Chile is used to welcoming migrants. But Haitians don’t always get a warm reception
SANTIAGO, CHILE — The graying comic yells “Hola negrito” into the crowd gathered at the Plaza de Armas, delivers some one-liners and then spies a couple eating vanilla ice cream.
“Where are you from?” Cristián Matias asks the man and woman, who proudly respond: Haiti.
“It’s a good thing you’re not eating chocolito, otherwise you would eat your fingers,” the street performer quips.
The mostly Chilean crowd laughs. The couple look offended.
Moments later, the comedian drops another insult, this time shouting “Masisi” — a Creole pejorative for gay men — as two young Haitian men cut through the masses.
Matias insisted later to a reporter that he’s not a racist and that the jokes are all in good fun. But Haitians, and experts on racism and discrimination in Chile, say such crude remarks are the kind of subtle — and not so subtle — acts of humiliation and racism the black migrants are routinely subjected to in the South American nation.
“Racism is really strong in Chile right now,” said Yvenet Dorsainvil, a Haitian immigrant and author who moved to Chile nine years ago to attend college. “It’s so strong that sometimes you think people are from another century.”
March 6, 2018
Category: DR News |