Conquistadores De La Calle Analysis

In the introduction of “Conquistadores De La Calle”, Thomas A. Offit (author) mentions a fifteen year old boy named Rey, who shines shoes for a living since the age of six. Rey was an exceptional shoe shiner who repaired broken heals, restitched bad seams and even could change the color of your shoes being given the chance to. He spends six days a week, twelve hours a day working underneath an overpass in downtown Guatemala City, shining shoes from sun rise to sunset. The author describes Rey as being a well natured child that often works fast and confidently for just one quetzal; about fifteen cents even. Rey was not only a shoe shiner, he also handled the sale of newspapers and cold drinks for an older man named Don Fernando who owns a portable
There were some limitations that were placed upon his research since the diverse nature of the city makes it quit difficult to reside exclusively with his research group thus forcing him to reside in four different locations. In order for him to gather informant, a list was created of all the different street occupations in which the child street laborers were engaged in on a PENNAT database along with distinguishing between part-time or full-time workers. Many of his data gathering consisted of participant observation, tape- recorded semi- structured interviews, peer relations, and pure observation. Through these different techniques, the author was able to get a grasp on the practical economics of child street labor, along with confirming the truth of the children’s response to many of his questions concerning their labor intensities. The author’s true ethical consideration throughout his research was to represent the lives of the child street laborers as being more than children who “got the short end of the stick” in life, but to allow them to be listened to, to observe how they really work to make a living in a life that things are not always given to