Author Archive

Zachary McKiernan

Memorial Paine’s everyday lives: Local stories with universal lessons

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memorial mosaicRaúl Lazo liked to ride horses.  Luis Gaete worked with his hands in the fields.  Juan Leiva believed rural education was a right.  José Castro had a red tractor.  Juan Leonardo, president of the Association of the Relatives of the Disappeared and Executed Detainees of Paine (AFDD-Paine), explained on a sunny countryside morning that this was a principal point of Memorial Paine: to (re)humanize those community members who fell victim to Pinochet’s repression in the rural region for which the memorial is named.  Read More

Bougainvillea and bitter memories: Villa Grimaldi Park for Peace

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Horns honk, people push, patience is short; Santiago is teeming with activity, a modern metropolis in the throes of summer heat.  But 45 minutes from the city’s center sits a quiet place of rest, respite, and reflection, filled with the pleasant sounds of birds in birch trees and the smell of roses and bougainvillea.  Read More

Letters from Chile: The working of history at six sites of memory

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Bike culture in Santiago de Chile has boomed in recent years, and today bicycles are veritable mainstays throughout the city.  The reasons are many: an uptick in Chileans’ environmental consciousness, skyrocketing public transport prices and the slashing of services,  and most importantly, according to the folks at Bicicultura, the cultural dissociation between bicycles and poverty.  Read More

An urgent call to action in Aysén, Chile: Casa Memoria José Domingo Cañas 1367

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[EDITOR’S NOTE:  Zachary McKiernan, a doctoral student in public history at the University of California/Santa Barbara and a regular reviewer for “Off the Wall,” is working on a series of “Letters from Chile,” based on his current dissertation research.  Read More

The reality of fiction in post-Pinochet Chile: Los Archivos del Cardenal

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I have been traveling to and from Chile for various reasons at various times since 2005, acquiring a deep appreciation for the country and its cultural subtleties and social mores—to say nothing of a Spanish accent steeped in Chilean slang.  But if I have learned anything since my initial days, it is that one must exercise sensitivity when approaching the dictatorial past.  Read More

Human rights lessons: The Letelier-Moffitt Monument and an international terrorist attack

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On September 21, 1976, former and now deceased Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet brought international terrorism to the U.S. capital. As part of a plot to eliminate opponents of the military regime which took power in a bloody U.S.-backed coup on September 11, 1973, Pinochet’s crosshairs targeted Orlando Letelier, Chile’s one-time ambassador to the US under President Salvador Allende from 1970-1973.
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Chile's complicated commemoration of 1973

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This September Chile celebrated its 200th birthday. And not unlike other nations that have marked this monumental milestone, the Southern Cone country rolled out the proverbial red carpet to celebrate the event. Throughout the long, thin country festive festivities flourished: fiestas patrias, national dances and dishes, declarations and speeches. Read More