xenophobia?

last weekend was rather bizarre. it started on friday morning with a drunken man in our building telling us that "gringos are destroying latin america," followed by scott being surrounded and intimidated a day later by a bunch of chilenos practically poking him, saying "gringo, gringo." lastly, as a bunch of us "gringos" were enjoying a delicious breakfast at an australian joint, a british couple very audibly was mocking our accents. "ahh americans, i hate their accents" (something to that effect). i know brits are just like top notch linguists but i think my accent is quite fine. in fact, it is not uncommon to have people guess i'm from somewhere other than the states... nice huh? (we are loud as hell though, can't deny that one)

there's a lot to be said for a general dislike and distrust of white foreigners but to assume people have no differing opinions from their governments is wrong. (of course, all this is too much for a rebuttal with a drunk man at 12pm)... it's definitely popular to not like estadounidenses (USA-ians/Americans) if you are not from the 50-state union but sometimes it's a little much.

south america has historically been fucked by specifically the united states but to my knowledge, chile, a lot less so. i wouldn't have said this before i moved down here. before i came i would have said, well the US helped put allende out on the street. now, i'm not so sure. surely the US covertly/overtly supported the overthrow but i think the military's upheaval was a long time coming. many people were scared about what allende planned to do with the presidency. he was too socialist, didn't provide enough incentive for the working-class and many say, he was just all wrong. furthermore, chile has been able to stand on its own pretty well against the US. ricardo lagos (former chilean president) told the US to stuff it when asked for troop support in iraq. Chile is the only south american country to hold a trade agreement with the united states. they also export almost half of the world's supply of cobre (copper).

many people we spoke with about the incident merely referred to the drunken man with a wave of the hand and a "ahh weon" (indicating the man was just an asshole). i'm not trying to give the impression that these actions have been some kind of trend or anything, chileans in general are tremendously welcoming and thoughtful.

interestingly though... in many ways, ignorant, close-minded chileans are the same as close-minded americans in the united states. mostly. they're scared and feel threatened by foreigners... in their minds, peruvians are taking their jobs in the same way americans think mexicans are robbing them of jobs. there's also a similarity in the amount of news that americans and chileans, respectively, receive about the rest of the world. alida recently traveled to peru and said how in peru she read about chilean news, it was ubiquitous, but in chile she was hard-pressed to find any information about peru. this one-sided view is the same in the US regarding other countries. hell! we're lucky to get actual information on the national level in the US that's devoid of hyperbole and emotion.

if you want to talk about american culture permeating chile then don't eat at mcdonalds and don't watch hollywood films... if you want to talk about US policies affecting small countries, be glad you don't live in bolivia and if you want to have a discourse about the people's struggle against their governments worldwide, i'm all ears.

chici-tito

don't let the size fool you, delicious...