Chilean Exile. Trauma and opportunities
Loreto Rebolledo
From 11 September 1973 onwards, following the violent coup d'état, thousands of Chilean men and women left the country to begin living in exile. They left behind a country, a family and a political project of social change that had been abruptly interrupted. More than 60 countries from different continents were among those that welcomed the exiles. From the first moment, they had to face all kinds of changes that disrupted their lives: a language they often did not understand, a different climate, a change of hemisphere and the move from a poor country to a developed one. To this must be added a feeling of defeat after the failure of a political project that had given meaning to their lives, not to mention a deep sense of uprooting which, during their early years of exile, left them looking back towards what had been left “behind”, to the Chile they had left and to which they hoped to be able to return as soon as possible.
That first stage of exile was lived almost in parentheses, a kind of freezing in time that transformed it into a complex experience since it was lived in the heartbreak of existing simultaneously in two realities: that of the host country, where they lived but in which they did not choose to be and the country of longing from which they were expelled. Faced with defeat, uncertainty and the uprooted life project they had suffered, the exiles took refuge in politics, and this became their focus and their raison d'être because it gave meaning and allowed them to restore a continuity between the past, the present and the future. It was also the way in which they connected with the host society, with the government institutions of the receiving country and with international institutions that could advocate for the defence of human rights in Chile.
Politics, the reason for their estrangement, gave meaning to their lives outside Chile. This was helped by the fact that this part of their identity was valued by others and was also a project for the future, since political transformation would pave the way for their return. Solidarity work, campaigns denouncing violations and fundraising efforts all gave shape and form to their lives, those of the men in particular since the women were also required to focus their attention on the basic aspects of family life and resettlement in addition to their political work.
The Chilean exiles attracted significant social and international support through which to achieve the isolation and international condemnation of the dictatorship. They were able to take political advantage of the wave of sympathy engendered by the situation in Chile following Allende’s death in Government House, the end of Popular Unity and the subsequent violent repression, helping to paint Pinochet as the archetypal brutal dictator and his regime as one of the most abhorrent in the world.
Another of the exiles’ achievements occurred when their exile began to last many more years than they had initially expected, leading to changes in the way they integrated into host countries. They began to perceive of their exile not merely as transitory, while awaiting their return, but as an opportunity to develop and live. The culture of the countries in which they lived became less alien due to their daily and constant interactions. In this second stage, a process of rapprochement and acceptance of ways of being and behaving became more evident, ways that were different from those of Chilean origin although their Chilean identity still remained an integral part of their lives.
As Edward Saïd said, exiles cross borders and break boundaries of thought and experience. Moving from one place to another entails the possibility of breaking down barriers, of opening oneself up to change and to the adoption of other customs, of other ways of acting and of situating oneself in the world. This becomes more important when the country of origin is a place that has been relatively isolated.
The knowledge of ‘the other’, the possibility of broadening one’s vision of the world, the opportunities for personal development through cultural exchange, experiences and knowledge all had positive effects both personally and socially. Personally, men and women, especially those who moved to developed countries, were able to progress professionally or to train, either on the job or through the benefits that refugees received upon arrival.
In terms of politics, the new visions they took back with them on their return to Chile led to changes in the way that democracy and development were perceived, in the way alliances were established, and demonstrated their effectiveness in coordinating different Chilean political parties in the transition towards democracy.
Without denying the cost of the uprooting, sadness and uncertainty suffered by the exiles, which was a clear punishment, the fact that the diaspora involved many Chilean men and women of different origins, ages and genders undoubtedly enabled them to enrich their perspectives and gain a diverse learning in contact with other realities and cultures, as well as contributing to the artistic and cultural spheres of the host countries.
Living in a foreign culture enables us to question our own identity, to open up to other ways of thinking and being and thus reflect on the mistakes and successes of our past. One interesting aspect that exiles recognize as a gain in terms of their identity construction is that they have become aware of and value a Latin American identity, an identity that perhaps only became evident on contact with ‘the other’.
This enrichment of identities was especially interesting among women and Mapuche who were exiled to European countries. Although the uncertainty and nostalgia that occurs when having to live and grow in a foreign culture was the same for everyone, the situation was more challenging for these groups because the environment and freedom in which they had spent their lives in Chile was narrower, and so they had to make greater efforts to adapt to their new situation. Women’s greater practical sense, a product of their gender socialization, helped them quickly find a place in their new situation, deciding to face the challenge head on.
Many Chilean women who went into exile accompanying their husbands were used to a life tied to the home, caring for their children; they lacked work experience and their social ties began and ended with the family. Suddenly they were thrown into the world and abruptly had to assume a new life where the social and geographical spaces were different from those they had known. The mere fact of being considered as individuals in the State benefits system rather than a nondescript part of a family group headed by a man, as well as the contact with other women from the host society who enjoyed greater autonomy, served as examples that encouraged them to change their ways of feeling and perceiving of themselves as women with rights as citizens and, in many cases, this became part of a gender awareness that they did not have in Chile. Others benefited from the achievements of feminism in terms of greater recognition of rights and equality with men, which facilitated their studies and paid work.
On the other hand, men of Mapuche origin, inhabitants of rural communities or first-generation migrants to the cities, unaccustomed to living in cities with large populations, suddenly found themselves living in countries where Spanish was not even spoken. This forced them to be more attentive, to observe more carefully how others went about their lives in order to learn the codes that would allow them to interact and move among people without getting lost in the spaces. This state of alertness, highly stressful initially, later paid off because that knowledge enabled them to gain a better understanding of the societies in which they had settled and choose which elements they wanted to adopt. For many of them, it was a discovery to find out that the welfare states of the European countries treated them like any other Chilean exile, and this made them acutely aware of the covert discrimination they had experienced in Chile, even in the political parties in which they had been active.
Due to their previous isolation, in their homes or rural communities, exile formed a turning point in the lives of both women and Mapuche, and a chance to rethink themselves, on a personal level and – in the case of the Mapuche – in terms of their relationship with other Chileans. This process was a long and painful one, involving great losses that only years later would be transformed into gains. Both women and Mapuche managed to enrich and cultivate their identities, broadening their vision and understanding of the world, defining what place they had occupied in Chile and reflexively redefining what place they wanted to occupy in the future.
For the Mapuche, exile opened up the possibility of knowing and living in societies in which, instead of being a problem, diversity was something to be valued positively. This enabled them to become aware of the discrimination they had faced in Chile and to organize to overcome it. Some young people were able to pursue higher education and the leaders of the Mapuche exile organizations managed to contact various different human rights institutions, agencies and organizations that supported ethnic causes. This contributed to the formation of an Indigenous intelligentsia with a strong ethnic consciousness and solid international contacts, which has been a fundamental contribution to the Mapuche organizations now operating in Chile.
Exile was, without doubt, a traumatic experience suffered by thousands of Chilean men, women and children. They had to make immense efforts to reinvent themselves and make a place for themselves in a country that was not their own. And yet, once they had overcome their helplessness and anguish at the loss of a life, country and family, exile ultimately allowed them to rewrite their life projects.
Loreto Rebolledo is the Dean of the Faculty of Communication and Image. She is a journalist and anthropologist, with a master's degree in Andean History (Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences of Ecuador) and a PhD in History from the University of Barcelona. She is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Communication and Image and an academic at the Interdisciplinary Center for Gender Studies (CIEG) of the Faculty of Social Sciences, of which she is a co-founder.