Neighbor haters

I´m surprised by how much animosity Chileans have for their neighbors. They´re not shy about hating Peruvians, Bolivians, and Argentinians. I haven´t heard them say anthing bad about Antarcticans or Australians, so it seems like only land-border neighbors are a problem.

In my intermediate classes, we worked on reading maps, cardinal directions (north, west, etc.), and asking for and giving directions. When I asked them to tell me what is north of Chile, they sneered as they spat out the work Peru. Ditto for Argentina to the west. I was taken aback by the the ugly sight of hate on their faces. I asked them to raise their hands if they´d ever been to Peru. Zero. How about Bolivia? Zero. How about Argentina. One guy. I said with as much calm as I could muster, "So you guys hate people you´ve never met who live in places you´ve never been?" They didn´t say anything and I wonder if they could tell I was thisclose to launching an anti-prejudice rant.

I mentioned something to a Chilean teacher at the institute and she said that Chileans are justified in hating their neighbors because of "bad things" they did in the past and because their neighbors hate them back. Hmmm. Then she said with what seemed like self-righteous pride that Chileans are better than their neighbors because, in fact, Chileans hate them less than they hate Chileans. Get out the hate-o-meter, this might be a close one!

The xenophobia extends to Asians and gay people, too. All Asians are called "chinos" even though that´s like calling all South Americans "brasileños". I´ve tried to explain this, but my logic apparently fails to translate. I did put the kibosh on people using "gay" as a pejorative in my class. I said in an unmistakably don´t-mess-with-me voice that I don´t care if that´s acceptable in Chile, that I find that very offensive, and that I won´t tolerate it in my class. I heard one student say thank you. Is he gay? I don´t know and I don´t care. It´s enough that he didn´t want to hear that garbage either.

IMPORTANT This post is in no way trying to minimize the prejudice in the U.S. My home country is just as guilty of hating strangers as anyone else. To everyone in the U.S., I say:

Raise your hands if you ...
-- have ever visited Mexico (2 points if it wasn´t a resort)
-- have any friends from Latin America
-- know someone who has lost a job to an undocumented immigrant
-- have never benefitted from the hard work and low-wages of most Mexican immigrants
Okay, now raise your hands if you ...
-- could find Iraq, Jordan, or Lebanon on a map
-- know anything about the Qur´ān
-- have friends who are Iranian, Syrian, or Saudi Arabian
-- have ever set foot in a mosque

I can´t raise my hand for all of these. Can you? Let´s buck the trend. Let´s not hate our neighbors who, if we´re honest, are really strangers to us. And let´s not sit idly by as other people make jokes or disparaging remarks about "outsiders". Let´s admit how much we don´t know ... and humbly begin to learn.