if one is living

ards of higher status groups in Puerto Rican society; the closer the approximation

with another man. Besides, public welfare pays very little. Raquel, for example,

to these standards, the higher the prestige. Thus, the gown, the cake, and the

raised an orphan child whose mother had died of tuberculosis and whose father was unknown; she received $2 a month until the child was five and the payment was raised to $5.

reception as part of the wedding celebration all symbolize higher class values that have been incorporated into lower-class life (see Scheele, 1956: 456). Even honeymoons have become fashionable among some shantytown families. The way life-crisis ceremonies are celebrated obviously ties in closely with other

Social Security, on the other hand, is looked at quite differently. The sums paid

are substantial (by Puerto Rican standards); there is no means test and no

34

JOBS AND OTHER SOURCES OF INCOME

prying into one's private life. Raquel now receives $150 a month in Social Secur ity since her husband has been declared unable to work. She manages very well on this and even puts away a few dollars a month towards the house she hopes to buy. She describes her budget this way:

. . . First I pay the house ($18 a month in public housing). Then I go to the

grocery store and make a purchase of $40 or $45, after I go to the furniture

JOBS AND OTHER SOURCES OF INCOME

35

been poverty and there will always be poverty. According to Don Francisco, any one who has to work for a living is poor; only millionaires like Governor Ferre,

who have an independent source of income, are not poor. Thus, the strong achievement orientation among the poor is combined with an acceptance of the socioeconomic inequalities of Puerto Rican society as they now exist. No one

believes the differences between rich and poor will be eliminated. This does not

store and pay $15 (on the installment plan). And after, if something is left over, I buy some clothing for the boys. And I pay the electricity and the

mean, however, that the poor must accept their low station in life, as they did

water... .

nomic status, and if he doesn't do so, it is his own fault. In other words, anyone

Raquel's account should dispel the notion that the poor are unable to budget

can make it if he really tries.

and live only for the present (see O. Lewis, 1966: 48). On the contrary, Raquel, like many of the poor, is very critical of people who squander their money on drink and other vices and then don't have enough money to pay their bills. Raquel claims that some women are as bad as men. They drink more than eight or ten beers a day, and then when they collect their salary, they owe it all. Raquel claims these people live like "savage animals" and she regards them with utter contempt. Considering her alcoholic husband and her struggle to raise nine children, her strong feelings on this point are understandable.

Many shantytown residents stress the importance of saving and spending one's money wisely. Don Francisco, for example, feels that to improve himself, a man must work hard and give up vices like drinking, lottery, parties, and women, so that his money will reach. Don Francisco is here largely reflecting on his own experience. Before he became a Seventh Day Adventist, he was a free spender

and his family was quite poor. Now he owns a large though modest home in an urbanization and has sent all of his eight children through high school and one is in college. He feels he could not have done this without the discipline that his religion taught him.

Don Francisco believes that life is a never-ending ladder of social mobility, ordained by God, which individuals ascend step by step with His help: Lean on a good tree and good shade will cover you. That means if I stick by someone worse off than I, in what conditions shall I put myself? in the same

conditions as he, right? But if I try to improve I don't try to look back. Behind you there is someone who took coffee, bread and butter. Behind him, there is someone who took coffee but no bread. And behind him there is some one who took black coffee. Behind him ... is someone who took it unsweetened and behind him ... is someone who had no coffee. But in front of me there is

someone who had breakfast, further in front there is another who had a good

breakfast . . . and so on until you reach the top. In such a scale lives humanity. Thus we should all be looking up. He who wants to remain below, it's because he likes it. ... Rising and falling, rising and falling, from that no one can mis lead us, because that is the word of God.

However, Don Francisco cautions against trying to climb this scale too quickly

and advises people to progress step by step. In saving, for example, one can start with pennies, and watch them grow into dollars, and the dollars into five dollars, and so on. It is not necessary to skimp on necessities like food; the important thing is not to waste one's money on vices.

On the other hand, Don Francisco argues, quoting the Bible, there has always

previously. Peloterenos feel that anyone who wants to can improve his socioeco

Thus poverty is explained in terms of personal inadequacies rather than in terms of the socioeconomic structure of Puerto Rican society. Shantytown resi dents feel that Puerto Rican society at present offers sufficient and socioeconomic opportunities to those who work hard to get ahead. They feel they have made

considerable progress in their own lifetimes, starting out as many of them did as low-paid agricultural laborers. And, as we shall see in the next chapter, they have even greater hopes for their children.

It would seem then, that as long as the Puerto Rican economy continues to expand at a rate sufficiently great to absorb at least the most mobile, the Puerto Rican poor will see no reason to challenge the existing socioeconomic system. They will continue to think in terms of individual mobility rather than collective solidarity. Economic growth, by generating new jobs and higher standards of liv ing, has deflected the growth of class consciousness among the poor and enhanced their belief in individual mobility and progress.

FAMILY AND KINSHIP

of a society in which vertical mobility is limited. In this proletarian class, men are usually unskilled wage laborers, holding jobs that confer no prestige on the family as occupation may in the middle class. Nor do men have an opportunity to occupy

3 / Family and Kinship

positions of prestige through the kinship system, as in primitive societies where even matrilineal descent is associated with control by men.

Modern complex

societies with a strong patriarchal tradition, like the Indian or Chinese, may also

give men roles in the kinship or religious system that permit them to maintain their dominant position in the household. However, the trend in modern complex societies toward secularization and the bilateral reckoning of kindred centered on the nuclear family has deprived the man of the kinship and religious roles he may play in more traditional societies and left him dependent largely on his function as

The shantytown family is an adaptation to the depressed socioeconomic circumstances in which most Pelotereno families live. The man's authority is

based largely on his role as economic provider, which is limited by factors such as the high rate of unemployment, poor wages, low skill and educational levels, and

minimal possibilities of upward mobility. The woman, on the other hand, generally confines her activities to the home and children and derives her authority from her close relationship with her children and female kin. The strong emotional

bond between a woman, her children, and her female kin group results in a pro nounced matrifocal emphasis in shantytown families.

economic provider. According to Smith, the degree of matrifocality can vary not only between

families, but also within the same family over time. Smith

(I960:

70)

distin

guishes three phases in the developmental cycle of the matrifocal household: (1) a period of sex experimentation and spouse selection;

the nuclear family in its own house; and

(3)

(2) the isolation of

the matrifocal household which

usually includes the members of a three-generation matriline. Thus, in Smith's

scheme, matrifocality is seen as the final phase of a cyclical process in which the role of the wife-mother gradually gains dominance over the role of the husband-

father. Smith (I960: 68) writes: "Variations over time are thus a part of the system and what appear to be different types of family viewed simultaneously are

THE NATURE OF MATRIFOCALITY

perhaps different growth stages of the same system."

Matrifocality has been denned in various ways (see Gonzalez, 1970), resulting in a great deal of confusion in the use of the term. However, here we shall use

MARRIAGE PATTERNS AND HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION

matrifocality to include not only families where the woman is the actual head of the household (often referred to as female-based), but also families with a stable male head of household, where the man's role is marginal to the primary sphere of mother-child relationships. In these households, typically, kin relations are emphasized in the female line, with the maternal grandmother often assuming the

size the nuclear family phase. Half of the households in the Pelotereno sample

role of the head of the kin group. In the Caribbean, matrifocality often is associ

different picture emerges. Though numerically superior at all stages of the cycle,

ated with consensual unions, commonly involving a series of successive males,

so that the basic family unit consists of the mother and children. Several explanations have been offered for the matrifocal nature of Caribbean focal family among Negroes in the New World as a reinterpretation of West and Henriques

are of the nuclear type, consisting exclusively of parents and children (Table 13). However, if we look at the data in terms of Smith's time perspective, a slightly

nuclear families are most predominant among women who have been married less than twenty years (Table 14). Among older women who were married twenty

lower-class families. Herskovits (1958: 167-186) sought to explain the matri African polygynous patterns. Frazier (1939)

At first glance, household composition in Los Peloteros would seem to empha

(1953), however,

years or more, household composition becomes more complex and we find a larger

percentage of extended families and households headed by females. Extended families, comprising 20 percent of the households sampled in Los Peloteros (Table 13), usually consist of a nuclear core, plus grandchildren or

emphasized the shattering effects of slavery on Negro family organization, point

relatives of the male head of household or his spouse. The presence of grand

ing out that male slaves were not permitted to form permanent marital unions

children is usually due to the separation of the parents, one of whom (usually the

whereas the mother and children were usually sold as a group.

mother) has returned to live with the grandparents. Contrary to Smith's descrip

Raymond Smith (1956: 227-228), on the other hand, while acknowledging the

tion of the Negro family in British O»jkna, (Smith, I960: 70) it is not common

importance of slavery in terms of the origin of the present-day West Indian fam

for girls to have children before marriage and while still living at home. Premarital

ily

sex does occur; but where it results in pregnancy, there is usually an attempt to

structure,

largely rejects

historical

explanations

in

favor

of

a

structural

approach. According to Smith, matrifocality is associated, not with particular

cover it up by marriage as soon as possible, or the man may simply take the

historical or cultural circumstances, but with a class position at the lowest rank

woman to live with him in consensual union.

FAMILY AND KINSHIP

TABLE 13

FAMILY AND KINSHIP FAMILY TYPE

TABLE 15

Number of Shantytown

Family Type

of Project

Families

Families

Total N

Total N Total %

Single Legal marriage Consensual union

Nuclear

Extended Female-based households Mother and children only Mother, children, and additional relatives Single men Single men and older sons Single men, children and additional relatives

Widowed

Divorced Separated

series of consensual unions after she left her first husband, to whom she was legally married. She now lives alone with her four young children in a public housing project. Here we see the tremendous variability in marital and mobility

Spouses only

Spouses with relatives (no children)

patterns that can occur even within one family.

Consensual unions appear to be more unstable than civil or church marriages. Not only has the first union often dissolved but it has been followed by as many

In our sample, less than 25 percent of men and women reported being married in consensual union

MARITAL STATUS OF SHANTYTOWN ADULTS

Number

(Table 15), which is much lower than that reported by

Mintz for the Puerto Rican plantation area (Mintz, 1956: 375) or by Oscar Lewis for the shantytown he studied (O. Lewis, 1966: 36). The number of respondents who report that their first marriage took place in church is almost three times

the number who report a civil ceremony at their first marriage

(Table 16).

Church ceremonies undoubtedly have high status value. As Smith (1956:

181)

has indicated, consensual unions are a symbol of class differentiation and a sign of lower-class status, which many shantytown families are anxious to shed. Thus, Dona Ana's niece Ines, who now lives in a modern urbanization with her husband and two small children, was married in a fancy Catholic wedding ceremony,

complete with gown, attendants, studio photographs, and so on. In comparison, her cousin Evelyn, who was also raised by Dona Ana, has been engaged in a

as two, three, or, in the case of one man, four additional unions, usually also

contracted on a consensual basis (Table 16). Those starting out in consensual

unions have been married an average of two times compared to 1.4 unions for those first married in religious or civil ceremonies.

The start of a consensual union is usually signified by the couple establishing their own household, and involves the man and woman in a set of mutual

obligations despite the absence of legal marriage. A consensual union must be distinguished from a casual liaison, where the couple usually continue to live separately while having sexual relations and incur no mutual obligations even when there are children. Thus, Paulita has had two children by two different men since she separated from her husband; but she lived only a short time in New York with the first man and never lived with the second. Neither of these men regularly support their children, but Paulita's husband continues to give her a weekly allowance for their five children, although they have been separated for several years.

TABLE 14

SHANTYTOWN FEMALES BY NUMBER OF YEARS SINCE MARRIAGE AND FAMILY TYPE

Family Type

Like Paulita's, 20 percent of the households in the Pelotereno sample are headed

by females. In keeping with Smith, nearly all of these female-based households are found among women who have been married twenty years or more (Table 14). In part, this is due to the shorter life-span of men; eight of the twenty

Numbers of Years Since Marriage 20 and over

women in this group are widows. Except for two divorces, however, the remainder

are separated from their spouses. Divorce is rare in the Puerto Rican lower class Nuclear

Extended Female-based Spouses only Spouses with relatives (no children)

because of the prevalence of consensual unions and because of the expense and difficulty in obtaining a legal divorce, even where a mJhitiage has been contracted. However, the absence of divorce does not prevent either the man or woman from

establishing casual liaisons or consensual unions with others; a household may include children of several men, as in the case of Paulita. Generally, the children remain with the natural mother.

This pattern of unstable unions following the breakup of a marriage appears to

FAMILY AND KINSHIP

41

be more common in the Puerto Rican lower class than premarital sexual activity. It would seem that once virginity is lost and the marriage broken, the ban of extramarital activity becomes very weak (see Seda Bonilla, 1969: 85).

Despite the prevalence of consensual unions and extramarital activity, how ever, most marriages in the shantytown are stable. Two-thirds of the Peloterenos

in the sample have remained with their first wife, which is much higher than the

30 percent cited by Lewis for the shantytown he studied (O. Lewis, 1966: 36). Among my principle informants, there are a number of couples who have been married over twenty years. Dona Ana, for example, was married twenty-three years ago in a civil ceremony to Juan (her second husband) and notes:

Up to this time I am happy because he is a good man without vices, he doesn't drink or smoke, or go out anywhere unless it is with me. Sometimes on Sundays we go to the movie or if they invite us to a party we also go, but we are already

old, we are not for parties, but we go. He is a very good person, very humble.

The number of three-generation matrilines in the Pelotereno sample is very small, which represents a departure from Smith's model. However, we must remember that we are dealing here with a relatively recent migrant population, where the grandparents in many cases have remained in the rural area. As Hammel (1961: 1001) has pointed out in a study of changing family structure among rural-urban migrants in Peru, migrant households appear to be extended laterally to include siblings and other relatives of the same generation. In addition, it is necessary to look beyond the individual household for the kinship network in the shantytown (see R. Bryce-Laporte, 1971). For example, all but two of the eleven women in the Pelotereno sample who live alone with their children have relatives residing in the same neighborhood. This kin group is particularly important to households headed by females since the assistance of relatives compensates in part for the absence of the father.

Seen in this light, even the predominance of the nuclear family in the shanty town takes on a new look. Separate residence would appear to be more an

expression of the nuclear family's economic independence rather than of its social isolation. Though the kinship group may cease to operate as an income-producing unit, as it may have been on a rural farm, it still operates as a tightly-knit social unit providing support and companionship to its members.

CONJUGAL RELATIONSHIPS AND MARITAL STABILITY

Every adult in the shantytown is expected to marry, at least once. There are widows and separated or divorced women in the sample from Los Peloteros but no spinsters (Table 15). Even the four men in the Pelotereno samfcle who live alone have either been separated or divorced. Most Peloterenos were married at an early age, particularly women (Table 17).

Two-thirds of the women in the sample married between the ages of fifteen and nineteen, while the majority of the men were first married in their twenties. The early age of the marriage for women could be attributed to their rural origin, but

FAMILY AND KINSHIP

TABLE 17

AGE AT FIRST MARRIAGE OF SHANTYTOWN ADULTS

Total N Total %

FAMILY AND KINSHIP

43

any pleasure from the sexual act. Dona Ana observed that intercourse is terrible for a woman until she becomes accustomed to it, which usually takes about nine days. During this time, she is not supposed to leave the house so that no one but her husband may see her. Some men, Dona Ana noted, are patient and gentle on

the first night while others are interested only in satisfying their own desire.

Under 15 15-19

Even after marriage, there appears to be little communication between husband and wife on sexual matters. As Stycos (1956: 208) and his associates observed

25-29 30-34 35-44

in their study of fertility patterns in Puerto Rico, sex is seen as something shame ful which the spouses do not discuss openly. Though these attitudes are changing rapidly among the younger generation, they may help to explain why some shanty

20-24

town women continue to have so many children, even when there is little hope of apparently many low-income Puerto Rican girls in the urban area continue to marry as young as fourteen and fifteen. Thus, several of Raquel's daughters

entered into consensual unions at fourteen, while Carmen's daughter was married at fifteen.6 It would seem that only the upwardly mobile delay marriage in order to finish their education, find a job and, hopefully, find a better husband.

Newlyweds may move in with the parents of the bride or groom temporarily,

but seldom continue to live there after the birth of their first child. Where doubling up is necessary, the girl's parents are preferred, because a girl commonly has built up a close pattern of cooperation with her own mother that can be easily continued after marriage. But space is also a decisive factor in the cramped quarters of the shantytown; and where the groom's parents have more room, the preference for matrifocal residence may be set aside. When Tito and Paulita married, for example, her mother lived alone in a rented room while his mother owned a six-room house down the street. Even before her marriage Paulita spent most of her time in her mother-in-law's house helping with the housework. One bedroom was set aside for the young couple and they shared other facilities with the rest of the family.

Fear of sex is built up in the female throughout the socialization process and she is taught to guard her virginity as a precious possession, to be given only to her husband. However, as we noted earlier, premarital sex does occur, and even women who marry in church are not always virgins. Thus, Paulita was already four months pregnant when she married. No mention was made of the fact and the wedding took place with a gown, cake, and all the other paraphernalia. In this case, however, the minister was Evangelical (following the mother-in-law's faith) and the service was conducted in a relative's home in a public housing project. A bride is expected to weep at her wedding. Shortly before the newlyweds take leave of the wedding party, she customarily bursts into tears and is at once sur rounded by female friends and relatives who try to comfort her. "Sabe la que le espera" (She knows what awaits her) remarked Dona Ana wryly at one wedding.

Kathleen Wolf (1952: 414) has attempted to explain such outbursts as signs of submission to men. Women are not expected to show any' interest in or derive 6 Fitzpatrick notes that age at marriage has been declining for both sexes in Puerto Rico. In 1950, for example, 31.7 percent of the women entering marriage were under twenty, com

pared to 36.1 percent in 1960 (Fitzpatrick, 1971: 88).

establishing a stable marital union. Dona Ana's niece Evelyn, for example, had four children with four different men before she was sterilized, largely because of her rapidly failing health. As with Paulita, it would seem that these women hope that each relationship will bring them some measure of happiness and stability, and when they are disappointed, they move on to another.

Sterilization is the most popular form of birth control, though douches, jellies,

and the pill are also known. Some men object to their wives' use of birth control methods because of the freedom it gives to women to experiment sexually, which tends to belie the notion that women are disinterested in sex. Raquel's husband, for example, forbade her to be sterilized, maintaining that she would then cease to be a woman (deja de set mujer). Raquel claims she would have been sterilized anyway, but at that time a woman had to wait until she had eight children, and that was too late. Raquel had a total of eleven children, of whom two died, and she also raised an orphan as an hijo de crianza or "adopted" child. Still Raquel insists it is better for women to have only three or four children:

If they were to operate (sterilize) them after they had one or two, then the world would end. At least since there are so many women, at least each woman should have three or four children. At least that should be the limit.

Pregnancy does not draw a woman closer to her husband; on the contrary, she

becomes increasingly dependent upon her own kin group, especially her mother. The birth of a child reinforces the bond between mother and daughter. If it is her first child, the daughter will consult her mother on what she is to eat and how she is to prepare for the baby. If the birth occurs at home, the mother or other female relatives will usually be present to assist the comadrona or midwife. Births now take place more commonly in the hospital, but because of the shortage of beds in the public hospital (which is free), women are often discharged 24 hours after giving birth. If they have no assistance at home, then returning so quickly with a newborn child can be very difficult, particularly when there are other

children to attend to. Ines spent the last month of her pregnancy at Dona Ana's house and returned there with her baby for several weeks)* until she felt strong enough to reassume the care of her own household.

A woman can expect little or no assistance from her husband. A rigid division of labor marks the shantytown household. A man is rarely responsible for more than a few odd tasks around the home, such as repairs and painting, and he may

44

FAMILY AND KINSHIP

FAMILY AND KINSHIP

also do the shopping. Tasks such as cooking, cleaning, washing, or ironing are considered women's work; if a man were to have to do these duties, it would be a violation of his machismo or virility. Since Dona Ana was not well, her husband sometimes helped her with some of the heavier housework such as mopping the

floor or taking out the garbage, but he was ridiculed even by members of his own

family. Since Dona Ana is in many ways the more articulate member of the house hold, their children looked upon his behavior as further proof that he was dominated by her.

Even in this case, however, when asked who held the authority in her home, Dona Ana answered: "Aqui manda el, pero en cuestiones de la casa mando yo. Se supone que sea el hombre el que manda en una casa'.' (He's the boss here, but

in household matters, I am. It is assumed that a man should rule the house.) In other words, as Smith notes (I960: 69), "it is socially prescribed that he should be the authoritarian figure in the household."

A woman would not attempt to answer for her husband or her family in official dealings with the government or other public agencies unless, of course, she is the recognized head of the household. The man represents his family in most matters relating to the outside world. His role as their spokesman gives him a rather important role in neighborhood affairs: On barrio committees, political parties, and the housing cooperative, for example, the bulk of the membership was male. Responsibility for social control in the shantytown also rests largely with the men. For example, men may attempt to end a fight between neighbors or

tell a drunkard to do his drinking elsewhere, while women are hesitant to inter vene in nonfamily affairs.

The man's principal role in the shantytown household is an economic provider. A good husband is expected to work hard and be responsible, that is, support his family and not spend all his money on vices like drinking or other women. He generally decides how much to spend on food, clothing, and other necessities, and may also do the buying. For example, the man often makes the large weekly purchase of food {la compra) while the woman usually does the daily shopping in one of the local tiendas. She may be given a weekly allowance or he may prefer

to retain complete control of the purse strings and give her money only when she asks for it. She may not know how much money he earns or spends on him self, like Julia, whose husband has been involved with several other women and thus has additional children to support. Julia has always been forced to work herself and has never been able to buy a house or give her children a good educa tion. Yet to my knowledge, she has never threatened her husband with divorce, and still defers to him as the head of the household. Raquel also remained with her husband though he was a chronic alcoholic and never supported her and their nine children.

He constantly threatened

them

with violence and on one such occasion, Raquel called the police and had him committed to a mental institution. He left her several times, but always returned because she "was the only one who understood him." Raquel herself is unable to explain why she did not break with him completely, but apparently feels vindi cated for all the years of cruelty and hardship now that she is able to collect on his Social Security. She refuses to give him any money, including the amount she

45

collected from the government as compensation on their house in the shantytown, even though he has threatened to take her to court. Now that she has financial

independence, she has clearly assumed a more dominant role in the household. Younger women are not as likely to put up with the hardships Raquel or Julia

endured. They have more resources open to them and are not as willing to make sacrifices for

the sake of preserving their marriage and

keeping

the

family

intact (see Lewis, 1966: 27). They may even leave a good husband like Paulita did, simply because she no longer loved him and was attracted to another man. Although Paulita now admits she should not have gone off with this other man, she also refuses to reconcile with Tito, her husband. Asked if it would not be

better for her children if she went back with Tito, she replied: "Me? Sacrifice myself for those spoiled girls. They will grow up and marry tomorrow."

As women become more independent, the rate of marital instability appears to be growing. There is little to hold a man and his wife together except their children. There is no investment in property, no status position to uphold, no deep emotional tie. Instead, each is bound to his own kin group and blood ties are

regarded as far more important than marriage, a contractual relationship. Even where marriage has taken place in church, there appears to be little religious sentiment on the part of the poor against divorce or separation. As Don Francisco

observed, a spouse is not kin but a separate being (un ser particular) and there fore is free to leave whenever dissatisfied.

If a couple separates, the children generally remain with the mother. Women who desert their children are severely criticized because it is considered impossible

for a man to care for them properly. Several women, such as Julia, Paulita and Raquel, came to the metropolitan area as children with their mothers, who had

left their husbands in the rural area. Their mothers found jobs as domestics or doing laundry, and the children left school in the early grades and were forced to fend for themselves. Paulita and her two sisters and

brother were often

separated as the children were dispersed to various households of relatives and friends, since their mother could not take care of all of them. Often the mother's lodging consisted solely of a single room in the house where she worked. Reflecting on her own experience and the plight of uneducated women previ ously, Paulita remarked: In those times when women had the problem of leaving their husbands, the majority became pagans, (prostitutes), right? Because they couldn't do any thing. . . . And if they were very young they didn't want them working in private families, because they fell in love with the mistress' husband. And then since they could not find work those women turned to a life of sin because they knew nothing of school. . . .

There are now more job opportunities open to women in the urban area, if they are forced to work and support themselves and a family. Still women are largely restricted to low-paying jobs as domestics, waitresses, or chambermaids, or if they are lucky, they may find a factory job (Table 11). It is also difficult for women to work if they have small children and no one to take care of them. Paulita, for example, can hardly leave the house with seven small children. Yet

46

FAMILY AND KINSHIP

FAMILY AND KINSHIP

47

she wants to work because she doesn't want to spend her life "waiting for them to give me a few crumbs of bread."

THE SOCIALIZATION PROCESS

Sometimes female relatives take care of the children while the mother works. Dona Ana, for example, continues to take care of Ines' two small girls while she works. Carmen's grandson also lives with her during the week so that her daugh ter-in-law can finish nursing school. However, with the dispersal of kin (not only

The shantytown family functions largely as a child-rearing unit. Given the strong segregation of conjugal roles and the weakness of the marital relationship, the emphasis is not on the emotional tie between husband and wife, but on the

on the island but also to New York) and the consequent weakening of kin ties,

the family no longer provides the security and support it once provided for at least some female-based households.

Instead, the female head of household in the shantytown has grown to rely increasingly on institutional means of support, chiefly public welfare. Almost half

the households headed by females in Los Peloteros received some public assistance. This also helps to explain the preference for legal marriage, since a legal wife is in a better position to request public assistance than a common-law spouse (see Mintz, 1956: 378; Fitzpatrick, 1971: 85). However, as we have noted previously, the amounts provided under public welfare are very small in Puerto Rico. Carmen, for example, received only $50 a month for herself and five small children when her husband died; now it has

been raised to $85. Paulita feels it is not even worth asking for public assistance in Puerto Rico, since they give you hardly anything and ask so many questions. Raquel's daughter also receives no aid, although her husband is in jail for drug

abuse and she has a young child to support. She supports herself by taking in laundry and with the help she receives from her family. Raquel notes: It's not worth asking for public welfare. Here, what they pay to the people is a pittance. . . . Then they are always waiting to see if someone comes and they say look, she is washing clothes and earns so much. . . . Right away they think that they are giving you help and they take it away. To earn two or three dollars more in addition, for that reason she has not wanted to solicit public welfare. Thus, though they have greater public sources of support open to them than

formerly, female-based households are still seriously handicapped in their possi bilities for upward mobility as compared with stable male-based households. This helps to account for the higher percentage of female-based households in public housing; they have few alternatives in the private housing market and may be

forced to remain in public housing indefinitely (see Safa, 1965). As we shall see

in Chapter 5, all of the female-based households restudied in 1969 are living in public housing. They form the basis of a large, dependent welfare population. The contrast between households headed by males and by females points up the importance of family structure in terms of the mobility patterns of the urban poor. Where the marriage is stable, the family may be able to accumulate enough resources to break out of the cycle of poverty and perhaps provide for the educa

tion of their children or the purchase of a house. Where the marriage breaks up or is unstable, however, the family often becomes dependent on public welfare and other subsidiary sources of income, and their chances of upward mobility are very slim indeed. Not only do the parents suffer, but they severely impair the future of their children.

Mothers have full responsibility for child-rearing and the mother-child tie is very close. (Courtesy ]ames Weber)

;

FAMILY AND KINSHIP

FAMILY AND KINSHIP

intensity of the mother-child relationship, which persists long after the children are grown and have families of their own. Shantytown families in Puerto Rico seem somewhat smaller than

the rural

norm (see Landy, 1959: 27). Few Peloterefio households contain more than five

children under eighteen, and the average number is three

(Table

18). This

includes hijos de crianza or adopted children, a fairly common form of child-

rearing in the Puerto Rican lower class. Adoptions are rarely legal; the children retain their parents' name and, if the latter are still alive, may see them regularly.

Thus, Dona Ana had taken Ines to live with her when she was only eighteen months old; her sister, Ines' mother, already had ten children and was too poor to raise another. Dona Ana was divorced and had no children, and was living with her sister at the time of Ines' birth. Later Dona Ana married Juan and Ines con

tinued living with them, but Ines saw

her mother frequently.

Ines

always

addressed her aunt as tia, but Dona Ana referred to her niece as her daughter because she "loved her as a daughter even though she wasn't hers." To this day, Dona Ana seems more attached to Ines than to her own son, who was born shortly after she married Juan, and is certainly more attached to her than to the three children of her brother, whom she also raised because their father was in prison.

Adoptions are largely limited to relatives' children but in cases of emergency, where the mother has died, children of neighbors may be included. Raquel, for example, took in the child of a neighbor woman who died of tuberculosis. The father was unknown, and apparently there were no other relatives to take care of

her. Public welfare gave Raquel $5 a month for the care of the child.

49

According to custom, a child should be baptized as shortly after birth as possi ble. As in the rural lower class, there are two forms of baptism practiced in Peloterefio families, the bautizo de agua (by water) and the bautizo de pila (by baptismal font) (see Mintz, 1956: 387). The bautizo de pila is generally post poned until the family is financially able to afford the cost of a church ceremony and the accompanying celebration. The bautizo de agua, held at home without

benefit of clergy and preferably with holy water stolen from the church, is

deemed sufficient to save the child's soul in case of death.

Godparents or padrinos are named for both forms of baptism. As in most

Latin American countries, the most important relationship is not between the child and his godparent but between the child's parents and their compadres (see Wolf and Mintz, 1950). Compadrazgo is thus a form of ritual kinship

whereby nonkin are incorporated into the family network or ties with relatives are strengthened. Neighbors are frequently chosen as compadres for shantytown families, reinforcing the close cohesion of the shantytown community (Table 19). Significantly, few shantytown families mention employers as compadres, a com mon practice in the rural area of Puerto Rico but lost in the impersonality of the urban labor force.

Some shantytown families still retain such traditional folk beliefs as mal de ojo or the evil eye. Infants wear charms made of small black hands on their wrist or pinned to their garments to protect them. The more beautiful a child is, the more susceptible he becomes; intelligence also is supposed to make him vulnerable. One mother, who had lived in New York, told me that her oldest boy was so beautiful she hardly dared to take him to events where other Puerto Ricans were present. She claimed that Americans were not so dangerous since they did not

TABLE 18 Number

NUMBER OF PERSONS AND MINORS PER SHANTYTOWN FAMILY Persons per Family

Minors per Family*

believe in mal de ojo. The fear of envy thus seems directed primarily at the in-group; in fact, close friends and even relatives are considered more harmful than strangers.

Total N

TABLE 19 SHANTYTOWN ADULTS' CHOICE OF COMPADRES (RITUAL KIN) FOR SONS AND DAUGHTERS

Relationship to father or mother

Father's Choice of Compadres Son Daughter

Mother's Choice of Compadres Son Daughter

Total N*

164

188

Neighbor Relative

l> 3,

Friend Employer Other No compadre

chosen

Average N

5.90

3.0

* Includes all persons under 18 years of age, whether or not they are children of the head of the household.

No son and /or daughter Does not remember

164

188

71

14

8

i

i

12

6

2'

* Doubled because two persons (male compadre and female comadre) chosen for each child.

50

FAMILY AND KINSHIP

FAMILY AND KINSHIP

Among the older generation of shantytown families, children were still gen

erally breast-fed because the mother's milk is considered healthier for the child, though bottle-feeding may be used as a supplement. Bottle-feeding is more pre valent among the younger generation, but is seldom kept on schedule. When

Paulita had her first child, her husband tacked up a schedule on the wall so that

the baby would be fed regularly. A woman normally stops breast-feeding when she becomes pregnant again, since the milk of a pregnant woman is considered harmful to the nursing child if he is of a sex opposite to that of the fetus. Since it

51

is impossible to determine the sex of the unborn child, nursing must terminate anyway. It is interesting, however, that sex differentiation starts

even before

birth and continues throughout the socialization process.

Sex differentiation is expressed in many different ways. For example, boys may run naked or with just a shirt until school age while girls are covered from birth on. When one little girl in the shantytown pulled off her pants, a neighbor's

boy called her mother who rushed to the rescue. Play groups may include children from three years of age to teen-agers, but they are generally of the same sex. Groups walking to school or gathering in front of a store follow the same rule. In general, contrary to the United States middle-class pattern (see Parsons, 1950), the distinction between the sexes is emphasized far more than differences in age.

Girls are much more sheltered than boys. They seldom go anywhere without their families or at least their mothers. Instead, they are expected to stay at home and help their mothers in the household tasks, particularly in the care of younger siblings. It is common to see a five-year-old girl carrying around her infant sibling. Thus, girls are initiated into their child-rearing role at an early agi In fatherless families, older daughters assume even more authority and respon sibility since their mothers may work and be away a good part of the day. At the age of eleven, for example, Berta took care of her two younger sisters, while her widowed mother, Carmen, worked. She also helped her mother in cooking, clean ing, and other household tasks. But she had no control over her older brother, who was seldom at home.

w • a i • ■ ■ t f

Similarly, Paulita's eldest daughter, now nine, is often left with her five younger sisters when her mother goes out shopping or to the clinic. Contrary to Berta, however, she appears to resent her responsibilities, probably because Paulita is not very affectionate or attentive to any of her children. Paulita is not able to cope with seven children; she is mentally retarded and continues to suffer from "nerve attacks." Her sudden departure to New York with another man can partly be

interpreted as an attempt to escape her maternal responsibilities. Instead, she ended up with still another child. ■•■••* i ■

III Iff

# *»

.•U

| • If »•* It **

Girls are initiated into their child-rearing role at an early age. {Courtesy James Weber)

Boys are expected to be more difficult to control than girls and their where abouts are rarely questioned as long as they keep out of trouble. They appear for meals and then vanish again to join their friends for a game of baseball or a swim. Jumping off the Martin Pena bridge into the polluted waters of the Channel is a favorite sport and no amount of admonition by parents seems to do any good. Like their fathers, the boys are rarely responsible for household tasks, although they may be asked to run errands. As adolescents, they may begin to earn a few pennies shining shoes or selling newspapers, but this does not compare to the contribution made by girls.

Boys as well as girls are more dependent on and attached to their mothers than to their fathers. The father is away from home most of the time. He seldom plays with his children; he does not work with his sons in the fields (as in peasant communities) nor teach them a trade. There is little demonstration of affection

between father and son. If anything, the father is more likely to caress his daughter, because he feels she needs protection, while the boys must learn to

FAMILY AND KINSHIP

53

*

Children have jew toys to play with, and there are no playgrounds in the shanty town. (Note the exposed pipes on the left.) (Courtesy Puerto Rican Urban Renewal and Housing Corporation)

V Men are often more affectionate with their daughters than with their sons. (Courtesy James Weber)

behave as machos. Young boys know they are expected to behave like machos and

correct such feminine behavior in boys at an early age or they would not grow up to be machos. Thus women as well as men support the macho mystique.

During adolescence, many boys turn to the peer group as an alternative model for male behavior. Little cliques of teen-age boys from the same neighborhood meet regularly at the same corner or in front of the same tienda. As in the rural

area, they may belong to the same baseball team, go to dances and drink together,

and generally help each other out (see E. Seda, 1959: 82). At teen-age parties,

following the pattern set by adults, girls gather at one end of the room and boys

will be ridiculed for any feminine behavior. One young boy in the shantytown was teased by his companions for playing with dolls and an umbrella (used only

at the other.

by women in Puerto Rico); a neighbor woman noted that it was important to

of the community as a separate group. There is no "adolescent culture" in Los

But traditionally in the shantytown, teen-agers are not isolated from the rest

54

FAMILY AND KINSHIP

Peloteros; there is no sharp break between the world of the child and that of the adult. Children are expected to act like little adults at an early age and gradually grow into the full realization of their role. Little boys are affectionately addressed as papito while little girls are correspondingly called mamita. From birth onwards

they are incorporated into the family's social life; even if the affair lasts late into the night, no one is disturbed if the children fall asleep on the couch or on their mother's lap.

Children's play is often based on an imitation of adult life. Thus, after a wed

ding in the shantytown, the girls turned on the radio and danced like they had

FAMILY AND KINSHIP

55

father did. Tito himself continues to visit his children weekly, now that he and Paulita have separated. He also supports them, though he is living with another woman with whom he has two children. Many children of separated parents,

however, hardly know their father. Paulita, for example, came to the metropolitan area with her mother and three siblings when she was four. She did not see her father again until she was thirteen and accidentally met him at her aunt's house. She never saw him again; he died the following year, but she did not learn of his death till much later.

seen the adults do the night before. A few of the younger boys were persuaded to join them. Shantytown families cannot afford to buy their children expensive toys,

but children improvise with whatever is available—empty bottles, old tires, and more recently, a rather lethal bazooka made up of old tin cans fitted end to end and filled with gas which is then ignited.

There are few organized club activities, such as are found in such abundance in American middle-class neighborhoods. A local chapter of the Young Catholic Workers met in the shantytown, drawing its membership largely from the most upwardly mobile families. Many of the girls were high school graduates working in white-collar jobs for whom membership in such a club is a mark of middle-class respectability. Their primary interest seems to be in social activities, since the

club offers one of the few opportunities for young, unattached girls to meet and mix with boys outside the home. The leader, a young man who heads another

•,;r •-.. ....

..;.;■,.-..:■•

,S

...

•'

• ^. .

,M

k

chapter in his own shantytown nearby, proudly announced that in the latter group, two marriages had already taken place.

Los Peloteros also has its own baseball team, with most of the membership

drawn from the local community. As in the United States, the uniforms and other equipment were financed by a local merchant who hopes to win prestige through

his team. Baseball is a favorite sport among the Puerto Rican urban poor. Many

of the most famous players on professional teams are persons who came from lower-class status, and many Puerto Rican boys hope to emulate their achieve ments.

Children in the shantytown are well known to everyone in the community and neighbors play a very important role in child-rearing. In the evening, children may gather in a neighbor's house to watch television. If they are hungry, they are fed. Neighbors will rush to comfort crying children, or try to entice them out

of a temper tantrum with a bright new penny or a lindbergh (flavored ice cube). At the same time, they do not hesitate to scold a naughty child or ask a neighbor's child to run an errand for them. As among the rural proletariat, "the community thus becomes a huge extended family, a place where the child does not feel strange and alone" (K. Wolf, 1952: 417). The parent-child relationship is robbed

of the unique intensity it has in the nuclear family and the child has many adult models with whom he can identify.

The presence of substitute adult role models is particularly important in fatherless families. There are often adult male relatives living in the neighbor hood who come to act as father substitutes for the children. In cases where the parents have separated, the father may continue to visit the children, as Tito's

Children learn early to share their few toys with others. (Courtesy James Weber)

56

FAMILY AND KINSHIP

The mother often has difficulty disciplining her children, particularly adolescent

boys, when there is no father present. Thus, when Carmen's thirteen-year-old son hit another neighborhood boy and was taken to court, the widow asked that he be placed in the Juvenile Home because she could not manage him. Carmen was then living with another man, but claimed he could not discipline the boy since he

was not the boy's father, nor was he even her husband.

Parents in the shantytown still use severe physical measures, like beating with a leather strap, to punish children. The mother is generally the disciplinarian,

though she may appeal to the father when her own actions prove ineffective. The father acts then as a kind of "higher court," appealed to only in emergencies. His marginal position in the family actually aids him in fulfilling this function, since his actions are not subject to the conflicting emotions arising out of the more intense mother-child relationship.

Respeto or respect is a very important element in parent-child relationships in Puerto Rican families. Traditional signs of respect for adults are still observed by

some shantytown families. Most children are forbidden to pass in front of an adult or to interrupt an adult conversation without permission. Children may ask for

bendicion or blessing upon entering a room where an adult is present. Above all,

children are forbidden to question their parents' word; if they are told to do something, they must obey without discussion. Children who try to defend their own viewpoints to their parents are thought to lack respeto and must be punished.

Peloterenos complain of a loss of parental control and undoubtedly children in the shantytown today enjoy greater freedom than children a generation ago. Tito notes, for example, that when he grew up, parents were very strict with children. There were punishments meted out to children "that were not given to oxen or animals." Nevertheless, Tito continues to believe in strict discipline, and observes:

If you plant a tree and the tree twists and you don't correct that twist, then

the tree will continue growing with that twist. Well, from when they are little

FAMILY AND KINSHIP

57

point out in their study of social class and social change in Puerto Rico, "high school education is the crucial point in ascending the occupational ladder." (Tumin, 1961: 301). It enables the person to pass from the ranks of manual

labor to white-collar jobs as secretaries, salesmen, or government employees. All of these jobs guarantee a degree of security that most workers in the shantytown have never known.

Significantly, not one boy in the Los Peloteros sample wants to become a common laborer or agricultural worker nor do many girls aspire to become domes tic servants or service workers—jobs that are low in pay, security, and social status (Table 20). There is a distinct urban trend in occupational aspirations, as Tumin and Feldman discovered (Tumin, 1961: 378). Boys would like to become

skilled artisans or factory and service workers, while over half the girls aspire to professional occupations like teachers or nurses, or white-collar clerical jobs. One of the most notable changes among the younger generation of the Puerto Rican poor is the new emphasis on equality of education for the sexes. It will be recalled that the educational attainment of women in the shantytown is much lower than that of the men. Several women complained that their parents lacked interest in their schooling, reflecting the traditional view that education is wasted on women. With increasing occupational opportunities for women, however, its utility has been quickly realized. Girls in Los Peloteros are on a par with boys in

their educational achievements (see Table 5) and, often have higher occupational aspirations (see Table 20).

Lidia, for example, the oldest of Don Francisco's eight children, now has a wellpaid job as a court stenographer and is completing college at night. She wants to be a Spanish teacher so that she can one day teach Spanish in the United States. Though Lidia herself is undoubtedly very ambitious, she admits she has had considerable support from her parents, who always encouraged her to study and did not make excessive demands on her at home. Lidia also credits her success to her religion (Seventh Day Adventism), which places considerable stress on indi-

one has to straighten it so that they grow right.

TABLE 20

OCCUPATIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL ASPIRATIONS FOR CHILDREN Every shantytown family wants their children to have a better and more com

fortable life than they have led. As Tito declared, referring to his ambitions for his daughters:

That they get to where I didn't. That whatever way they can, they secure a job

that they can earn their daily bread . . . without going to the factories that is that they have an occupation (trade). That they can earn good money in the future and develop a good life.

Education is stressed as the principal avenue to upward mobility. In general the educational level of members of the younger generation in the shantytown is well above that of their parents (see Table 5). In 1959, over one-half of the adolescents in the sample drawn from Los Peloteros had completed their eighth grade and over two-fifths had gone on to high school. As Tumin and Feldman

OCCUPATIONAL ASPIRATIONS OF SHANTYTOWN ADOLESCENTS

Occupation

Boys Boys

Girls Girls

Total N Total %

(18) (18) 100.0 100.0

100 0 100.0

Agricultural worker Professional Clerical Sales worker Artisan Operative Domestic service Service Proprietors, managers Laborers Does not know Does not plan to work

11.8 11.8

29.4 17.6 5.9 23.5

(36) (36)

32.5 27.0

13.5 10.8

5.4 5.4

58

FAMILY AND KINSHIP

vidual initiative and mobility because ". . . God wants each individual to progress

and prosper." Comparing herself to other girls in the shantytown, Lidia notes:

In general terms we had the same opportunities. . . . That is, we came from poor homes and at home we had more or less the same education in the moral and material sense. Nevertheless, many of them today are married, they have

no further preparation. I even know of some girls who would like, if they could,

to return and start their life over again. . . . The desire to excel (superarse) has

not been as great in them as in others. The desire to excel of each individual, it doesn't matter where he is or where he lives, that helps a great deal to enable

him to move forward.

Not all shantytown parents feel it is necessary or important for children to have an education. Don Lucho, for example, felt that education made children

disobedient and disrespectful to their parents, and exclaimed: "As soon as they

reach eighth grade—out!" The only one of his nine children who has succeeded in

finishing high school thus far is his oldest daughter, Flor. She used to study at

night under the street lamp because her father would not allow her to study at home. She wore her school uniform to bed because she was afraid her father would throw it out of the house during the night and she would not be able to go to school. Flor had a government scholarship given to gifted and needy students,

but it was only $60 a year, so she also worked after school and earned $23 every 15 days.

Because of their father's cruelty and drinking, all of Flor's sisters left home and

some married and had children as young as fourteen. Flor's mother, Raquel,

however, has hopes that her younger sons who are still at home may finish high school. She is very proud of Flor and thinks it is important that children study:

That they know how to take care of themselves, right? And that they know

something and that they don't have to go begging to anyone. . . . Because he

who doesn't know how to read or write feels humiliated and has to be pleading so that they give him work. And you will understand that today even to collect

garbage it's necessary to have a diploma and to know English, for all these things.

The problem, as we shall see later, is that even those with a high school edu cation may have difficulty securing jobs. As Tumin and Feldman noted more than a decade ago, the educational system on the island has expanded faster than the

occupational system (Tumin and Feldman, 1961: 444). Since then, the problem

has been aggravated as the volume of high school graduates has increased

steadily.

FAMILY AND KINSHIP

59

returned to the island from the mainland, particularly in years of recession when

jobs on the mainland are hard to find (The New York Times, September 7, 1971). Almost all shantytown residents have close relatives and friends in the

United States, and in 1959 about 15 percent of the Pelotereno sample had actu ally visited the mainland. Since that time, of course, this figure has increased greatly.

Most of the younger generation we interviewed have been to the United States, to work or for a visit, but only one remained more than a year. Thus, Carmen's oldest daughter, Berta, went to New York after graduation from high school and

worked in a factory in Brooklyn. She returned to Puerto Rico when she was laid off her job just before Christmas. However, Berta plans to return to New York with her boyfriend as soon as they are married, because "there it is better, here

one does not get work where one can earn much money or anything." Berta's boyfriend now works in construction, but Berta claims he earns una porqueria (a worthless amount).

Parents often complain that when their children go to the mainland, they

forget their family and fail to keep in touch with them. For example, when Raquel's daughter Yvette went to New York she stayed with Raquel's sister, and at first she wrote and sent her mother some money. Later, however, months went by when Raquel did not hear from her daughter, although she now has returned to Puerto Rico. Raquel notes: "I heard it said that he who goes there (to New York) it's like he dies. Because afterwards they don't remember." Raquel complains that she has several siblings who have been in New York for more than twenty years; they never write to her mother, who is now very old, but "she doesn't lose hope of seeing them again before dying."

Undoubtedly, kinship bonds have been weakened by both geographic

and

social mobility. We have seen that there is a considerable range of socioeconomic differences within families, so that even siblings may be of substantially different status positions. For example, Paulita's sister Carola lives in an urbanization with

her husband. Both work and have no children, so they have adopted (informally) one of Paulita's seven children, a little girl who is lighter skinned than the rest and who Paulita says looks very much like Carola. Carola pays a lady to take care of the little girl while she works. They have a car but seldom visit Paulita,

although the husband occasionally brings the daughter to her mother for visits. Outside of taking the girl, they have offered Paulita no assistance. Closest kin ties are still maintained between women, but even this is changing in the younger generation. When Carmen's daughter Berta went to New York

MIGRATION AND EXTENDED KIN TIES

One outlet for the Puerto Rican poor who could not find a decent job on the island has long been migration to the mainland, especially New York. The incen tive to migrate seems strongest among the younger age groups who are attracted

by higher salaries and a wider choice of jobs, especially in factories. Tito, for

example, worked in a factory while his family lived in New York, but he has no plans at the moment to return to New York. Many Puerto Ricans have, in fact,

after graduation from high school, she stayed with friends who rented an apart ment together and did not even look up her mother's sister, who has been living in New Jersey for more than twenty years. Nor did Paulita seek out her brother or any of her husband's family when she ran into serious difficulty in New York. The young often leave for the mainland in order to get away from family obliga tions and make a new life for themselves. If they run into difficulties like losing their job or being abandoned by their husbands, they are more likely to turn to

institutional sources of support like public welfare or employment agencies, rather than relying on relatives.

60

FAMILY AND KINSHIP

Thus, there are several forces at work that are bound to change the structure of the traditional Puerto Rican shantytown family. Geographic and social mobility have weakened extended kin ties and made the poor more reliant on public forms of assistance. At the same time, the position of the male in the household is strengthened as his occupation begins to take on a status-defining function

for the family and he no longer faces severe economic insecurity. In addition, the

new emphasis on education for women is leading to an emancipation of' the

female from her traditional household role and gradually reducing the strong

segregation of conjugal roles.

However, the traditional shantytown household is still beset by problems such as low wages and job insecurity, limited opportunities for upward mobility, and a high degree of marital instability. As long as these conditions persist, they will tend to perpetuate a marked matrifocal emphasis in shantytown households.

4/Community Solidarity

and Extracommunity Relationships

The shantytown is a very cohesive community. It is knit together by bonds

of kinship, compadrazgo, and friendship and by patterns of mutual aid and cooperation that have been built up in the neighborhood over many years. Shanty town residents tend to have their closest associations with people in their own

neighborhood and with people of similar class levels in other

parts of the

metropolis. Their relationship with people beyond the boundaries of the local community, however, tends to be impersonal and highly utilitarian. Shantytown

residents are largely excluded from meaningful participation in dominant institu tions such as political parties, labor unions, and the church, which are controlled

by elite segments of Puerto Rican society. We shall explore these patterns of shantytown community life in this chapter.

NEIGHBORS, KIN, AND FRIENDS The cohesion of the shantytown community clearly distinguishes it from the

anomie normally thought to characterize urban neighborhoods. In his classic article, "Urbanism as a Way of Life," Wirth (1938) has described the weakening of kinship and neighborhood bonds and the replacement of primary group ties with the secondary associations that usually accompany the urbanization process.

In the urban community, according to Wirth, relationships are generally utilitar

ian and specialized, leading to widespread depersonalization and the growth of competition and formal control mechanisms.

In contrast, relationships between shantytown residents are reciprocal, highly personal, and largely nonutilitarian. We have seen in Chapter 1 how Peloterenos

cooperate with one another and share what little they have with less fortunate neighbors. Raquel observes: Poor as we are, but we always had something for someone in need. . . . Always if anyone needed anything, food or money (chavos), we gave it to them with out looking for problems. If they paid us for it, good, if not. . . . And thank God we always had many friendships and we have many.

62

COMMUNITY SOLIDARITY

Cooperation in this shantytown is generally on an ad hoc basis and is most evi

dent in times of crisis such as accidents, childbirth, or other emergencies. For example, fire enlists the aid of all able-bodied men in the neighborhood. Neighbors know that a fire can spread rapidly in the wooden, tightly packed houses of the shantytown and are quick to form bucket brigades to help extinguish it. Fires

are often brought under control long before the fire trucks arrive, particularly

in areas difficult to reach near the Channel.

Los Peloteros is a very friendly neighborhood. Almost everyone in the shanty town knows everyone else, and the outsider is spotted immediately. Even men tend to find most of their friends in the immediate neighborhood and spend much of their leisure time in a local cafetin, or bar. The same crowd of men com monly congregates in a favorite locale nightly to drink, gab, listen to the jukebox, or play a game of dominoes. The proprietor often becomes one of the "gang" and it pays to be his friend, since he may be called upon to extend credit when cash

is low.

Stores are a favorite meeting place for people of all ages in the shantytown.

Like the cafetins, the small tiendas and ventorrillos in Los Peloteros usually serve a rather steady clientele drawn from the immediate vicinity. Customers who stop to talk as they shop are customarily neighbors for whom this functions as an

additional point of contact.

COMMUNITY SOLIDARITY




70

COMMUNITY SOLIDARITY

COMMUNITY SOLIDARITY

she describes as prieto pero bueno (black but good), and about IneY children, who have turned out quite dark, yet she loves them dearly. There is no overt discrimination against darker-skinned children in shantytown families, except that they may not be considered as pretty as their lighter-skinned siblings. Lucho openly rejected his youngest daughter, a dark girl born late in their marriage, but

TABLE

22

CHURCH ATTENDANCE OF SHANTYTOWN ADULTS AND ADOLESCENTS

Adults Male

largely because he insisted she was not his. He had been in a mental institution

(

during his tirades for being black. But Raquel accepted this as part of his illness and said one could not hold mentally ill persons responsible for what they said. Clearly, then, the poor are aware of racial differences and recognize that they

are an important attribute of social status, particularly among higher status

groups. The lack of competition among shantytown families, all of whom find

themselves in the same low socioeconomic position, tends to minimize the impor

tance of racial differences among the poor. But as these families become upwardly

Male

Adolescents Femali

(82)

(94)

(18)

(36)

Total %

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

18.3

23.4

47.0

56.8

20.7

39.3

11.8

18.9

11.0 50.0

6.4 30.9

5.9 35.3

13.5 10.8

Once or twice a month Once or twice a

\

Female

Total N

Every Sunday

much darker than his other children. Lucho, himself quite fair and of selfproclaimed Spanish ancestry (de raza espanola), frequently attacked his wife

71

year

Never

the urban poor, they have become smaller, family-type affairs rather than com munity rituals. Certainly people from higher-status groups are seldom present at these events.

Only some of the fundamentalist Protestant sects hold religious services right in

mobile and more status conscious, the importance of racial differences also

the shantytown. For example, Don Francisco often held services for the Seventh

largely a reflection of their low social status and their inability to compete with

sionally a minister was present, but more often a member of the congregation led

increases. Thus, the much lauded racial tolerance of the Puerto Rican poor is

higher class groups in the society.

Race tends to accentuate the individualism already found among the urban poor. Since blacks are discriminated against as individuals, but not as a separate social group, they see no common ground for protest, like blacks in the United States. Instead they are intent on promoting their own personal mobility, even if this means unholding the tenets of white supremacy. Under these circumstances,

race can only deflect from the growth of class consciousness in Puerto Rico.

Day Adventists in his home, with hymn-singing, Bible-reading, and prayers. Occa

the service. Similarly, Tito's mother, who belonged to a Pentecostal sect, organized a Bible school in her home on Sunday afternoons, which several Catholic chil

dren in the neighborhood also attended. The parents seemed to feel that any religious instruction, even if it be of a different faith, could do the children no harm.

The weakness of doctrinaire religious faith among the Puerto Rican poor and the tolerance of opposing views prevents religion from acting either as a unifying-, or divisive force in the community. For example, Tito and his siblings have not followed their mother's faith, and his children now go to the Catholic church.

RELIGION

Religion does not bridge the gap between shantytown residents and higher-

status groups in Puerto Rican society. Though, like the great majority of Puerto

But as Tito says ". . . it doesn't matter, as long as they go to church, it's alright." The" poor may be attracted by Pentecostal or other fundamentalist sects, but leave when they find their strict rules regarding personal behavior too difficult to observe.7 Dona Ana, for example, returned to Catholicism when the nieces

Ricans, most Peloterenos are nominally Catholic, they have little opportunity to

she was raising reached adolescence and wanted her to accompany them to

Unlike the rural area, where members of congregations often knew each other on a face-to-face basis, the urban churches serve a far more transient and imper sonal population. The poor seldom belong to the social or charity organizations affiliated with the Catholic Church, and even the masses attended by the poor tend to be at a different hour than those attended by the more affluent. In addi tion, only one-fifth of the Peloterenos sampled attend church every Sunday; half of the men and 30 percent of the women in the sample never attend church

church after her husband died and she took up with an older man who helped

meet people from other classes in the impersonal setting of public worship.

(Table 22).

The communal nature of Catholicism, particularly in the rural area of Puerto Rico, was always expressed more in rites such as rosarios (in payment to a saint

for a promise fulfilled), velorios (wakes), and baptisms than in attendance at

mass (see Fitzpatrick, 1971). Although these rites continue to be observed among

dances, which the Pentecostals would not permit. Carmen left the Pentecostal support her and the children. However, she returned to the faith sixteen years later when one of her daughters died in childbirth. She now lives alone with her

children in a public housing project, and attends church services several times a

week, either in the community center of the project or in nearby neighborhoods. Like many fundamentalist sects, this congregation has not had the money to acquire its own building.

The tremendous growth of sect movements in Puerto Rico in recent years8 7 Most Pentecostal seas prohibit their members from drinking, smoking, using cosmetics or jewelry, and other "vices." 8 The Pentecostal church has more than 300 churches in Puerto Rico and the other sect

movements more than 311 (Silva Gotay, 1971: 215).

72

COMMUNITY SOLIDARITY

COMMUNITY SOLIDARITY

undoubtedly has built up a new form of spiritual community among the urban poor and may serve as a springboard for various forms of interneighborhood

cooperation. They offer services geared to the needs of the poor, such as helping

the sick, the bereaved, or the destitute; and the ministers are generally Puerto Rican, while Catholic priests are often from the mainland. They also place con siderable emphasis on proselytizing. Don Francisco, a devout Seventh Day Adventist, feels that by proselytizing, his church is helping everyone find his salvation through religion:

You live near your neighbor and your neighbor appreciates and loves you hen you make a good dinner in your home and you would like your neighbor

to share in it, no? ... And what do you do if they don't come? You take a plate '

—«.vi wuu.

we want you to snare the same that we are

73

his own standard of living to his conversion fourteen years ago. He notes that earlier he wasted all his money on gambling, drinking, and other vices; though he gives freely to the church

(a

now,

10 percent tithe is required), what

remains is enough "because there is no vice, it doesn't go anywhere else, it remains at home in the family."

It would seem, then, that the predominant ideology of the new fundamentalist^

sects in Puerto Rico hinders the growth of a sense of class consciousness among

j

the urban poor. The upwardly mobile tend to be attracted toward religions such

I

as Seventh Day Adventism, which stress material success and personal achieve- ( ment, and in effect sanction the present system of social inequality. The very

poor, on the other hand, tend to drift into the other-worldly orientation of the Pentecostal churches, which offer the poor a momentary escape from reality

going to share if we are saved. Teach them Evangelism and the love of God.

rather than an improvement in their present condition. Though they do serve to

Don Francisco notes that the same scriptures are taught at the same time in Adventist churches throughout the world, all of whose members are "hermanos

of new religious sects in Puerto Rico prevents religion from acting as a unifying

de fe y de corazon" (brothers of the faith and of the heart). Much of their time is spent in reading and studying the Bible, from which they quote constantly and they attend church services several nights a week and spend all day Saturdays in religious activities. (The Adventists observe Saturday as the Sabbath ) As Don Francisco's daughter Lidia explained: ". . . we believe that religion is not a dress for a special occasion but a dress which should be worn always, a uniform " She

feels Adventists should not marry outside their faith because it is difficult for

anyone else to understand their religious devotion.

For Don Francisco's family, religion provides a way of life and an explanation for everything. The Adventists believe, for example, that all signs of strife such as strikes, protests, and war are signs that the end of the world is coming, and that Christ will again descend to earth. They say it is useless for man to combat these evils because only God can do away with them. They feel that governments will never eliminate unemployment and poverty, because Christ and the Bible says 'there will always be poor." Lidia notes:

frnT Ww arC lhC middk daSS and the rich nt W°rk' aS the Pe°Ple «7. ! don't havTany tatehood hC CTtryhaS already P~«re«ed much in the short time that the Among the achievements of the Ferre government, Dona Ana notes the cam

paign to combat drug addiction (a serious and increasing problem on the island,

The ideology of this new industrialist class, whom Ferre represents, emphasizes

is seen as a threat to their profits and high standard of living. The poor are well

aware of Ferre's status as a millionaire, "the owner of the largest corporations

100

RELOCATION AND A DECADE OF CHANGE

there are here in Puerto Rico" as well as his investments in Miami California and elsewhere. But some feel this makes him less corruptible because Ferre does not have to use his political office for economic gain—at least directly. The election of Ferre basically represents a continuation of the economic poli

cies of the Populares with increased government support for private investment and economic growth. Thus, the lagging construction industry was stimulated by a large-scale public works program emphasizing the building of highways, schools and industrial buildings, from which Ferres own monopolistic cement industry stood to make considerable profit. Perhaps the most glaring example of public subsidies for private enterprise was the purchase of the bankrupt Central Aguirre sugar mill by the government for 3.5 million dollars, which was justified on the grounds that the government was thereby preventing the employees of the mill from losing their jobs. At the same time, however, the government cut the

budget of the unemployment program designed to provide training to the unskilled labor force from $15 million in 1968-1969 to $5 million in 1970-1971 (L Silva

Recio, 1971: 137-138).

Ferres election also represents support for greater political incorporation of Puerto Rico into the United States, since Ferre remains ideologically committed to statehood status while avoiding the issue immediately for tactical political reasons. Many of the poor feel that Puerto Rico can only benefit from increased association with the United States, since they identify the mainland as the source of all progress. The poor recognize that many government programs such as public

housing, public welfare and Social Security, and public health depend heavily on federal support, and would like these programs to be increased rather than reduced. They would also like to see more American investment in Puerto Rico,

RELOCATION AND A DECADE OF CHANGE

101

Communism. Rafael, who notes that most of the Cuban exiles were wealthy capitalists "who had the people of Cuba exploited," nevertheless is skeptical of Castro and his policies. He feels the poor are as oppressed under one system as the

other, although in theory Communism should benefit the working class: I can't say if it has gone well for the poor there (in Cuba) or not. ... If the Communist governments carried out their program as it really should be, then it would be a great thing, a good thing. Now the way many governments carry it out, well clearly it is a failure, especially for the working class. Others are far more vehement in their rejection of Communism. Tito, himself a worker and a union member affirms: Communism is a manner invented to oppress the poor. To live from the poor

like the unions, that the poor man cannot express himself, nor can he do any thing, except live under the boot, under the yoke of the government. That is Communism.

Tito claims Communism takes advantage of the poor and the hungry to instigate revolts, such as the Black Power movement in the United States. He accuses

Stokely Carmichael, who has spoken publicly in Puerto Rico, of being a Commu nist, and feels that blacks may have reason to revolt in the United States because of discrimination and exploitation, but not in Puerto Rico. Workers like Tito feel that the only way the poor can solve their problems is through individual effort and hard work. They have no faith in radical political

ideologies that profess to benefit the worker through a redistribution of resources in the society. In fact, many of the poor who have acquired some material posses

sions such as a house, a car, or a small business, fear that Communism will take

particularly in industrialization, and more American tourists come to spend their

away the small gains they have struggled so hard to achieve. Don Francisco, a

can investment in and aid to the island, though they realize this increases Puerto

Cuba has regressed instead of improved. He comments:

money on the island. In short, like their leaders, the poor favor greater Ameri

Rico's dependency on the United States.

The poor are afraid that if Puerto Rico becomes independent, it will experience bloodshed and revolution such as have occurred in Cuba and the Dominican Republic. They are well aware of the recent disturbances in these sister Spanishspeaking islands in the Caribbean, with which they seem to identify more closely than with any of the Latin American republics or other Caribbean islands, and

do not want the same to happen in Puerto Rico.

Many of the Cuban exiles have fled to Puerto Rico, where they have become

an important commercial class in restaurants, retail trade, and other businesses.

The Cubans are often disliked by the Puerto Rican poor, who find them arrogant and difficult to deal with both as employers and shopkeepers. Cubans are forced to deal more directly with the Puerto Rican poor than most Americans, who

generally occupy only top managerial positions, and thus Cuban oppression is more direct and noticeable. Rafael complains that Cuban workers often have been

used as strike breakers, and that while they should be given an opportunity to work, it is wrong for them to displace Puerto Rican workers from their jobs. The example of the exiles from Cuba and even from the Dominican Republic has frightened many Puerto Ricans regarding the consequences of revolution and

self-employed mason who lives in an urbanization, feels that under Communism,

The Communist calls Yankee imperialism where everyone has rights, that is, a democracy . . . where everyone has his things in his house. . . . But Communism is much more because under Communism all the money stays in one pocket. And that pocket does what it pleases and buys what it pleases, and not as he wishes.

In addition, Don Francisco feels that Communism comes

from hunger and

misery, and Puerto Rico is too "civilized" to fall for Communism. Like many who have made some gains under the present capitalist system, Don Francisco feels he

has a strong stake in that system and he is not about to tear it down. There is some discontent among the poor over inflation, the tightening job market, continued unemployment, and the Vietnam war and the draft. Our informants do not understand why Puerto Ricans have been asked to fight in a war (in which many Puerto Ricans died) and in which even the interests of the United States are so vaguely defined. Recently there have been rather massive

protest marches organized by supporters of independence in which the poor have participated in significant numbers for the first time. Considerable opposition has also been aroused over the Model Cities Program, which threatens to demolish most of the remaining shantytowns among the Martin Pefia Channel to make

102

RELOCATION AND A DECADE OF CHANGE

room for more expressways, high-rise office buildings, and apartment houses. For the first time, residents from various shantytowns have joined in a cooperative effort under the Residents Council of Model Cities to press for their demands, but

thus far their efforts have not been too successful. Large-scale, organized inva sions aimed at obtaining land for squatter settlements have also occurred in Puerto Rico for the first time and have been met with police brutality and repression. The present political system offers no hope for radical change in the continued system of inequality in Puerto Rican society. The change of government in 1968 merely intensified the power of the elite, and brought into power a new industrial ist class that is even less committed to the needs of the poor than the Populares who preceded them. Until the power of the elite is challenged from below, the poor will continue to be exploited and oppressed members of Puerto Rican society.

Inequality, and Proletarian Consciousness in Puerto Rico

Despite the fantastic economic growth of the postwar period, it seems clear that not all segments of society have shared equally in Puerto Rico's progress. The benefits of modernization have trickled down to the poor in terms

of better health, better education, and better housing, but it has not noticeably altered their subordinate position in the larger society. In fact, it would appear

that while the income of all classes has increased, the gap between the rich and the poor is growing wider.

Still there has been no large-scale protest movement by the Puerto Rican poor directed

against

this

continued

inequality.12

Rather

than

emphasizing

class

solidarity or radical ideologies aimed at the overthrow of the existing order, the poor seem intent on promoting their own individual mobility within that order. They are remarkably optimistic and profess a strong belief in the possibility of upward mobility based on individual initiative, thrift, education, and other values commonly associated with the Protestant ethic.

Why? What explains the poor's commitment to the status quo? What factors inhibit the growth of class consciousness and class solidarity among the Puerto Rican poor? We have touched on several factors throughout this monograph. Let us attempt to summarize them here.

PERSONALISTIC VIEW OF MOBILITY

The Puerto Rican poor tend to view mobility in terms of their own life history

rather than in terms of their socioeconomic position in the larger society. Most of these families started out as poorly paid rural agricultural laborers, and migrated

to the city in search of better work opportunities or, as the Puerto Ricans say, 12 Protest by the poor has increased markedly since 1970, with militant labor strikes and increasing numbers of illegal land invasions. Support for these actions has been given by the P.I.P. (the Puerto Rican Independence party) and the newly formed P.S.P. (the Puerto Rican Socialist party), both of which have adopted a socialist platform and have moved away from an exclusive focus on political status.

I

103

104

CONCLUSION

buscando ambiente. They now work on the docks, in construction, or in one of the

numerous service jobs available in the San Juan metropolitan area. Though these

jobs are still poorly paid and offer limited possibilities of advancernemTmlgTalns feel they have improved their own life chances and those of their children by moving to the city. The choice of jobs is wider than in the rural areas where they

faced "an inescapable future in the cane fields" (Mintz, 1956: 352); there are more educational opportunities (evidenced by the dramatic rise in educational levels between the adult and adolescent generation); and the city offers a greater variety of public services such as hospitals, schools, and even water and elec tricity. Many rural families have actually experienced a decline in living standards during the past decade. As one of my informants stated: "Amanecen sin el cafe de la man-ana" (They get up without coffee in the morning). Thus, migrants have improved their own standard of living, even if they have not raised their socioeco-

nomic status in the larger society.

ECONOMIC STRUCTURE OF PUERTO RICAN SOCIETY

The economic structure of Puerto Rican society is open enough, at least at

present, to absorb those who are upwardly mobile. The Puerto Rican poor do not

feel oppressed because, in their opinion, the present"society offers sufficient

opportunities for advancement for those who work hard to get ahead. They save their money, try to send their children at least through high school, and, if

possible buy a home in one of the new urbanizations or subdivisions that have

surrounded the periphery of the metropolitan area. They aspire to become mem

bers of the new middle class in Puerto Rico, which has grown rapidly in recent

years (see Wells, 1969: 182-184).

CONCLUSION

105

However, with increases in automation and other labor-saving technologies, it is

not likely that this skilled work force will increase rapidly in the near future. On the contrary, we are likely to see an increase in the unskilled labor force who cannot find work even in the low-paid services sector and therefore become

increasingly dependent on public forms of assistance such as public welfare. Thus, government is asked to place on public dole those human resources that private

enterprise can no longer utilize profitably. Once again, however, the blame for the "relief explosion" is placed on the poor, who are thought to be demanding too much from a system that has rendered them useless (see Piven and Cloward, 1971).

PERSONALISTIC VIEW OF POVERTY

Due to rapid economic growth and evidence of upward mobility for the

privileged few, the Puerto Rican poor tend to blame poverty on personal inade

quacy rather than on the socioeconomic structure of Puerto Rican society. This has long been a cherished belief among conservative higher-status groups in the society, who condone poverty by blaming it on the poor themselves. But it would seem that the poor also subscribe to this belief. Thus, they feel that if a person is poor, it is his own fault; he is lazy, ignorant, and spends all his money on vices like drinking and gambling. This effectively removes the responsibility for poverty from the shoulders of society and helps to deflect the growth of class consciousness based on a sense of common oppression.

There is little recognition among the poor of conditions in the larger society that perpetuate the system of inequality in Puerto Rico, such as colonialism, a monopolistic agriculture and industrialization, and continued economic and politi cal dominance by the elite. The poor are aware of the differences between them

tries. The gap between families with the lowest and highest incomes may be growing, but the number of families in the middle-income range has also increased

selves and the elite; but they do not believe these differences will ever be eliminated. Inequality is considered part of the natural order of things, because the very success of the elite proves that they are endowed with a natural superiority and are therefore entitled to greater prestige and wealth. In this per spective, the only escape from poverty lies not in collective action but in individual initiative and personal gain. The poor feel they must model themselves after

(Andic, 1964: 88-89).

members of the elite in order to be accepted in their ranks.

Class lines are not so rigid in Puerto Rico that they constitute absolute empediments to social mobility, as in some Latin American and other developing coun

(Andic, 1964: 112). This increase appears to be due largely to the growth of urban white collar employment and the decline of poorly paid agricultural labor Within this urban labor force, there appears to be emerging a privileged working class composed largely of lower-level government bureaucrats and the skilled and steady employees of private enterprise. This privileged working class is becoming increasingly differentiated from the unskilled, unemployed, and under employed workers who still form the bulk of the urban labor force and the bulk of shantytown residents. This privileged working class has been the primary beneficiary among the urban labor force of the rapid economic growth in Puerto Rico and has thereby acquired a stake in the system which makes them strong

The families studied here no longer subscribe to the fatalistic attitudes of a static, agrarian society, in which peasants jealously guarded their few possessions

and felt that no one could improve his own position except at the expense of others. This "image of limited good," as Foster (1965) has termed it, coincides with an economy of scarcity in which there are no new opportunities or possibili ties for upward mobility. However, it would seem that as societies develop and the economy expands, this fatalistic ethos is replaced by a new value system

emphasizing competition and conspicuous consumption. Property and material

supporters of the status quo. They serve as a convenient buffer between capital

acquisitions, especially home ownership, take on added value as important status

the other. Far from resenting their comparative prosperity, the unskilled tend to

property have a real stake in the society, and these families have now acquired

and management on the one hand, and the unskilled and unstable labor force on

look up and aspire to their privileged status.

items in the new consumer society. In a capitalist society, only those with

that stake.

106

CONCLUSION

CONCLUSION

Similarly, they tend to identify the palpable effects of economic development with the efficiency of the majority party of the government, or with the political

MIGRATION TO THE MAINLAND

protection or economic help of the United States. [Author's translation]

Another important factor underlying the lack of strong class consciousness among the Puerto Rican poor is migration to the mainland, especially New York.

Migration has long provided an outlet for the Puerto Rican poor who could not succeed on the island; it seems most widespread among younger age groups who are attracted by higher salaries and wider choice of jobs, especially in factories. Because of cheap air fares, they often visit the mainland for short periods of six months to a year and then return to Puerto Rico when they lose their jobs or for other personal reasons. Many Puerto Ricans have, in fact, returned permanently

to the island after years of residence on the mainland, as the

107

1970 census

demonstrates. Return migration is particularly heavy in times of recession when jobs on the mainland are hard to find {The New York Times, September 7, 1971). Although migration to the mainland is perhaps not the panacea it once was

for the Puerto Rican poor, it still helps to siphon off discontented Puerto Ricans who have been unable to find a decent job on the island. Resentment appears to

be growing among the young, who often have difficulty finding jobs even with a high school education. Yet excess labor can always be drained off to the main

land, and resentment and frustration never build up to the point where the poor begin to seriously question the inequalities of Puerto Rican society.

The process of modernization in Puerto Rico has reinforced the sense of dependency on the United States. The poor identify strongly with the progress that Puerto Rico has attained in the postwar era, and feel that all of this is dependent on continued United States aid and investment. They fear that independence might result in bloody violence as has occurred in the Dominican Republic or

Cuba and reject Communism and other radical political ideologies as a method designed to deceive the poor and to take away the few small gains they have made.

The changeover from an agricultural to an industrial economy has made Puerto

Rico even more dependent on the United States. The industrialization program

relies almost exclusively on imported raw materials, sold mainly on the continental , market and financed largely by American business investors. Industrialization has resulted in the creation of a new industrial elite, even more heavily dependent on the United States than was the landowning classes who preceded them. Gordon Lewis (1968: 143) a cogent and longtime observer of Puerto Rican political developments, sums up the results of Operation Bootstrap thus:

The Puerto Rican Populates, truly, have worked with magnificent energy and

devotion towards lifting their people up by their own bootstraps. But they have

not been so much planners, in any traditional collectivist sense, as imaginative

promoters seizing vigorously what they can obtain from a game whose rules

they have had no share in shaping. Their economy, resultantly, has become COLONIALISM, DEVELOPMENT, AND DEPENDENCY

Colonialism has also inhibited the growth of class consciousness among the Puerto Rican poor. As many Puerto Rican writers have noted (for example, Rene

Marques, 1962; E. Seda Bonilla, 1969; Milton Pabon, 1967), over 300 years of despotic Spanish rule succeeded by American domination have created a tradi tion of dependency and docility at the personal as well as at the national level. Following the ideology of the Popular party and other elite leaders, the poor feel that Puerto Rico is too small and lacking in resources to go it alone, and that con tinued expansion of the economy and their own welfare is predicated upon con tinued political and economic dependence upon the United States. In the words of Milton Pabon (1967: 182), a Puerto Rican political scientist and strong advo cate of independence:

. . . The Puerto Ricans, in their great majority, have not yet experienced a clear subjective sense of exploitation, discrimination, privation or exclusion, which would lead them logically to complete their political system on a national level, through a massive movement in the style characteristic of the new nations. This hypothesis rests on the premise that the Puerto Ricans, in the great majority, do not conceive of the political imperialism of the United States as exploitative and discriminatory in reference to their participation in economic opportunities, educational opportunities, social mobility, and the enjoyment of political rights. On the contrary, the great majority of Puerto Ricans tend to identify the limited electoral participation which they enjoy within an incomplete political system with the existence of full democracy.

more and more tied to American capitalist enterprise. As much as in the pre-

1940 period, it is subject to widespread absentee ownership in its means of production. Indeed, the old type of sugar absenteeism has merely been suc ceeded by a new type of industrial absenteeism. The absentee landlord of the old days has been replaced by the absentee shareholder of the new. And the rationalizations of the absenteeism have not altered much for the arguments

that were once paraded to defend the sugar interests of the United Sta es are now advanced to justify the American industry interests. The end result may not have been consciously desired by the architects of the new Puerto Rico. It is nonetheless real for all that.

This type of industrialization does not diminish dependency, in Puerto Rico or elsewhere. On the contrary, it has made nations all over the world dependent on the international capitalist economy. As the multinational corporations of highly developed capitalist societies seek new sources of cheap labor and outlets for their products in the underdeveloped world, development is often based on the needs of these multinational corporations rather than on the needs of the people in the developing countries. Because the multinational corporations supply capital, technology, markets, and other necessary components of industrialization

the control of these developing countries over their own economy diminishes and

they are forced to set priorities favorable to the corporations rather than to their own people (see Sunkel, 1973). For example, because of the decline in agriculture following upon industrialization, Puerto Rico today is even more dependent on highly priced imported foodstuffs from the United States than in the pre-1940 period As Gordon Lewis (1968: 164) notes: "In effect, this means that the

108

CONCLUSION

Puerto Rican worker, especially the urban worker, is expected to pay mainland

commodity prices with submainland wages."

The Puerto Rican poor are thus trapped in the emerging alliance of big business and big government. Under Ferre, this alliance has intensified, since the New Progressive party which Ferre heads need no longer compromise with the Popu lares prolabor commitments. With the New Progressive party, Puerto Rico has entered a new phase of efficient and streamlined government and business which subordinates the needs of the poor to the primary goal of greater productivity and profits.

CONCLUSION

109

I has seriously crippled the effectiveness of strikes as a weapon of the working class.

The Populares found it difficult to reconcile their defense of the interests of the poor with their courtship with American capitalism. As they became increas-

I

ingly reliant on United States business interests, they were

forced

into ever

deeper compromises, in order to maintain a high rate of U.S. investment and economic growth. Labor was asked to cooperate with the government's develop

ment program, on the grounds that the rapid growth of the economy would stimulate the creation of new jobs, higher salaries, and better opportunities for all.

VEHICLES FOR CREATING CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS

However, we should have learned by now that economic development alone will

I not eradicate poverty and social inequality. The persistence of poverty in the most

Even if conditions were ripe for a radicalization of the urban poor in Puerto Rico, at present the poor lack institutional vehicles for developing a sense of class consciousness and solidarity in their own ranks. As we have shown here, the

I developed nations of the world, including the United States, should have long

together by bonds of kinship, mutual aid, the work of barrio committees, and a core of "old timers" who are often leaders in neighborhood activities. However, as

the elite who already own property and other economic interests. Development

shantytowns in which the urban poor live are quite cohesive communities,' tied

since destroyed that myth; yet it continues to be applied to developing nations

with the same blind faith. It is not recognized that in a class-stratified, capitalistic, colonial society, like Puerto Rico, the benefits of modernization accrue mainly to by itself does not destroy their differential access to sources of power, prestige,

in the peasant village, the sense of solidarity stops at the boundaries of the shantytown. There are no mechanisms for transcending the boundaries of the shantytown to create a collective sense of identity with the poor in the society at

and wealth. This can be accomplished only by a redistribution of the resources of

There is no racial or ethnic basis for class solidarity in Puerto Rico as compared to the former British West Indies, where class strata are marked by distinct color differences. As Mint2 (1967), Hoetink (1967), and other writers have noted, there has never been a marked racial dichotomy in the Hispanic Caribbean. The relatively small number of black slaves imported to Puerto Rico, their arrival late in the nineteenth century due to the retarded development of sugarcane plantations on the island, the high degree of interracial marriage, and the rapid rise of intermediate mulatto groups all contributed to a color continuum in Puerto Rico, which made it impossible to set blacks apart as a separate social group. Thus, it is difficult to see how racial unity can become a vehicle for class

ment services such as public welfare, public health, and public housing. In Puerto

consciousness in Puerto Rico.

do is to attempt to extend greater government services and benefits to the poor,

Unions and political parties are traditional mechanisms for creating class con sciousness among the proletariat; yet in Puerto Rico both are controlled by the elite and used as a means of garnering the support of the poor and of co-opting their most able leaders. Unions have been ridden by corruption, rivalry, and fragmentation, and tend to be viewed cynically by the poor, many of whom do not belong to the labor movement. Some of the labor legislation passed under the Populares has actually been harmful to the labor movement. Thus, the Populares

while at the same time not discouraging private investment and economic growth.

large.

the society.

Capitalistic societies have attempted to assuage the interests of the poor by providing them, through the welfare state, with an increasing variety of govern Rico under the Populares, there was a great expansion in government services

for the poor, which represented a substantial portion of the public budget. These reformist measures adopted by the Popular party undoubtedly served to ameliorate the most acute symptoms of poverty in Puerto Rico. However, they have merely shifted the dependency of the poor from the old landowning class to

a new government paternalism. The largesse of the welfare state is distributed among the poor in return for electoral support of government candidates. The ambitious development program of the Popular party in Puerto Rico shows the limits of reform within a capitalist framework. The best the government can

Such a program maintains the class-stratified and inegalitarian nature of the soci ety; though, as in Puerto Rico, it may also lead to a rather dramatic rise in the standard of living for all class segments. The overt signs of prosperity may, as in Puerto Rico, create the illusion that anyone can get ahead if he really wants to.

But in reality the poor continue to receive a small and often diminishing share of the nation's total productivity. There is a larger pie, but the rich still consume

prevented the extension of federal minimum wage legislation to Puerto Rico in

most of it.

tivity of Puerto Rican workers, most of whom were new to factory jobs, could not approach United States levels. However, the Taft-Hartley law, prohibiting surprise

program of radical social change aimed at a basic redistribution of wealth in the

order to protect the growing industrialization program, arguing that the produc

strikes or strikes of solidarity with other unions, was extended to Puerto Rico and

This system of inequality will persist in Puerto Rico as long as there is no society. At present there appears to be little support among the poor for such a

program. Prosperity has-been of sufficient benefit to the poor to reduce the likeli hood of any strong opposition to the existing order.

110

CONCLUSION

The Puerto Rican poor lack the fundamental basis of proletarian consciousness

in a capitalist society: a sense of oppression, an identification of the elite as the

source of oppression, and a belief that oppression can be overcome by collective action and class solidarity. On the contrary, the Puerto Rican poor have been taught to accept the guidance of the elite, both the native bourgeoisie and the

Glossary

American colonial power, whose interests are clearly based on the maintenance of the status quo. Any program of radical change in Puerto Rico must involve the repudiation of this elite and a new recognition of the power of the poor Independence is not enough; for as the history of other countries in the Carib bean as well as other developing areas has shown, the native bourgeoisie can be

as oppressive and exploitative as their colonial predecessors. On the other hand

only independence will free Puerto Rico from the colonial, capitalist framework which severely limits any possibility of radical social change. Thus, independence must be linked to a socialist program which aims at ending the present system of

inequality in Puerto Rico through a redistribution of wealth and power in the society. Such a program, which offers tangible benefits to the poor, may eventu ally win their support.

'

agregado:

Squatter (in rural area).

apretada: atomicos: barrio:

Squeezed (tight financial situation). Persons who drink natural alcohol. Neighborhood.

bautizo de agua: bautizo de pila:

blancos:

,

Church baptism at baptismal font.

White or very light-skinned persons.

bochinche: bolita:

,

Baptism by water (at home without benefit of clergy ).

Gossip.

Illegal lottery.

bueno: Good. buscando ambiente:

Looking for a chance.

cafetin: Bar. camarilla: Clique. canita: Bootleg rum. chavos: Pennies or money.

chicharrones:

chkiperos: colmado:

Dried pieces of fried bacon.

Men who do odd jobs around the neighborhood.

Grocery store.

comadrona:

comisario:

compadres:

Midwife.

Ward boss of political party.

throueh

Godparents of a person's child who thus become related through

compadrazgo or ritual kinship. compra: Large weekly shopping. conjuntos: Small bands of musicians. duenos y senores: Owners and genltemen.

embrollado: Ensnared (also financially). Estadista: Supporter of statehood for Puerto Rico. fatiga: Asthma. feo: Ugly. fiesta: Party or fair.

fiesta Matronal:

Patron saint festival.

hermanos de fe y de corazon:

hijTdecrianza:

Brothers of the faith and of the heart.

legally adopted. jibaros:

Peasants.

lechon asado: Barbecued pig. lindberghs: Flavored ice cubes. machismo:

Masculine virility.

maldeojo:

Evil eye.

malta:

mamita:

M

A child raised by other than his natural parents, though seldom

A nonalcoholic beverage made from grai

Little rnVther.

Ill

112

GLOSSARY

mayi:

A cool drink made from a root.

mirador:

Small apartment ( usually over a garage )

muchacho de color: Colored man. mujercita: Little woman or mistress. novela: Novel or soap opera. padrino: Godparent.

palma:

References

Palm tree, symbol of New Progressive partv

papito:

Little father.

/weo: Stroll in a circle. patron: Boss or employer.

£**"*:

pernil:

Large straw hat, symbol of the Popular partv Fresh ham.

pintado de bianco:

Painted white.

piraguas: Flavored ices. porqueria: A worthless amount. prtetos: Black or very dark skinned persons. raza espanola: Spanish race or ancestry.

Le Reina de los Artesanos:

Queen of the Artisans

"TpromtXSd.0' TpromtXSd. Pe°Ple Wh° Iedte thC r°Sary in ^mCnt » a ^ Pe°ple °f Puen° Rk°- Urbana: University of rOPO/OSiCal KmlySiS °f the subcultur« of Puerto Rico, which sis for much current research on the island. One of the few Udlef attem.PdnS t0 en«™Pass an entire culture.

Vnd 5 HlU> 1956' "Pr°blemS Of Communication between

t°etS RdatlnS& " FamllX —™n. Liki'' H««»» KelaRd

tions, Vol. 9, no. 2, 207-217.

Sunkel, Osvaldo, "Transnational Capitalism and National Disintegration" 1973 *t ComParat!ve Stud'es in International Development, Vol 9 no 1 ' Tumin, Melvin, and A. Feldman, 1961, Social Class and Social Change in Puerto Rico. Princeton: Princeton University Press. The first comprehensive island-wide study of social class in Puerto Rico but seriously deficient in explaining the economic and political base of the current power structure.

TUT' rth 19%"U™ol;ed Urban Settlements: Problems and Politics." A!beJlP™ NeWil P^lopmg Countries, G. Breese (ed.). Endewood * P^° *™' Abridge, Mass,

XLIV lli

treatment °J the Political ™