James M. Henslin’s Essentials of Sociology

Chapter 14 in James M. Henslin’s Essentials of Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach opens with a story about a woman who is 30 years old, and is about to have her 13th child. She lives in extreme poverty in Colima, Mexico and cannot even afford to have a chair in her house. Mr. Henslin was invited to dinner at the woman’s house where she discussed her huge excitement for her 13th child’s birth. Henslin was astonished at this fact and goes on to explain in the chapter 14 why she feels the way she does. There are three reasons that he came up with which describe her excitement. Those are her statues as a mother is a very high honor in her culture, the community supports her view, and children are economic assets (Henslin 390). This story has several similarities and relations to chapter 14 as “The Good Behavior Bribe” article. Both of the families live in a particular bracket of poverty (the native Mexican family in a more extreme level of poverty), they both have an above average number of people in their household, and they are both a proud people. The main difference between the two would be that the Mieses family lives in a city, which gives them support, rather than a simple “tribe-like” town. Because they live in a city they fall under 2 categories which Henslin has come up with. Those categories are The Ethnic Villagers, and The Deprived. “The Ethnic Villagers are people who are united by race-ethnicity and social class, these people live in tightly knit neighborhoods that resemble villages and small towns. The Deprived are people who live in a city that reside in blighted neighborhoods that are more like urban jungles than urban villages. Poor and emotionally disturbed, the deprived represent the bottom o society in terms of income, education, prestige, and work skills” (Henslin, 407). The Mieses family are Ethnic Villagers because they live in a town that has predominantly the same race as them living there as well. They fall under The Deprived as