The Latin word vicinĭtas came to Castilian as a neighborhood. The concept refers to the condition of neighbor (one who lives with other people in the same building or city, or who is close to another). For example: “The new tenant showed his good neighborhood and invited everyone to eat pizza at his house”, “There are basic neighborhood rules that you must respect”, “We must enjoy the neighborhood of both nations”.
In some countries, a type of housing is called a neighbourhood, in which many low-income individuals or families live in separate units. They usually consist of several houses located around a courtyard or connected by common corridors. Depending on the region, the neighborhood can also be called tenement, lease or barracks, among other names: “We have not had electricity in the neighborhood for two days”, “Fire in the central neighborhood left three dead”, “I would like to leave this neighborhood, but I dont have money. ”
As is often the case, in some cases the reality of a neighborhood is not so negative, but rather the discrimination that its members must face when they leave. Poverty provokes empathy and compassion in many people, but it also arouses feelings of rejection. The expression barrio medio refers to a right that an outsider can acquire to use the pastures of a town for his own cattle; For this, he must pay fifty percent of the contributions. When someone is in a bad neighborhood, on the other hand, he irritates or harms his neighbor; if instead of a person it is a thing, then it is detrimental to what is nearby. The neighborhoods became world famous thanks to “El Chavo del 8”, a Mexican television series created by Roberto Gómez Bolaños in 1971. In the story, the main protagonist is El Chavo (played by Gómez Bolaños), an orphan boy who lives in Department 8 (although he is usually seen inside a barrel). Doña Florinda and her son Quico, Don Ramón and her daughter Chilindrina and Doña Clotilde also live in this neighborhood. All kinds of crazy situations take place in El Chavo’s neighborhood, emphasizing the craziness of the characters. First, there is the protagonist’s house: it is a barrel, although Chavo refers to it as apartment number 8. On the other hand, there is Don Ramón, a lazy and profitable man who seems to have no intention of working for money, this leads him to by all means avoiding your landlord every time you collect rent.
La Chilindrina is one of the most endearing characters in the series, although she is also the most shameless and poisonous. From the teachings of his father, he knows how to deceive and manipulate people to achieve his goals with as little effort as possible. Chilindrina generally annoys the other kids in the neighborhood with each other, as he battles them to gain power, much in the style of the Latin maxim “divide and rule.” Doña Florinda, for her part, is a woman who does not accept her social status and the economic class to which she belongs, but she seems to live in a parallel dimension; However, she treats the other members of the neighborhood as uneducated beings and the same is instilled in Quico, who calls Dom Ramón a “rabble” in almost every episode. Maldita Vecindad y los Hijos del Quinto Patio, in short, is the name of a Mexican rock band founded in 1985.
