Chile Forum

admin wrote:... I don't think many foreigners appreciate the shear stigma in Chile of being "dark". ...

Not just a "dark" thing but being different from the Chile version of mestizo in any way. This here gringo, non-gringo, foreigner knows all about it.

Chilean genetics are very good about covering up any deviations within one generation. How many can tell at first glance that Carlos Ominami is half-Japanese?

Oh goody! More identity politics, more victims who deserve compensation, more taxpayer dollars spent on feel-good policies that emphasize differences between citizens instead of shared heritage. Call me crazy, perhaps scarce resources should be used to, say, rebuild the country. Crazy, I know. Probably makes me a racist too.

If the historians and anthropology types want to explore this teeny-tiny subset of the population based on curiosity and on their own nickel, have at it. If race-hustlers are looking to create more entitlements/grievance politics ala US model, skip it.

John Hyre, BFD

there are no blacks in chile. the few of them are foreigner or sons of foreigners.
there WAS a big black comunity in arica when arica belongs to peru, but after the guerra del pacifico the chilean people goes there and kick out the blacks to peru. 90% of they went to callao port near lima. chilean people was very racist against black peruvians these days. in the other hand chilean people gave freedom to the chinese workers in peru who were slaves. in proper chile (central chile from copiapó to bio bio river) there werent many blacks just 4,500 african slaves came to chile and most of the slaves were very mixed at 1820 when slavery was abolished in chile (second western country who did it after denmark). blacks and mulattoes were a sizable minority in the first days of the colonia, but then mestizos has a demographic boom (since any spaniard had 10 or 20 indian wifes and 100 sons at lest) and then most spaniards start to come here. so that mulattoe comunity was less than 1% in 1830. thats the short story. i know one or another chileans who seems to have a few of black blood in them. but this is nothing. i can bet there are 10 times more chinese ancestry hidden people in arica than blacks. peruvian goverment was very racist. you have to understand one thing usa or brazil have many blacks because they abolish the slavery very late.

pd: ominami seems very jap to me. mostly the head. but he also looks like peruvian.

I don't doubt there are native born african - Chileans, I just doubt how big a population it is and that it can be counted.

I have a serious issue with cornering groups based on "continent of origin". It is a fairly blatantly racist categorization of people. Cultures, yes, continents no. By this I mean, for example, saying things like people share a "native American culture" or "African culture" is completely meaningless. The Hopi of the Southwest United States have little to nothing in common with the Mapuchi of Chile (perhaps other than the Spaniards). In the same way, the African-american populations of the United States has very little in common with the Brazilian African-Americans, and so on. If there are African descent populations in Chile, chances are they come via a whole lot of other cultures. Another case. I know really nothing of Scotland in spite of my grandfather being Scottish, other than I like the wisky (single malt please). Yet, somehow, I am grouped with white European whatever of scotland?

I know we have a whole pile of white south Africans living in Chile now. Do we include them? Is that what they have in mind with the form check-box? No, they want to count people with black skin. How about all the people that just showed up recently, came during different immigration waves over the years, and so on? Not even referring to family of slaves.

Don't forget all of our Arabic friends from Africa also. Chile has one of the largest and oldest populations in the World. we also have a lot of African - Jewish I am sure around. Are they suppose to tick the box?

To accurately capture the spirit of what they are asking we would need to do some thing like this for about a 400 page survey on just that topic:

Are you or have you ever been the decedent of a slave from Africa with black skin from <insert each country and cultural group in africa>, that arrived in Chile between <insert year your family member was brought as a slave> and <some arbitrary historical date here>?

My point is the artificial and arbitrary politically correct groups I have found to be about benefiting a few people, by throwing a few other people in to the group regardless if they want to be there or not to bolster their political and economic gains (both from inside and from outside the group itself). Cultural preservation great, political group preservation not so much in support of waisting government resources on that.

There are less Blacks in Chile than Martians in the U.S.A.

This Afro-Chilean "minority" is just ridiculous. 10 people of the Azapa valley make a club to promote Jamaican and Ethiopian culture and suddenly we have a new "Root" for Chile.

Give me a break. Chile is an INDIGENOUS and IBERIAN country, with large minorities of European and Arab immigrants, and very few other peoples.

Let's talk about reality. Chileans don't wave the Ethiopian flag; only the Chilean flag

A Chilean.

Well, I think I have first hand information on this because I actually meet and have friends between the afro-chilean community.

There are some 20-50 families descendent of slaves in the Azapa Valley, the most notorious are the Corvacho, Baluarte, Siles, Focacci, Aste, Baez, Lanchipa, Karl, Albarracin, Henry, Loayza, Torres, Salinas and some others. You may note some european surnames as Karl (german), Henry (french), Focacci and Carbone (italian), etc. that is due in the 18th and 19th century many europeans adventurers came to Azapa and married with african descendants who owned most of the lands.

Those families was very prolific, so there are not so few africans as stated. Anyway they are not demographically signicicant but here in Arica his presence is noticeable. They are nice people and I think their culture for fiesta, music, dancing and friendship deserved be preserved, they have two associations "lumbanga" and "oro negro" with some 80-100 associates in total and they are far to pretend reivindications at mapuche style because many of them are quite wealthy

http://afrochileno.blogspot.com/
http://www.fotolog.com/yahella_belen/13759515
http://usuarios.multimania.es/oronegro/ ... entes2.htm

tombrad2 wrote:Well, I think I have first hand information on this because I actually meet and have friends between the afro-chilean community.

Well, I am Chilean and I know about this topic as well.

tombrad2 wrote:There are some 20-50 families descendent of slaves in the Azapa Valley, the most notorious are the Corvacho, Baluarte, Siles, Focacci, Aste, Baez, Lanchipa, Karl, Albarracin, Henry, Loayza, Torres, Salinas and some others. You may note some european surnames as Karl (german), Henry (french), Focacci and Carbone (italian), etc. that is due in the 18th and 19th century many europeans adventurers came to Azapa and married with african descendants who owned most of the lands.

And? Even if they were 5.000 people, that they aren't, there would be more Gypsies in Chile than these self-called "Africans".

tombrad2 wrote:Those families was very prolific, so there are not so few africans as stated. Anyway they are not demographically signicicant but here in Arica his presence is noticeable. They are nice people and I think their culture for fiesta, music, dancing and friendship deserved be preserved, they have two associations "lumbanga" and "oro negro" with some 80-100 associates in total and they are far to pretend reivindications at mapuche style because many of them are quite wealthy

They aren't demographically important in Arica, either. I bet you will find more Chinese and Arabs in there than these "Afro" people.
They are just a remanent of Peruvian slaves trapped in Chilean territory, and they don't represent the roots or the identity of Chile.
Of course they exist, and they have the right to preserve theirs identity and traditions, but they shouldn't prettend to imposse theirs customs to the large majority of Chileans.

As you know, Mapuches is a different issue. Most Chileans have Mapuche blood on them. So, just prettending to equate these topics is ridiculous.

I can´t understand that, who pretends "imposse theirs customs to the large majority of Chileans" or "represent the roots or the identity of Chile" ??

Actually they are a small minory, no dissent on that.
Actually they are not "10 people" nor "less Blacks in Chile than Martians in the U.S.A", OK i know it is rethoric but -it eems to me- a too many actual mistakes/exagerations for a worthless point, afro chileans are just trying to catch the attention on their existence, nothing more, nothing "ridiculous" in their wish to be identified as a minority in census, I don´t see nothing wrong on that.

Anyway, too much ado about nothing

Well, I gave my oppinion as a Chilean of the little importance it has for us those social clubs like "Oro Negro". And we also know the founder of that social club, Sonia Salgado, almost went to jail for electoral fraud. She managed to win an election by 2000 votes in a town that has less than a thousand. Some people though it was magic. So, with those antecedents, I suspect, she just invented another way to make some cash.

And I agree. This is much ado about nothing.