Chile - "The Rich Kid on the Block?"

The New York Times had a Larry Rohter article yesterday about Chile and how Chile seems to have "lost those essential characteristics" about being Latin American.

While I agree with the economic issues discussed in the article, I have a major disagreements with this "essential characteristics" comment. One thing that has always interested me in Latin America is the diversity you have among people and cultures commonly referred to as Latin American. Argentina is markedly different from Brazil, as Bolivia is very different from Venezuela as Guatemala is very different from Cuba, etc. The notion that there are specific "essential characteristics" beyond speaking either Spanish or Portuguese, frankly borders on stereotyping.

Let's examine a few countries and, please forgive me in advance, let's engage in a few generalizations. Argentineans, for example are often rather broadly characterized as "Europeans who speak Spanish and believe anything we hear in English." It's worth noting, however that according to the excellent book, The Idea of Race in Latin America in an early census in the 19th Century, Buenos Aires population was 25% Afro-Argentinean. Brazil has the largest African community outside of Africa, yet the southern states of Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul are populated with signficant Italian, Ukrainian, Polish, Japanese, Arabic, and German emigre populations. São Paulo state even has a large community of descendants of American Confederate emigres in a city called Americana the most famous of whom is the singer, Rita Lee.

As I've been writing this post I have found it more and more difficult to engage in generalizations about Latin American culture precisely because of its diversity. A samba in Brazil has its roots in Africa, but it is unquestionably Latin. An song by the Chilean group Inti Illimani may have its roots in Amerindian music, but it's also Latin. A tango by Astor Piazzola may have its origins in the yearnings of European emigres in Buenos Aires, but it's most assuredly Latin. All three of them speak to national identities remarkably different from each other, but they are all Latin. That, in my mind, is what I find so fascinating about these cultures.

Comments

[Walter]

Wow, that's offensive. Chile isn't Latin because it's too stable, too well ordered, and the economy is too free.

How many negative stereotypes did that cover?

[Randy Paul]

Man am I glad that you brought that up, Walter. I was beginning to think it was just me, but that aspect of the article really bothered me.

It's the same way that a guide book on Brazil complained about Curitiba because it was well-ordered, fairly safe and very clean. They said it wasn't "very Brazilian." Well Curitiba was made into a well organized, clean and safe city by Brazilians! Banco Bradesco was one of the first banks in the world to offer online banking for its customers and Embraer jets are taking the small, regional jet market by storm.

What really surprises me is an experienced LatAm journalist like Larry Rohter doing something like this. Pathetic.

[Brian Greene]

Randy,

I agree wholeheartedly with your comments regarding there being no one "Latin American" culture. However, I think Rohter is talking mainly about politics and economics here - and I have to agree with him. Since 89, Chile has managed to buck the "boom and bust" cycle that has plagued Latin America basically since independence. The last time Latin America hit the skids a couple years ago, Chile's growth rate merely dropped from 6% to 2%(?). Some of the large Brazilian companies are among the best and most sophisticated in the world, but the Brazilian economy itself has serious structural problems. Politically, in Chile all the success has come under the leadership of two left-leaning parties, the DC and the PPD. The last presidential election was decided by less then 1% of the vote - and, the two coalitions are coming closer and closer to resembling a stable, two party system. I don't think there is another country in Latin America that has experienced this combined economic and political stability.

I don't read Rohter's article as an attack on Latin Americans themselves - although this inference might be there and maybe that is what you are complaining about - but rather as an observation of the larger economic and political situation of Chile vis-a-vis the rest of the continent.

Back to law school finals studying. Ugh. Three weeks from now I will be back in Chile.

[Randy Paul]

The accompanying photos of Bolivian's trashing Chile and Chile's flag and statements such as "Instead, the new accord, signed in January, has reignited a sometimes anguished debate here about what it means to be Latin American and whether Chile has somehow lost those essential characteristics" [my emphasis] are what I object to.

Costa Rica is also a stable country with a pretty good economy in a turbulent region with less of the extremes of social stratification that you see in Brazil or Bolivia for example, so while Chile's accomplishments are impressive, they are not sui generis in Latin America.

Good luck on the exams. I envy you going to Chile. Keep in touch and if you're interested and have something you think would be relevant or interesting, let me know and maybe we can put it in a guest post.

[Carlos]

Brian,

I am chilean and I have lived here for almost all my life, except some years of studying in the US.

I have to say that I fully disagree with your comment regarding the economic success has come under the leadership of DC and PPD.

Whether people may like or not, the change of the economy is due the government of Gen. Pinochet, who recruited highly prepared people in order to manage our disastrous economy, heritage from Allende´s socialist goverment. The center-left parties governments elected after we came back to democracy continued with this free-market structure; but it sound truly unfair to hear that all the economical success is due to them, when the true is that Pinochet had to recover the country from Allende´s government, that destroyed the economy in only three years to unbelievable levels; our inflation was 1,000% and we were on the edge of a civil war. When Pinochet finished his period as President our growth was 7%.

What I have to accept is that the governments after, did well on keeping the same track we were on.

It seems to me that you live here, or come often, therefore you may know this is today an accepted fact. This is why I make this comment; to let people who do not live here to know the real history.

By the way, on the last presidential election the 1% difference was between the DC-PPC and the UDI-RN coallitions; this last one is a right-leaning one. Not between DC and PPD.

Randy, Congrats for your site; I note from your bio that you are left-leaning. I am not, but I am tolerant, and I try to be as objective as I can.