This is neither a happy nor a hopeful book. 

It was conceived out of my desire to place the Latin American population problem in the perspective of the many other serious problems facing Latin America, and to bring that message forcefully to Americans. 

To do the former I had to abandon the comfortable academic specialization to which I have grown accustomed, and try to see and understand the large web of problems facing poor countries. To do the latter I looked for, and found, a creative and socially conscious photographer who would not only take good pictures but who could help me see and understand.

Capa and I then approached the Rockefeller Foundation, where a felicitous combination of interests in science and the arts resulted in a grant which made our project possible. 

We then chose Honduras and El Salvador as our demographic microcosm. 

They were about as small as countries go and therefore easier to cover and comprehend than large countries; but they had the main ingredients we were interested in: rapid population increase, poverty, and painfully slow progress in improving the lot of the average citizen. 

Most of all we chose them because they had just had a war whose roots were in poverty and population, and we wished to show that if it could happen to these small sister nations, larger ones might not be far behind. 

We took several trips together to each of these countries, talked to and photographed hundreds of people. (All interviews were tape recorded, transcribed in Spanish, and translated into English by me.) 

We saw beautiful homes and beautiful people as well as hovels and poverty; and saw a good deal of joy as well as misery. We have chosen to emphasize the darker side of the picture because we feel it is both more representative and more demanding of attention.

 In so doing we risk disappointing many of the people in Honduras and El Salvador who gave us generously of their time and assistance, and we risk incurring the hostility of public officials sensitive about the national image. 

We regret this, but believe that in the long run we will have done more good than harm; for North Americans must know what Central America looks like after a decade of the Alliance for Progress, and there are also many Central Americans who need to know.

In photographing and writing about specific people and highly contemporary situations, we run an apparent risk of rapidly going out of date. Since the text was written, for example, El Campamento 3 de Mayo has been rebuilt, Modesto Dominguez has been released from jail, and El Salvador's progressive minister of education has been moved to a harmless diplomatic post. 

But the basic currents carrying these actors flow relatively undisturbed and the larger forces shaping the day-to-day situa- tions go essentially untouched. It is these basic currents and larger forces which we are trying to illuminate by our down-to-earth examples.

Scholars, journalists, and photographers must probe, diagnose, and call attention to. We hope we have done this. We hope others will do what they have to do.

PREFACE 

1. POVERTY AND POPULATION 

2. LAND 

3. THE WAR 

4. THE CITY: JOBS AND HOUSES 

5. THE SCHOOL 

6. HEALTH 

7. WORKING WOMEN 

8. THE NEW PEASANT 

9. BANANA: THE GOLDEN FRUIT 

10. THE COOPERATIVE 

11. THE COLONIZATION 

12. NEW MEN OF THE CLOTH 

13. THE CHURCH MILITANT 

14. POPULATION AND BIRTH CONTROL 

15. LATIN AMERICA AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

BIBLIOGRAPHY