31/1/2018 e5.

2 Dossier Imperial Impersonations: Chilean Racism and the War of the Pacific

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E-MISFÉRICA 5.2 RACE AND ITS OTHERS ALL ISSUES MASTHEAD PARTICIPATE

RACE AND ITS

OTHERS
— Editorial Remarks —

ESSAYS

ANTERIORIDADES Y EXTERNALIDADES: MÁS ALLÁ

DE LA RAZA EN AMÉRICA LATINA
by Marisol De la Cadena

ELLEN CRAFT'S RADICAL TECHNIQUES OF

SUBVERSION
Imperial Impersona ons: Chilean Racism and the War of by Uri McMillan

the Pacific RACE,FÚTBOL, AND THE ECUADORIAN NATION: THE

IDEOLOGICAL BIOLOGY OF (NON-) CITIZENSHIP
ERICKA BECKMAN | UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN by Jean Muteba Rahier

Abstract:
SCENARIOS OF RACIAL CONTACT: POLICE VIOLENCE
The War of the Pacific, fought between Chile, Peru and Bolivia at the end of the nineteenth century, marked a AND THE POLITICS OF PERFORMANCE AND RACIAL
FORMATION IN BRAZIL
watershed moment in the crea on of narra ves of race and na on in all three countries. Chile, as the victor
by Christen Smith
na on, annexed swaths of Peruvian and Bolivian territory, extending its borders by one-third and gaining a
world monopoly on the supply of nitrates (in high demand in Europe as a fer lizer and explosive). Military
aggression was framed in explicitly racial terms. In an instance of what I call “imperial impersona on,” Chilean EL COOLIE HABLA: OBREROS CONTRATADOS
state actors cast themselves in the role of European colonizers figh ng against the “inferior races” of Peru and CHINOS Y ESCLAVOS AFRICANOS EN CUBA
Bolivia. This piece examines the rhetorical effec veness and inherent contradictoriness of Chilean ar cula ons by Lisa Yun
of white supremacy in the context of the War.

DOSSIER: IMPOSTURA RACIAL / RACIAL

Bolivians, the Chilean Admiral José Toribio Merino infamously remarked near the end of the twen eth century, are no IMPERSONATION
more than “metamorphosized camelids [auquénidos metamorfoseados], who have learned to speak, but not to think.”
INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS
This slur, u ered by one of the founding members of Pinochet’s military junta, was made in reference to the Bolivian by Jill Lane and Marcial Godoy-Ana via
state’s on-going efforts to reclaim territory lost to Chile over a century earlier, during the War of the Pacific (1879–
1884). Fought for control over nitrate deposits in Peru and Bolivia, this war resulted in Chile’s annexa on of wide
swaths of both na ons’ territories, an outcome that has le Bolivia landlocked up to the present. It was also during this MUSICAL MISCEGENATION? ROCK MUSIC AND THE
war that Chile occupied the city of Lima for nearly two years, a humilia on that is burned into Peruvian na onal HISTORY OF SEX
by Tavia Nyong'o
memory.

Merino’s recourse to the most naked form of racism in a discussion of geopoli cal ma ers (precisely, the ques on of
SAN ANTÓN FOR TV: GENDER PERFORMANCES OF
Bolivia’s access to the sea) is not en rely shocking given the genealogy of discourses of Chilean na onal sovereignty PUERTO RICAN BLACK FOLKLORE
from the nineteenth century to the present. Instead, in characterizing Bolivians as barely-evolved animals, Merino was by Isar P. Godreau
repea ng elements of a discourse that was itself cons tuted during the War of the Pacific, as Chilean state actors
jus fied their military aggression as an inevitable conflict between “superior” and “inferior” races. During this war, the
INTERROGATING BLACKFACE IN THE AFRO-
historically con ngent boundaries of the na on-state became reimagined by Chilean elites as con guous with a pre- PERUVIAN REVIVAL
ordained racial des ny, in the formula on of an enduring myth of Chilean racial superiority vis-à-vis its Andean by Heidi Carolyn Feldman
neighbors.

The War of the Pacific was fought over nitrates, a highly lucra ve export commodity used as a fer lizer in Europe, and “ YOU MAKE ME FEEL SO YOUNG”: SINATRA &
BASIE & AMOS & ANDY
the Chilean aggressors were backed financially and morally by neocolonial Bri sh interests (Amayo 1998, Vitale 1993). by Eric Lo
Bri sh empire also provided a discursive framework through which the Chilean state ar culated its right to rule.
Borrowing the language of the “civilizing mission” and “white man’s burden,” the Chilean state assumed the mantle of
imperial right, a move that at once erased Bri sh neocolonial interests from view and situated Chile within the fold of BUFO, RAZA, Y NACIÓN
“white” na ons, fulfilling the des ny of “civiliza on” on a global scale. by Inés María Mar atu Terry

The cornerstone of Chilean imperial iden ty during the War of the Pacific was whiteness, a racial category that went
SIMÓN BOLÍVAR, EL ZAMBO
far beyond phenotype to vouch for the virility, discipline, and morality of a homogenized “Chilean race.” Peruvian and
by Javier Guerrero
Bolivian creoles, mes zos, Indians, blacks and Chinese, in contrast, were coded as racially degenerate, with inferiority
measured in terms of effeminacy, laziness and backwardness. One of the key figures in the ar cula on of this racial
discourse was Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna, the noted nineteenth-century historian and statesman (Figure 1). In the IMPERIAL IMPERSONATIONS: CHILEAN RACISM
newspaper Vicuña Mackenna founded to cover the war, El Nuevo Ferrocarril, the historian framed Chilean aggression AND THE WAR OF THE PACIFIC

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31/1/2018 e5.2 Dossier Imperial Impersonations: Chilean Racism and the War of the Pacific
as “(t)he noble march and the even more noble conquest of work, of crea ve order, by Ericka Beckman
and of vigorous industry” against the “torpid laziness and incurable disorder of

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other races,” who had allowed their territories “to become barren and sterile.”

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(Vicuña 1879a1). Rehearsing the central tropes of nineteenth-century Northern FRAMING WHITENESS

AT
by Coco Fusco

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European empire, here bourgeois economic ideology expresses itself through a
lexicon of racial difference.

DE LAS TRIBULACIONES DE MEMÍN PINGUÍN

The War of the Pacific marked a moment in which Chilean elites rewrote na onal by Carlos Monsiváis
history and iden ty through the categories offered by an already established
vocabulary of nineteenth-century Northern European imperial reason. As a poli cal
project, Chilean racism has proven an extremely effec ve arm of state reason, at MEMÍN PINGUÍN: TRES AÑOS DESPUÉS
FIGURE 1. BENJAMÍN VICUÑA
the same me as its potency has been contradicted by the real configura ons of by María Elisa Velázquez Gu errez
MACKENNA (1831–1886).
empire on a global scale (in which Chile is not an empire, but a distant periphery).
This contradic on is proper to the appropria on of the language and poli cs of
imperial reason by a peripheral na on, one which might best be grasped as a strategy of imperial impersona on. The MEMÍN PINGUÍN, CHANGING RACIAL DEBATES,
AND TRANSNATIONAL BLACKNESS
term “imperial impersona on” can be understood in the context of the War of the Pacific as the will to occupy the by Bobby Vaughn and Ben Vinson III
discursive space of the European colonizer vis-à-vis neighboring na ons. Another prominent nineteenth-century
historian, Diego Barros Arana, wrote a history of the War before it had ended and noted that Chile was an excep on
among na ons of the con nent. In it he claimed that its people had “mixed li le with Indians” a er the Conquest, and ARTIST PRESENTATIONS
that as a result, Chile is home to “an ac ve and serious race,” one that “wants to equal the Bri sh, and which one
traveler has compared to the Dutch family” (Barros Arana 1914: 16). LILIANA ANGULO: UNA PERFORMANCE AFRO-
COLOMBIANA
by Liliana Angulo
This ongoing establishment of European racial creden als—passing through categories such as morality, virility and Text by Zeca Ligiéro
work ethic—allowed Chilean elites to extract their na on from a shared history with its neighbors, and to imagine Chile
as a global agent of white civiliza on. It was through this metonymic transfer that Chilean newspapers could argue, for
example, that soldiers should annihilate Peruvian and Bolivians in the same manner as the Bri sh were annihila ng the IDENTITY THIEF
Zulus in South Africa (qtd. in Sater, 31–32). Theaters of the war such as the Atacama Desert and Lima became stages for by Guillermo Gómez-Peña and La Pocha Nostra
impersona on techniques, with agents garbed in the pomp of European empire. In another ar cle by Vicuña
Mackenna, the historian culls lessons from the French experience in Algeria to properly protect Chilean soldiers in the
inhospitable desert climate of Southern Peru. One of his recommenda ons is that Chilean soldiers be fed, like their ETHNOGRAPHY OF NO PLACE
by Saya Woolfalk and Rachel Lears
French counterparts, a diet of café noir and rice (Vicuña 1879b: 1). Throughout the occupa on of Lima, Chilean
Text by Rael Jero Salley
correspondents marked this city as “tropical” and degenerate (in contrast with the more temperate climes of Chile),
and markedly “Oriental.” Erasing more than three centuries of shared history, Vicuña Mackenna compares Lima—the
center of Spanish colonial power in South America—with Cairo, awai ng coloniza on by whites (Vicuña 1880b: 2).
NORTH SOUTH EAST WEST
by Bruce Yonemoto
These strategies of imperial impersona on were bu ressed by specific claims about
the racial inferiority of Peruvians and Bolivians.2 In “The Army of Tupac Amaru,”
Vicuña Mackenna writes that the Peruvian army is “completely Indian, en rely BOOK REVIEWS
indigenous and quechua,” for the historian clear evidence of its inability to
withstand Chilean aggression (2). In addi on to familiar characteriza ons of Indians LAURA PEREZ'S CHICANA ART: THE POLITICS OF
SPIRITUAL AND AESTHETIC ALTARITIES
as “inert” and “passive,” Vicuña’s racist discourse constantly animalizes and
by Michelle Baron
FIGURE 2. “FISONOMIAS DEL feminizes. The Peruvian Indian, for example, is characterized as not a man (macho),
EJERCITO ALIADO.” EL NUEVO but a mule (mula). And the racial “variety” of Lima, including mes zos, blacks, and
FERROCARRIL. 4 DECEMBER 1879: 3.
Chinese (a constant theme in war me reports), is in turn characterized as akin to LISA YUN'S THE COOLIE SPEAKS
the collec on of animals at a Barnum and Bailey circus (Ibid). An engraving by Manuel Barcia
appearing in Vicuña Mackenna’s newspaper takes racialized degrada on into the
field of visual representa on. Following the outlines of European racial “types,” “Physionomies of the Allied Army”
depicts the heads of Peruvian and Bolivian soldiers from a side view, drawn with flat foreheads and noses, protruding MAYA TALMON-CHVAICER'S THE HIDDEN HISTORY
OF CAPOEIRA
lower lips, slanted eyes, and either iron-straight or ghtly curled hair (Figure 2). The accompanying text reads: “That by Zachary Dorsey
army is quite notable, most of all, for its variety of races, which are almost a variety of species and which almost
authorizes the assump on that man comes from the ape or from…the elephant” (Vicuña 1879c: 3).
MARI YOSHIHARA'S MUSICIANS FROM A DIFFERENT
SHORE
Like all racist discourses, Chile’s imperial-inspired version was rife with contradic ons, within the na on, but also vis-à-
by Ronald Gilliam
vis the European examples it sought to imitate. Chilean racism obliged creole elites to “impersonate” metropolitan
authori es at the same me as the very act of impersona on could easily become a site of inferiority or ar ficiality (a
logic defined in larger terms by Carlos Alonso [1998] as “the burden of modernity”). This is not to say that Chilean JORGE BRUCE'S NOS HABIAMOS CHOLEADO TANTO
whiteness fell short of “the real thing”—as if such a thing existed outside of racist fantasy—but rather that the very by Giancarlo Gomero
categories established by European empire might be used to uphold or undermine peripheral claims to authority.

Chile’s imperial self-image was upheld by some important material results: following the annexa on of Peruvian and WILLIAM W. DEMASTES & IRIS SMITH'S
INTERROGATING AMERICA THROUGH THEATRE AND
Bolivian nitrate fields, the state mobilized to “pacify” its racialized internal enemies, the Mapuche Indians of the South. PERFORMANCE
The maximum expression of post-War imperial op mism was the state’s acquisi on of an economically unimportant by Stephanie Lein Walseth
but symbolically significant South Seas colony, Easter Island.3 Yet the verisimilitude of Chilean “empire” could not
endure for long: the opening of the Panama Canal, along with the inven on of synthe c nitrates in Europe, relegated
Chile once again to the distant periphery of capitalist world produc on by the early twen eth century. As a ves ge of JAMES SIDBURY'S BECOMING AFRICAN IN AMERICA
by Elizabeth Maddock Dillon
imperial victories in the War of the Pacific, Chileans would proudly remain “the Bri sh of South America,” but ci zens
of South America nonetheless.
ZECA LIGIÉRO & DENISE ZENICOLA'S
The las ng power of Chilean empire ma ers less than the con nuing effects of its claims about racial difference and PERFORMANCE AFRO-AMERÍNDIA
belonging. In the past decade, Peruvian immigrants in Chile—employed mainly as service workers—have been by Angela Marino Segura
constant targets of racism, o en phrased in the same dehumanizing terms as those rehearsed during the War of the
Pacific. Projec ng outside the na on, Chilean iden ty remains deeply embedded within claims to Europeanness.
T. J. DESCH OBI'S FIGHTING FOR HONOR
Appeals to the country’s “racial homogeneity,” temperate climate, industriousness, and ins tu onal stability are
by Yuko Miki
fundamental to na onal iden ty, and have proven quite useful when cour ng foreign capital. The problem here is not,
again, that the Chilean na on might only imperfectly or incompletely wield the discourse of white supremacy, but
rather the extent to which this discourse retains legi macy today, in La n America and beyond. GINET TA E. B. CANDELARIO'S BLACK BEHIND THE
EARS

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31/1/2018 e5.2 Dossier Imperial Impersonations: Chilean Racism and the War of the Pacific
A related ar cle, "The Creoliza on of Imperial Reason: Chilean State Racism in the War of the Pacific," is forthcoming by Jade Power
from the Journal of La n American Cultural Studies. 2009 (18: 1).

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MIMI THI NGUYEN & THUY LINH NGUYEN TU'S

AT
ALIEN ENCOUNTERS

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Ericka Beckman is Assistant Professor of Spanish and Compara ve Literature at the University of Illinois, Urbana- by Emily Roxworthy
Champaign. She is currently comple ng a book manuscript en tled Capital Fic ons: Wri ng La n America’s Export Age
(1870–1930), a study of the ideologies and literary forms that emerged during the region’s first major experiment with
economic liberalism and globaliza on. CARLOS MONTEMAYOR & DONALD FRISCHMANN'S
AN ANTHOLOGY OF MEXICAN INDIGENOUS-
LANGUAGE WRITERS (VOLUMES 2 & 3)
by Anya Peterson Royce
Notes

1 SAIDIYA HARTMAN'S LOSE YOUR MOTHER AND

All references from El Nuevo Ferrocarril were collected at the library of the Museo Nacional Benjamín Vicuña MARCUS REDIKER'S THE SLAVE SHIP
Mackenna in San ago, Chile. Transla ons are my own. by Micol Seigel

2 It is important to note that Chilean elites did not have a monopoly on racist discourse; nineteenth-century elites in

Peru and Bolivia had themselves relied upon no ons of white supremacy to establish their right to rule. Thus part of KIMBERY WALLACE-SANDERS' MAMMY
by Cierra Olivia Thomas-Williams
the effec veness of racism as wielded during the War of the Pacific was that it was common currency of post-
Independence La n American elites. In the War of the Pacific, Chilean elites were able to manipulate European racial
hierarchies to their advantage, turning them against their creole counterparts in Peru and Bolivia.
COCO FUSCO'S A FIELD GUIDE FOR FEMALE
INTERROGATORS
3 For centuries, Spanish colonizers and creole elites had not been able to gain control of the Mapuche-dominated by Sara Wolf
Araucanía. It was only in 1883, as Chile was s ll embroiled in the War of the Pacific, that the region was finally brought
under state control; as in the United States and Argen na, this campaign was made possible by the genocidal
combina on of state armies, railways, and firearms. Easter Island, in turn, was claimed by Chile in 1888. At this me, FILM REVIEWS
Easter Island was the only South Seas island to remain unclaimed by a European power. Since then, the island has
AFRO-CINEMA IN LATIN AMERICA: A NEW
carried mainly symbolic significance for Chile, captured in the image of the moais (ancient Rapa Nui sculptures), which CULTURAL RENAISSANCE
today decorate everything from Chilean tour guides to adver sements for airlines and telephone companies. by Kwame Dixon

Works Cited PERFORMANCE REVIEWS

Amayo, Enrique. 1998. La polí ca Británica en la Guerra del Pacífico. Lima, Perú: Editorial Horizonte. MAYO TEATRAL
by Marcos Antônio Alexandre

Alonso, Carlos J. 1998. The Burden of Modernity. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

ENCUENTRO DE ARTE-ACCIÓN NOROGACHI 2008:

Diego Barros Arana. 1914. Obras Completas, v. XVI. Historia de la Guerra del Pacífico (1879–1881). San ago: Imprenta, PERFORMANCEAR O MORIR
Litogra a i Encardenación Barcelona. by Gustavo Álvarez Lugo

Sater, William. 1986. Chile and the War of the Pacific. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
CONTEMPORARY CIMARRONA JE: TEATRO DEL
MILENIO´S KIMBAFÁ
Vicuña Mackenna, Benjamin. 1879a. “Aullagas.” El Nuevo Ferrocarril, 28 July: 1. by Cynthia Garza

-----. 1879b. “¡En el Desierto! La Guerra en Africa.” El Nuevo Ferrocarril, 6 October: 1.

MARC BAMUTHI JOSEPH'S THE BREAKS
by Karen Jaime
-----. 1879c. “Fisonomias del ejercito aliado.” El Nuevo ferrocarril. 4 December 1879: 3.

-----. 1880a. “El ejército del Tupac-Amaru.” El Nuevo Ferrocarril, 18 October: 2.

YUYACHKANI, EL ÚLTIMO ENSAYO
by Claudia Salazar
-----. 1880b. “El Clima de Lima. Con relación al organismo i hábitos del soldado chileno.” El Nuevo Ferrocarril, 4
November: 2.
UM CORPO ONDE SÃO PRECARIAMENTE ATADOS
APARATOS TÉCNICOS
-----. 1880c. “El roto en su cuna histórica.” El Nuevo Ferrocarril, 9 December: 2.
by Dolores Galindo

Vitale, Luis. 1993. Interpretación Marxista de la Historia de Chile. Vol. IV. Ascenso y declinación de la burguesía chilena
(1861–1891). San ago: LOM, Liberarte Chile y Ediciones Cela.

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