Fuera Cholos

Fuera cholos. That was the first thing I noticed as the bus pulled into the terminal in Arica. Someone had taken a can of spray paint and tagged a perimeter wall of the place where most Peruvians and Bolivians enter Chile. This was their welcome. This was my welcome.

I had been living in Tacna, Peru for several months by the time I actually made it across the border into Chile. The trip is surprisingly quick and I was in Arica about an hour after leaving Tacna. The sister cities have a long and complicated history not unlike those of the communities that straddle the US-Mexico border. Many tacneños will tell you how Arica was stolen by the Chileans during the War of the Pacific. It’s amazing that 130 years later, they can’t seem to let it go. Ever since they were young, the tacneños were told that they Chileans were aggressors and continue to exploit their Peruvian neighbors at every opportunity.

When I got out of the colectivo at the terminal in Arica, I made my way to the center of town. The streets were orderly, buses stopped at predetermined intersections, and young people were dressed in skinny jeans with neon shirts. In other words, it was nothing like Peru. I struck up conversation with the woman who waited on me at a restaurant. “Oh, you’re from the States. That’s so cool…what brings you all the way to Arica?” Her tone was welcoming and you could tell she was enamored with anything and everything from the US. I explained that I lived in Tacna and was visiting for the day. She recoiled and immediately asked how I could live there. Wasn’t it dangerous? Aren’t the people there uncultured? How do you stand all the dirt?

The bluntness of her barrage of questions took me off guard. I found myself in a defensive position that was bizarre because I’m not even from Peru. But I have felt nothing less than welcomed into this dirty, confusing, disorganized place. No, I don’t feel unsafe walking around Tacna. Yes, the people there are cultured and in fact their food, songs, and dances are incredibly beautiful and varied. And my neighbors take pride in keeping their modest homes tidy.

How is it that an arbitrary line in the sands of the Atacama Desert can create such distrust and misconception of those living on the other side? Why is it that we’ve allowed borders to have such power and control over our collective understanding of society? Do Chileans not love their families or seek happiness or desire fulfillment just as much as Peruvians? Or Americans? Or Mexicans? Or Iraqis? Or Chinese? Or Palestinians? Or Israelis?

It is true that in recent years, there has been an influx of Bolivian and Peruvian immigrants to northern Chile. Like their Mesoamerican counterparts, many make the difficult decision to leave their homes and their families in search of better opportunities. I taught several students in Tacna whose mother or father or both parents lived in Arica and cleaned people’s houses so as to earn enough money to support their now abandoned children. If they had a choice between living with their families and working in their own country or working in Chile, I doubt many would choose the latter. It just astounds me that when we look at another human being we can fail to see so much. They are quickly labeled as different: cholo, Mexican, Arab, gringo. We fail to see what unites us, the common thread that makes up the fabric of our very humanity. There is no reason to feel threatened when one takes the time to ask the other’s name and to listen to their story.


Cara Caponi is a 3rd year volunteer in Perú with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps