Hidden Heads Summary

In the book Hidden Heads by Mary Lorena Kenny, the writer discusses her study in which she spent about 15 years in the urban areas of Brazil talking with children. During her time in Brazil she spent the majority of it exploring the complex conditions that these children work and live. One of the first couple of sentences that grabbed my attention when reading the first page was “Street kids tend to receive more attention than the “invisible” poor living in extreme poverty, even though their numbers are much greater,” (Kenny 13). The inequality starts here in the world that this idea that street kids and poor living people are at a different ranking and that they are viewed differently.
While reading the book, I came to the realization that many things seemed to attribute to poor children and the study that was being investigated. One of the main causes that put poor children in the position that they are in is the extreme income inequality. “Over 25 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day and 13 percent live on less than a $1 a day,” (World Bank, 2005)(Kenny 25). The low income rates make it harder for families to maintain what's called a “normal” life, thus finding it difficult to find ways to bring in money. Most families began to have their children “help” with the income …show more content…
The global shifts that have been made in production, consumption, and investment have had significant consequences for labor conditions, land use, and access to resources in Brazil, resulting in regional differences in development. “In many cases, technology and “modernization” have led to more entrenched wealth and inequity,” (Kenny 30). By trying to change the world so drastically and modernizing it, it creates this unfairness as to the income ratio. Even though the income increased, the quality and development of life across the many different classes are uneven. Overall in many areas the poverty has