Living On One Dollar Analysis Essay Sample

Living on a Dollar a Day is an educational documentary about an experiment in which Christopher Temple, Zach Ingrasci, and a team of others travel to Guatemala in hopes of arousing awareness of the reality of Guatemalan life for the average person. The film illustrates civilian life in Guatemala by emulating the stipulations that are present in their lifestyle, accounting for inconsistent payment, heavy agricultural reliance, and unreliable banking services. The team that directed and filmed the documentary found that the unreliable source of about one dollar a day equates to a strenuous lifestyle to which they struggled to adjust. An increased sense of empathy for the average Guatemalan farmer was instilled in the group as they were moved emotionally by the Guatemalan people’s perseverance in the face of a life that they did not deserve. The film brings pertinence to LCDs’ (Lesser Developed Countries’) economic struggles by highlighting them through a realistic lens and imploring the audience to contribute to ending the horrors that many impoverished children and adults are so accustomed to.

Guatemala is a periphery country with a poor economy and heavy reliance on agricultural export. It is what is known as an informal economy which consists of unreliable payments, unregulated professions, and low income where monetary gain is present. Its poor infrastructure is “one of the main obstacles to investment and economic development” in Guatemala, according to Nations Encyclopedia, keeping it in stage two of the DTM (Demographic Transition Model). Because it remains in stage two regarding its economic development, it has not been able to industrialize yet which is a factor in the poverty present. Those who can secure a position in the small formal economy that Guatemala offers are more fortunate than others because they receive a somewhat more consistent income. The average income of a Guatemalan farmer, according to the film, equates to about one dollar per day over a mont`h’s time. Guatemalan citizens in the informal economy receive about $3,500-$4,000 a year according to Statista (about 30,640 Guatemalan Quetzals) whereas United States citizens receive about $79,900 a year as of 2019 (about 612,034 Guatemalan Quetzals), meaning United States citizens receive almost 20 times more money than a worker in the informal economy of Guatemala. Citizens in the United States have regular access to unlimited, clean drinking water, relatively cheap food, and accessible healthcare. However, the film demonstrates that Guatemalans are subject to poor healthcare, a limited food supply, and polluted drinking water. The Human Development Index in the United States is notably higher because of these factors, ranking at 0.926 while Guatemala's HDI (Human Development Index) is at 0.663 according to Statista. This low HDI in comparison is further evidence of Guatemala being an LCD. The United States, being an MCD (More Developed Country), receives frequent government funding which allows for affordable access to multiple critical infrastructure services such as plumbing, water, electricity, and medical care. The contrast in demographic and economic development also contributes to the difference in the largest sectors of the economy in their respective countries. In the United States, deurbanization has already taken place, leading to the Stage Four status held. As industries progress, this allows for more secondary sector and tertiary sector production as opposed to Guatemala's economy whose majority resides in the primary sector, working in informal agriculture.

In the documentary, the livelihood of the Guatemalan farmers is highlighted in excruciating detail as the film’s directors work to understand the perspective of the Guatemalan people. As mentioned previously, Guatemala’s HDI is significantly lower than the United States’ HDI as well as many other MCDs. However, the effects of this low HDI are often overlooked in terms of physical impacts on one’s lifestyle. Because infrastructure involvement is low in Guatemala, access to clean water is not present in most areas. The water shown in the film came through an unsanitary pipe and one of the film’s directors’ noted that “there [was] a bug in [the] water”, also displaying the dirt that sunk to the bottom of the bottle in which the water was collected. A day in the life of the farmers consisted mostly of tilling and treating the ground for radishes which they would sell or use to try and feed their families. The people of this region of Guatemala spoke a dialect of Mayan, Kaqchikel, which proved to be a disadvantage due to the majority of formal businesses utilizing Spanish as a lingua franca. This division serves as an isogloss to Guatemala's farmers’ for engaging in sectors of the economy like the secondary and tertiary. During the latter half of the film, Chris Temple contracted Giardia and E. Coli, likely from the increased consumption of unsanitary foods. This forced him to seek medical care in which it is revealed that treatment for such diseases is very costly and most residents of Guatemala would most likely not be able to afford such treatment. In such a community, things such as stoves that people from the United States might consider common kitchen appliances are very costly and cannot be bought easily. It becomes apparent that the standard of living residents of the United States have access to is drastically worse in LCDs like Guatemala. Due to ethnocentrism and a lack of acknowledgment toward impoverished countries, MCDs like the United States often overlook or dehumanize the aspects of LCDs. However, the documentary Living on a Dollar a Day puts the horrors of the poor living conditions into perspective, illustrating how even the children aspire to be something greater than the poverty they were born into, though these dreams are crushed by the immediate need to provide food for themselves and their families. Parents cannot afford to educate their children because institutions cost money that they use instead for food. This only perpetuates the struggle of poverty by not allowing the developing youth to have the skills required to secure a position in the formal economy which would ensure better conditions and consistent payments. But instead, parents are forced to deny their children education so that the children and family must instead engage in labor-intensive activities and continue the cycle of poverty. Because of the complications preventing the average citizen from partaking in more developed sectors of the economy, they are forced to struggle through poverty that they do not deserve and that should be repaired by whatever means necessary.

As a teenager living in the United States of America, I can confidently say that it is easy to overlook the luxury that other residents of MCDs are used to. By watching Living on a Dollar a Day, I was able to see that the children in Guatemala, though forced to mature faster to avoid starvation, are very similar to children in the United States. The people there are just as human as the rest of us and have the same creativity and imagination. The hardships they have to endure are something that they have become accustomed to. However, it should not be like this. The effects of poor living conditions, little government involvement, and limited access to education pose significant threats to the lives of many people in LCDs such as Guatemala. The film brings a humbling perspective and simultaneously makes its true audience empathetic and grateful, wishing they could do something to contribute to the conditions that the people must endure. Being in a Stage Four demographic transition means I have to worry about things that people in LCDs do not have to because they instead face life-threatening problems. I have to think about possible colleges I wish to attend and what sector of the economy I want to specialize in, likely in the tertiary sector. However, the people in LCDs instead must plan to occupy another place in the primary sector of the economy, while luxury to them means simply being able to secure any “primitive” profession in the formal economy with consistent income. I am disgusted at the things they face and believe that the film is a helpful insight into the life of the average citizen of an underdeveloped country.

Industrialization is a common process in countries that leads them from Stage Two to Stage Three of the DTM, allowing for specialization in the economy and eliminating most of the poverty with its successive developments. However, when economies are stifled from progressing further, they often become impoverished, unable to secure infrastructure and meet the needs of a people with many employment opportunities. In combination with a complex cultural relationship and history, the contrasting cultures and languages can serve as a centrifugal force for the economy, overall increasing poverty due to the idle state of its progression.