How does the village preserve its traditional ways despite the exploding industrialization of the surrounding region? This question provides the theme for a community study done on the outskirts of Guadalajara and reported in such a pleasant, unpretentious manner that the pages slip quickly by. The reader is not encumbered by the need to scrutinize maps, tables, or the fine print of footnotes because there are none. But that fact handicaps the book as a piece of professional literature, and it does not live up to its billing on the dust jacket as providing “sufficient detail … for more general comparative studies.” This is too bad, because the author clearly speaks with authority and surprising insight in many places, indicating that the information at her disposal was of far greater depth than what is actually presented. Thus, for example, she casually mentions her “field census” and provides us with but the sketchiest of results: the town’s population is reported almost apologetically between parentheses (5,428), and no demographic analysis is attempted. Moreover, she makes scant reference to the many other similar studies from the Mexican context and ventures few comparative remarks.
The author’s best moments—and some are very good indeed— occur in the chapters discussing social relations “in the bosom of the family” and in “the social world outside the home.” Here, the subtleties of Tonalá life are convincingly portrayed and analyzed. It is in these sixty pages that Díaz makes her contribution to the Mexico literature, and upon them rest the ensuing discussion of social, economic, and political change—or the lack thereof.
