Chilean Americans (
Spanish: chileno-americanos, chileno-estadounidenses, norteamericanos de origen chileno or estadounidenses de origen chileno) are
Americans who have full or partial origin from
Chile.
According to the 2010
U.S. census, the population of Chilean ancestry was 126,810. Chilean Americans are the fourth smallest
Latino group from South America, and the fifth smallest overall. Most Chileans migrating to the United States settle in metropolitan areas. Chilean Americans live mainly in the
New York,
Miami,
Los Angeles,
San Francisco and the
Washington D.C. metropolitan areas. There are significant communities found in
Queens in
New York City;
Northern New Jersey;
Miami, Florida; and
Nassau County, New York. After the 1960s, Chileans began to immigrate more for economic or academic rather than political reasons, and that continues into the modern day.
History
Chileans and other South Americans have been present in the state of
California since the
1850s gold rush. Not all Chileans made it to the gold fields. Some remained in
San Francisco,
San Jose,
Sacramento, and
Stockton where they frequently worked as bricklayers, bakers, or seamen. Some with capital established themselves in various businesses, particularly the importation of flour and mining equipment from Chile. In the cities most tended to congregate and live in specific areas in the poorer sections of town. In the gold fields they lived in separate camp sites. In the summer of 1849 Chileans constituted the majority of the population of
Sonora. Chileans frequently worked their mines as group efforts. When the placer gold ran out around Sonora the Chileans were amongst the first miners in California to extract gold from quartz.[2] Historical remnants of those settlements influenced the names of locations such as
Chileno Valley in
Marin County,
Chili Gulch in
Calaveras and
Chili Bar in
Placer which was named after Chilean road builders. Names of Chilean towns and places are often found in the names of streets in Northern California: Valparaiso, Santiago, and Calera.[3][4]
After
Allende was overthrown and a military regime was established in 1973, a large exodus of Chileans took place. Most fled to European countries, but a small group did emigrate to the United States. The U.S. government took these Chileans as refugees under a program for "political parolees."
Many of San Francisco's streets carry names of former residents of Chile: Atherton, Ellis, Lick, Larkin, and others. Chilean women also left their names: Mina and Clementina. Manuel Briseño, an early journalist in the mines was one of the founders of the
San Diego Union. Juan Evangelista Reyes was a Sacramento pioneer as were the Luco brothers. Luis Felipe Ramírez was one of the City Fathers in
Marysville. The Leiva family owned at one time, much of the land in Marin County, including
Fort Ross. In 1975, Chilean exiles of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship established
La Peña Cultural Center in
Berkeley, California, which is to this day the largest Chilean cultural center in the United States.
Chilean Americans have achieved many skills as entrepreneurs, judges, musicians, and others.
As of 2022, no Chilean American has yet been elected to the United States Congress.
Motives of immigration
Most Chilean immigration to the U.S. has occurred largely since the 1990s.[5] For the most part, Chileans left as either
political asylees and
refugees first during the presidency of the Marxist
Salvador Allende or for
economic reasons; the involvement of the United States in Salvador Allende's overthrow in 1973 and supporting the
dictatorship of
Augusto Pinochet, led to more political exiles fleeing from Chile to the U.S., as well as other countries.[6]
Also, there have been others that have emigrated to seek
higher education and career development opportunities. Since the
1960 Valdivia earthquake and with
2010 Chile earthquake, many Chileans have pursued economic opportunities in the United States, with
Paterson,
New Jersey, representing an increasingly common destination.
Many of the Pinochet-era immigrants were of middle or upper class origin. A significant proportion of them arrived with advanced educations and well-developed skills. They had contacts with other Chilean exiles and a sense of identity from their shared commitment to a democratic Chile. After a period of adjustment, many of them were able to pursue skilled jobs or professions. Unfortunately, others, who lacked skills or whose professional certifications were not recognized in the United States, were forced to take low-level jobs in which they were unable to use their skills. Some had been politically active students or union leaders in Chile who did not enter the United States with easily transferable skills.[5]
The second major arrival into the United States was mainly for economic or academic opportunities. Yet, in general, acquiring a
U.S. Visa requires the applicant to have a stable economic background, so most Chileans emigrating to the United States since 1990 have done so mostly for study purposes or to further their academic backgrounds.[5]
Identity
Chileans are mostly diverse, their ancestry can be fully West/South European as well as mixed with Indigenous and other European heritage. They commonly identify themselves as both Latino and white.[7] Some Chilean-owned stores and restaurants advertise as French and Italian.[7] Many often prefer living in white suburban neighborhoods in the U.S., and have a strong sense of family.[7]
Demographics
Population by state
The 10 U.S. states with the largest population of Chilean Americans are:
Most Chileans have customs that blend well into the American lifestyle. The Chilean workday is similar to the American workday, with the regular businessperson working 45 hours a week[8] from 8:30 am to 6:30 pm with a lunch break, as well as possibly staying behind at work for a few hours to work overtime. However, many Chileans outside Santiago are used to going home for lunch, something not as common in the U.S. and with Chilean Americans.
Unlike the "normal" American diet, Chileans are used to having four meals a day. Breakfast, lunch, tea (or onces) at about five o'clock, and a late dinner. Many people actually have onces during the early evening hours and skip dinner. Surprisingly, Chile is one of the only Latin countries where tea is a more popular drink than coffee, differing from American consumption trends as well.
Of the 857,781 Chilean
expatriates around the globe, 13.3% (114,084) live in the United States, 50.1% reside in
Argentina, 4.9% in
Sweden, and around 2% each in
Canada and
Australia, with the remaining 18% being scattered in smaller numbers across the globe, particularly the countries of the
European Union.[11][12][13]
^Heredia, Juanita (2012). "South American Latino/a Writers in the United States". The Routledge Companion to Latino/A Literature: 436–444.
^
abcGomez, Luís (2018). "Chilean Americans: A Micro Cultural Latinx Group". Latinx Immigrants, International and Cultural Psychology. International and Cultural Psychology: 33–52.
doi:
10.1007/978-3-319-95738-8_3.
ISBN978-3-319-95737-1 – via Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
Burson, Phyllis J. "Chilean Americans." Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America, edited by Thomas Riggs, (3rd ed., vol. 1, Gale, 2014), pp. 479–490.
online
Pike, F. B. Chile and the United States: 1880–1962 (University of Notre Dame Press, 1963).
Gomez, L.A. (2018). "Chilean Americans: A micro cultural Latinx group." In
Patricia Arredondo (Ed.), Latinx immigrants: Transcending acculturation and xenophobia (pp. 33–52). Springer.