My Invented Country by Isabel Allende Read Free Book Online Page B

that region has been theirs forever. They are affable by nature and although they have maintained their customs, their language, and their beliefs, they have been integrated into the culture of the whites, especially in matters relatingto commerce. In that they are different from some groups of Quechuas in the most isolated areas of the mountains of Peru, for whom the government is the enemy, just as it was during the Spanish colonial period. The war of independence and the creation of the Republic of Peru have not modified their lives in any way; in fact some are not even aware that those things happened.
    The unfortunate Indians of Tierra del Fuego, in the extreme southern tip of Chile, died by gunfire and disease long ago; of those tribes only a handful of Alacalufes survive. Hunters were paid a bounty for every pair of ears they brought as proof of having killed an Indian; in this way the territory was successfully “cleared” for the colonists. These Indians were giants who lived, nearly naked, in an inclement, icy zone where only seals can take comfort.
    African blood was never incorporated into Chilean stock, which would have given us rhythm and beauty; neither was there, as there was in Argentina, significant Italian immigration, which would have made us extroverted, vain, and happy; there weren’t even enough Asians, as there were in Peru, to compensate for our solemnity and spice up our cuisine. But I am sure that if enthusiastic adventurers had converged from the four corners of the earth to people our land, proud Spanish-Basque families would have managed to intermingle with them as little as possible, unless they were northern Europeans. It has to be said: our immigration policy has been openly racist. For a long time wedidn’t accept Asians, blacks, or anyone with a deep tan. It occurred to one president in the eighteen hundreds to bring Germans from the Black Forest and grant them land in the south, which of course wasn’t his to give, since it belonged to the Mapuches, but no one noted that detail except the legitimate owners. The idea was that Teutonic blood would set a fine example for our mestizos, instilling in them a work ethic, discipline, punctuality, and organization. The brown skin and coarse hair of the Indians were looked down on; a few German genes wouldn’t hurt us a bit, was the thinking of the authorities of the time. It was hoped that these admirable immigrants would marry Chilean women and from that mixture white blood would win out over that of the humble Indians—which is what happened in Valdivia and Osorno, provinces that today can boast of tall men, full-breasted women, blue-eyed children, and authentic apple strudel. Color prejudice is so strong that if a woman has yellow hair, even if she has the face of an iguana, men turn to look at her in the street. My own hair was colored from the time I was a tiny child, using a sweet-smelling liquid called Bay Rum; there is no other explanation for the miracle that the lank, black strands I was born with were transformed before I was six months old into angelic golden curls. Such extremes weren’t necessary with my brothers, because one had curly hair and the other was blond. In any case, the people who emigrated from the Black Forest have been very influential in Chile, and according to the opinion of many, they rescued the south from barbarism and made it the splendid paradise it is today.
    After the Second World War, a different wave of Germanscame to seek refuge in Chile, where there was so much sympathy for them that our government didn’t affiliate with the Allies until the last moment, when it was impossible to remain neutral. During the war the Chilean Nazi Party paraded with brown uniforms, flags bearing swastikas, and arms raised in a Nazi salute. My grandmother ran alongside, throwing tomatoes at them. This woman was an exception because in Chile people were so anti-Semitic that the word Jew was a