In some ways I am very typical of a generation South Americans.  I was born Chile in 1968. My mother was Chilean, my biological father was German, and the man who raised me, whom I call Dad, is North American. Being so typical though, hardly helps define my sense of cultural identity. In fact my cultural displacement seems rather perpetual if anything, given the various cultural associations at play.

On the best days I would classify my sense of my ethnic self, as well, somewhat confused.

Then to throw in the added burden of being born Chilean,  the political weight inherent in this given the last 30 years,  makes me long to be 3^rd generation Irish American with nothing more then a simple potato famine to forget.

I make light, but it’s only because I have so many voices and ghosts to answer to… one of the most resonant, is the one I first heard, that of mi abuelita (my grandmother). Who raised me till I was 4.

Abuelita, was also typical of South American grandmother stock- tough, proud, and stubborn. She didn’t have an easy life, in fact, she went through 3 husbands, 7 children, 2 sons of which, disappeared during Pinochet’s regime, and so many grandchildren, the census count continues to this day.

But she was my Chile. Mi Dulce de leche, mi once. She was the reason, when my mother finally did recall my existence a mere four years after I was born and I was literally dragged kicking and screaming to San Francisco to join her, I refused to speak a word of English, instead preferring to wail at the top of my little voice ABUELITA! (My mother swears I cried this way every day for an entire year.)  I remember - it was for mi cama, mi gatito, mi primo más preferido.

My grandmother and I stayed close through my teenage years, holding to that unspoken notion that I would at some point return permanently “home,” and to that idea, I maintained my 1st language, my love of “real (Chilean) food”, my “Chilean” understanding of the world.

In the summer of 1989 I returned for the last time.

It was to be at my grandmother’s side, as her death was imminent. She was frail and sickly, I was completely taken aback by her impassioned admonishment of my new friends, all art students at  l’école des Beaux-Arts in Vina del Mar, whom she classified as trouble making “communists.” She would lay in bed weak, and yell at me for lack of “common sense” for the company I kept, the clothes I wore, the time I went out at night. I was free, I kept telling her, but she wouldn’t have it.  Most confusing of all was at the end of the summer- when she did pass away. Going through her things, I found a framed picture of Pinochet in her armoire. He looked respectable, proud, regal. I had to verify with my cousins it was actually him in that picture, tucked away like an old lover. She had forgotten her sons, who had disappeared in a football stadium a mere 16 years prior. No pictures of them were found in that armoire. I threw away the portrait, never mentioned it to my mother, or my aunts or uncles. I concluded the old lady was crazy, and my cousins surprised by my surprise confirmed that yeah, well… “la abuela estaba poco loca.”

That same summer I had also had a violent, disheartening experience with my new art school friends. We had been at a party at a social club for students. It was wholesome fun, we were listening to American music, there was a lot of sexually ambivalent, catholic tension in the air, despite all the bohemian pretense, we were all pretty innocent. Then it was all disrupted by a group of armed policia arriving and ushering at gun point the male students into a waiting Police truck. The next day it was revealed the police men had driven the students around that night. They had forced them to lie on the floor of the truck, kicked the shit out of them, insulted and spat on them, then finally released them into the bright early morning sunlight at the wharf in Valparaiso. It had just been nights entertainment for them, and those, uninvolved I told the horror story to shrugged, and changed the subject.

Sometime after that night and the funeral, I decided to not return to Chile.  I didn’t understand the place. History was forgotten, people accepted brutality under the guise of tradition and denial.

It’s been 15 years. My cousin tells me it has changed. I will try to go back this year and see, maybe the ghosts have quieted down, maybe I can forget what I thought it was and accept it for what it has become. I hope it still a little bit beautiful.

I have changed though, so maybe I won’t even remember those voices.