Flight from Chile

An Oral History of Exile

Thomas Wright, Rody Oñate, Irene Hodgson, Irene Hodgson

• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Year: 2023
• ISBN:
  9780826365491
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Latin American & Caribbean History
• Index: History

2023 marks the fiftieth anniversary of General Pinochet's coup on September 11, 1973. During the wave of mass arrests, torture, and executions that followed, people began fleeing Chile. Over the next fifteen years some two hundred thousand Chileans sought exile in countries around the world. Out of their anguish and anger come these moving and powerful testimonies of their fractured lives—the first oral history of the Chilean diaspora, now revised and updated. Many who fled had been tortured, and they clung to the principle that the dictatorship was an evil that had to be destroyed. But their zeal and solidarity with other refugees often failed to sustain families. Many marriages collapsed, and children lost interest in their native land and culture. After civilian rule returned in 1990, many returning exiles felt estranged from a homeland forever changed. This timely update of the 1998 collection continues to remind us of the fracturing legacy and enduring oppression of usurpation and authoritarian rule long after its time has passed.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface to the 2023 Edition
• Introduction to the First Edition
• Translator’s Introduction
• Acknowledgments
• 1. The Diaspora in Context: Chilean Politics, 1970–1994
• 2. Prelude to Exile: The Military Coup
• 3. Paths to Exile
• 4. Resistance and Exile
• 5. The Diaspora: Exile on Four Continents
• 6. The Diaspora: Exile in Western Europe
• 7. Political Life in Exile: Fighting the Dictatorship from Afar
• 8. Exiles’ Return, 1978–1988: Struggle on Many Fronts
• 9. Return to a New Exile, 1988–1994
• Selected Bibliography
• List of Interviews