Chile Forum

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Hightower wrote:Down here in Chilean Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego you cannot help but notice the Croatian influence..

Actually there are large numbers of Croats are all over Chile and they are well represented in the professions and in government. But down here they are thick as thieves. Well, maybe that's not a good way to describe their proliferation. Some people here refer to them generically as the "Ics" (pronounced rather like "each") -- for the common ending of Croatian last names.

Most of the major leaders in the recent rebellion down here, as well as the government's intendenta, were of Croatian descent. It's part of the local landscape.

Image is one of the hardware stores were I've been buying stuff since the early 1990s.

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Hightower wrote:
Many of the Croato-Chileans fled Tito and his Yugoslavia.

On the other hand, Croatians have been coming to Chile in industrial quantities for about 120 years.

wikipedia: historically significant immigrant groups include: Croatia whose number of descendants today is estimated to be 380,000 persons, the equivalent of 2.4% of the population. Other authors claim, on the other hand, that close to 4.6% of the Chilean population must have some Croatian ancestry.

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probably chileans didnt start that war. but some of them fight on the croatian side. some years ago (in 1994 more or less) a vet from that war (probably sick with the war effects) kill her family in punta arenas.

another funny (?) thing is that the past argentine president nestor kirchner was son of a chilean-croat mother from punta arenas. kirchner was born in argentine patagonia and strangely he was very anti chilean even when all his mothers side family is currently chilean and most of them living in santiago (ostoic family is very known family of doctors and professionals)

now that i remember even 1 chilean forumer here is from croatian ancestry. the tombrad forumer.

Me too. My mother is from what is now Croatia, but of Italian roots, and she refuses to have any connection made with the savages (her words). I was in Croatia once, and my #*&^% goodness, are they a violent bunch...Never went again. But, in my 5 years in Santiago I have only heard names here and there, never met one. And my father's Italian surname shields me from those unsavoury elements.

My judgement is completely personal and based on my growing up in Sydney, with quite a few of them there, and that one visit to Croatia... Interestingly, when I was there in 1998, 6 years after the war, all I could hear was that Serbs were guilty for everything, that Croatia could be like California and it will be in no time "now that we are free".

Currently, it is fast catching up with Alnbania at the bottom of the Europe, and the government is drowning in corruption scandals from the top to the last village council government...

By the way, they never assimilate into their new countries. Maybe that is why Kirchner was so anti-chilean. Aussie croats are like that too. Nothing is ever good enough for them in Australia, they stick to their ways and only the third generation of kids (they marry mostly with other Croats) learns english properly. Stubborn and hard people.

aussie wrote:By the way, they [Croats] never assimilate into their new countries.

After knowing a number of Croatian-Chileans here, not only in the south of Chile but elsewhere, I would have to dispute the observation that they have not assimilated here. It's said that half the population of Punta Arenas is descended from Croats. It would be hard to suggest that half the population remains unassimilated. I even treated the assimilation of the Croatian component of the local population in a magazine article I wrote several years ago. Down here the Croat names are found in the streets, the airport manager here in Natales, many local artists, the current intendenta of Punta Arenas, most of the political leaders, many estancia owners, the Punta Arenas mayor (who is something of an idiot, in my opinion, irrespective of his ancestors) -- and of course the doctors and teachers and elsewhere through every level and occupation. If someone were given the opportunity to select between someone "Croatian" and "Chilote" to get something done right, the former would be selected almost always down here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_Chilean

I bumped into this Croatian-Chilean on the sidewalk several days ago and we had a nice chat...

Dr. Mateo Martinic

One of Chile's foremost historians. Winner of the national history award. Former Intendente for Magallanes region (1964-1970). Created the "Instituto de la Patagonia" at the Universidad de Magallanes, Chile. University professor of the University of Magallanes. Founded Magallania Magazine, and the Annals of the Institute of Patagonia. He has published over 1000 books and articles. Member of Chilean Academy of History. Honorary member of the National School of Architects of Chile.

Sounds pretty assimilated to me.

But then most of the Croats came to Chile from about 1890 to 1920, so there has been plenty of time to assimilate. Anyone who comes to Magallanes to meet a few Croatian Chileans will probably have a different opinion with respect to their assimilation here.

Anyone who has assimilated enough in Chile to read the language of the realm might be interested in reading some of the related history

http://www.memoriachilena.cl/archivos2/ ... 037187.pdf


....Quizás lo que mejor expresó históricamente su inquietud espiritual,
fue el consiguiente aporte de creatividad de los inmigrantes eslavos en la
región magallanica en el terreno cultural y social, pues no en vano llevaban
a cuestas "la civilización de doscientas generaciones" como en feliz expresión
lo señalaría la insigne Gabriela Mistral.

Croatian volunteer fire department, Punta Arenas

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Hightower wrote:Disclaimer; Not sure really what this first part of my post has to do with the theme of this thread;

I once stayed at a guest house on the island of Lastovo in the Adriatic.
The owner was an elderly gentleman of Italian decent.
He told me that he was born in Austria, raised in Italy, grew up in Yugoslavia, and now living in Croatia...all while staying on the same little island.
He was a very fine person, except that he harbored an unhealthy resentment towards Croats.

I've also had two Serbian girlfriends in my past, and both of them harbored an unhealthy resentment towards Croats.

There is a lot of hate and mistrust going around the Adriatic. Fortunately, Chile is sheltered from that sort of madness.

Now back to the original topic;
According to Wikipedia there are around 250000 Croatian Argentinians and 380000 Croatian Chileans, making it almost as likely that the unfortunate flag waver was Chilean as Argentine. Anyone able to verify the identify of this guy who inadvertently might have started the bloodies war in Europe during the past half century?

Saying there are x number of Croatian Chileans is akin to saying there are 1 million Ukrainian Canadians on the prairies or 4 million English Canadians. They have been there so long that really I just see them as Chileans with Croatian names. They are an example of a very successful assimilation. Much more assimilated than say Mexican Americans. With regards to the main topic of thread, I doubt you would have heard of more than a handful of Chileans going back to fight for the Croat side.