Flickr, by Enrique Campo

Ser Migrante en Chile

Ser migrante en Chile: Se migra todos los días, cada día.
Chile, South America

Story by Juan Carlos Pérez Jerez. Edited by Melaina Dyck
Published on June 6, 2020.

This story is also available in GB ar ir it



Listen to this story:


Ser migrante en Chile: Se migra todos los días, cada día.

Soy Juan Carlos, tengo 49 años. Nací en Colombia. Vivo en Chile hace 22 años. Casi la mitad de mi vida he estado fuera del lugar en que nací.

Siempre quise conocer otros lugares. Colombia en los años 80 y 90 era un desafío: La violencia del narcotráfico, la guerra entre el ejército y la guerrilla, la aparición de los paramilitares, el fracaso del estado. En fin, para muchos Colombianxs, era un país en guerra y salir era la única forma de sobrevivir física y emocionalmente.

Comencé a viajar gracias al teatro, con una obra que trataba sobre un viaje. La obra, ‘El Hilo de Ariadna’ era el viaje de Teseo al interior de un laberinto.[1] Era un viaje al interior de sí mismo, un viaje de auto descubrimiento. Así es para muchos de nosotros que migramos: El minotauro viaja dentro de nosotros.

Mi primer viaje fue a Chile, en 1993. Después, viajé a Europa y así se fue instalando el espíritu viajero, trashumante y nómade. Cuando se descubre una parte del mundo se quiere conocer todo. En 1996, terminé la universidad y quería conocer América en bicicleta. Viajé con mi hermano por la Panamericana. Ecuador, Perú, Chile, Brasil, Bolivia, Venezuela eran los puertos que queríamos recorrer. Al final, el camino nos trajo hasta Chile y aquí me quedé. El amor es una fuerza poderosa. Las ganas de vivir en paz también.

En 1997, me instalé en Santiago de Chile. No era fácil ser migrante en Chile. Yo tenía algunxs conocidxs que me ofrecieron un lugar donde vivir y comer. En aquellos años estaba el estigma contra lxs Colombianxs por el narcotráfico y la violencia, pero al mismo tiempo estaba la idea de que lxs colombianxs hablamos el mejor español de Hispanoamérica (por lo menos eso creíamos lxs colombianxs) así que mi acento era un arma de doble filo.

Tengo el amor de Ximena, Leonardo y del gato, tengo trabajo, amigxs y una vida. En estos años he podido apreciar el cambio de Chile y el aporte que hacemos los migrantes.

Hoy Chile vive un momento histórico: la Constitución heredada de la dictadura será cambiada por una en la que lxs chilenxs y algunxs inmigrantes podemos participar[2], pero también el COVID-19 ha hecho que muchxs hayan decidido el retorno a sus países. Así estamos en viajes paralelos: uno político, otro al interior de sí mismos y otro de retorno al origen. Parece que, una vez viajerx, siempre viajerxs.


Notas

[1] El mito griego de Teseo y el hilo de Ariadna nos habla de la forma como el amor nos ofrece una vía para vencer a nuestros monstruos internos (Minotauro) y encontrar la salida de los laberintos. También hace referencia al sentido trágico de la existencia.

[2] Según la ley chilena los extranjeros que cumplan más de 5 años desde la obtención de la visa de permanencia definitiva en el país, pueden participar como votantes en las distintas elecciones


How does this story make you feel?

Follow-up

Do you have any questions after reading this story? Do you want to follow-up on what you've just read? Get in touch with our team to learn more! Send an email to
[email protected].

Talk about this Story

Please enable cookies to view the comments powered by Disqus.

Share your story

Every story we share is another perspective on a complex topic like migration, gender and sexuality or liberation. We believe that these personal stories are important to better understand what's going on in our globalised society - and to better understand each other. That's because we are convinced that the more we understand about each other, the easier it will be for us to really talk to one another, to get closer - and to maybe find solutions for the issues that affect us all. 

Do you want to share your story? Then have a look here for more info.

Share Your Story

Subscribe to our Monthly Newsletter

Stay up to date with new stories on Correspondents of the World by subscribing to our monthly newsletter:

* indicates required

Follow us on Social Media

Juan Carlos Pérez Jerez

Juan Carlos Pérez Jerez

Hi! My name is Juan. I am 49 years old, and I'm a graphic designer and university professor at Universidad Diego Portales in Chile. I hold a Masters Degree in Political Communication. I am also an amateur actor. Originally I'm from Bogota, Columbia, but I lived in Santiago de Chile for the past 22 years.

Other Stories in Español

ERROR: No additional fieldsERROR: No author image foundERROR: No additional fieldsERROR: No author image found
>

A story by
2 min

Read more...


>

A story by
1 min

Read more...


Show all

Get involved

At Correspondents of the World, we want to contribute to a better understanding of one another in a world that seems to get smaller by the day - but somehow neglects to bring people closer together as well. We think that one of the most frequent reasons for misunderstanding and unnecessarily heated debates is that we don't really understand how each of us is affected differently by global issues.

Our aim is to change that with every personal story we share.

Share Your Story

Community Worldwide

Correspondents of the World is not just this website, but also a great community of people from all over the world. While face-to-face meetings are difficult at the moment, our Facebook Community Group is THE place to be to meet other people invested in Correspondents of the World. We are currently running a series of online-tea talks to get to know each other better.

Join Our Community

EXPLORE TOPIC Migration

Global Issues Through Local Eyes

We are Correspondents of the World, an online platform where people from all over the world share their personal stories in relation to global development. We try to collect stories from people of all ages and genders, people with different social and religious backgrounds and people with all kinds of political opinions in order to get a fuller picture of what is going on behind the big news.

Our Correspondents

At Correspondents of the World we invite everyone to share their own story. This means we don't have professional writers or skilled interviewers. We believe that this approach offers a whole new perspective on topics we normally only read about in the news - if at all. If you would like to share your story, you can find more info here.

Share Your Story

Our Editors

We acknowledge that the stories we collect will necessarily be biased. But so is news. Believing in the power of the narrative, our growing team of awesome editors helps correspondents to make sure that their story is strictly about their personal experience - and let that speak for itself.

Become an Editor

Vision

At Correspondents of the World, we want to contribute to a better understanding of one another in a world that seems to get smaller by the day - but somehow neglects to bring people closer together as well. We think that one of the most frequent reasons for misunderstanding and unnecessarily heated debates is that we don't really understand how each of us is affected differently by global issues.

Our aim is to change that with every personal story we share.

View Our Full Vision & Mission Statement

Topics

We believe in quality over quantity. To give ourselves a focus, we started out to collect personal stories that relate to our correspondents' experiences with six different global topics. However, these topics were selected to increase the likelihood that the stories of different correspondents will cover the same issues and therefore illuminate these issues from different perspectives - and not to exclude any stories. If you have a personal story relating to a global issue that's not covered by our topics, please still reach out to us! We definitely have some blind spots and are happy to revise our focus and introduce new topics at any point in time. 

Environment

Discussions about the environment often center on grim, impersonal figures. Among the numbers and warnings, it is easy to forget that all of these statistics actually also affect us - in very different ways. We believe that in order to understand the immensity of environmental topics and global climate change, we need the personal stories of our correspondents.

Gender and Sexuality

Gender is the assumption of a "normal". Unmet expectations of what is normal are a world-wide cause for violence. We hope that the stories of our correspondents will help us to better understand the effects of global developments related to gender and sexuality, and to reveal outdated concepts that have been reinforced for centuries.

Migration

Our correspondents write about migration because it is a deeply personal topic that is often dehumanized. People quickly become foreigners, refugees - a "they". But: we have always been migrating, and we always will. For millions of different reasons. By sharing personal stories about migration, we hope to re-humanize this global topic.

Liberation

We want to support the demand for justice by spotlighting the personal stories of people who seek liberation in all its different forms. Our correspondents share their individual experiences in creating equality. We hope that for some this will be an encouragement to continue their own struggle against inequality and oppression - and for some an encouragement to get involved.

Education

Education is the newest addition to our themes. We believe that education, not only formal but also informal, is one of the core aspects of just and equal society as well as social change. Our correspondents share their experiences and confrontations about educational inequalities, accessibility issues and influence of societal norms and structures. 

Corona Virus

2020 is a year different from others before - not least because of the Corona pandemic. The worldwide spread of a highly contagious virus is something that affects all of us in very different ways. To get a better picture of how the pandemic's plethora of explicit and implicit consequences influences our everyday life, we share lockdown stories from correspondents all over the world.

Growing Fast

Although we started just over a year ago, Correspondents of the World has a quickly growing community of correspondents - and a dedicated team of editors, translators and country managers.

94

Correspondents

113

Stories

57

Countries

433

Translations

Contact

Correspondents of the World is as much a community as an online platform. Please feel free to contact us for whatever reason!

Message Us

Message on WhatsApp

Call Us

Joost: +31 6 30273938