RAZA CHILENA AND THE MYTH OF CHILEAN RACIAL HOMOGENEITY

S A R A H WA L S HP O S T D O C T O R A L F E L L O W

R A C E A N D E T H N I C I T Y I N T H E G L O B A L S O U T H

“One of the Most Uniform Races of the Entire World”

“Chile is not a country with significant racial groups as may be the case of other Latin American countries such as Bolivia, Peru or Brazil. The percentage of indigenous population in Chile is small. The type of discrimination we are looking at may indeed be related to historical factors of inequality of opportunities rather than subjective racism. (Bravo, Sanhueza, and Urzúa 2007, 21)”

Javiera Barandiarán, “Researching Race in Chile,” 2012

Raza chilena: a foundational text

Nicolás Palacios

Author of

Raza chilena: Libro escrito por un Chileno i para los chilenos (1904)

“Two or three generations more and Chile will be able to count as one of the most uniform races of the entire world.”

Nicolás Palacios, Raza chilena

Chilean Racial Origins

Araucanian

• Specific ethnic subgroup living in central Chile• Palacios understood this group to be patriarchal and relatively civilized• Hostile to colonization efforts and kept southern Chile mostly to

themselves for over three centuries

Visigoth

• Specific ethnic subgroup from Northern Europe, living in Spain• Palacios understood this group to be patriarchal, civilized, and free

from Latin “taint”• Also known as intimidating warriors throughout Europe in the fifth and

sixth centuries

Blonde, Pink, and Hairy:Chilean Racial Phenotypes

“A mixed race from another two [groups] as dissimilar as the Gothic and the Araucanian, presents the characteristics of both combined to give the most varied proportions. From the [Chilean] of Araucanian physiognomy, seeming almost pure, to the blonde [Chilean] of well marked Germanic aspect, the gradations are as numerous as one could imagine. However, there exists a very numerous intermediate type with the combined traits of its two progenitors, without it being easy to say which of the two is dominant.”

Race Mixing and Racism

Afro-Latinos (Chileans)“It will not be too much to remind here that black blood has a power of absorption that is much more than white. Thus, while not one trace of white [blood] remains at the fourth unilateral generation with black, when in the mestizo 6.25% of white blood remains…”

Slippage between what “white” and “mestizo” mean.

Race Mixing and Racism

Latin Descended PeoplesThe extent to which persecution must have affected European races is easily measured by a few well-known statistical facts. Thus, as regards martyrdom and imprisonment, the Spanish nation was drained of free-thinkers at the rate of 1,000 persons annually, for the three centuries between 1471 and 1781; an average of 100 persons having been executed and 900 imprisoned every year during that period. […] It is impossible that any nation could stand a policy like this, without paying a heavy penalty in the deterioration of its breed, as has notably been the result in the formation of the superstitious, unintelligent Spanish race of the present day.

Francis Galton, Hereditary Genius (1869)

Homenaje al Dr. Nicolás Palacios1926

There is more delivery than truth, more lyricism than science. It deserved applause and diatribes. Mr. Miguel de Unamuno wrote a passionate and virulent judgment against him…It concluded in this way, ‘It is not shameful that such a book was written, but it is shameful that there were people who took it seriously.’ And some admirers took it so seriously they did not back down in their commemorative offerings until they succeeded in the erection of a public monument in memory of the author of Raza chilena, which turned out anti-esthetic.

Final Thoughts

Relationship between racial uniformity and “perfection”

• Why is this belief so important to Chileans?• Does this mean obstacles that other countries face do not affect Chile?

Whiteness in non-Anglo countries

• How does whiteness get created in non-Anglo countries?• Do people from those countries count as white outside the boundaries

of their countries?