Chilean Americans

Early Immigration

Prior to the late 20th century, there was no large sustained movement of Chilean immigration to the United States. Along with other South Americans, some Chileans came to California in 1849, drawn by the Gold Rush. Those who remained settled in San Francisco, Stockton, and Sacramento, pursuing craftsman trades or importing goods from Chile. Several San Francisco streets today are named for Chilean settlers, including Larkin, Ellis, Atherton, and Lick. A number of towns in northern California are named for Chilean places as well, including Santiago, Calera, and Valparaiso. Chilean communities were often called “Chilecito”—little Chile. South Americans working the gold fields tended to maintain separate camps, but as the Gold Rush subsided, Chileans assimilated quickly into the California culture, which was largely Spanish-fluent, Catholic, and easier for Chileans to integrate into than northeast Anglo-Protestant culture. Chilean Americans in the late 19th century, during the War of the Pacific, raised money through cultural organizations to send back home to support the families of soldiers and other needy Chileans.

California bandit Joaquin Murrieta (1829–53), who was active in the Gold Rush years, may have been born in Chile or to a mother who had emigrated to Chile. Dime novels portrayed him as a Robin Hood–like figure who was subject to racism and violence by the Anglos of California, and Chilean poet Pablo Neruda focused on Murrieta's possible Chilean heritage in his 1972 play The Splendor and Death of Joaquin Murieta. In the 1998 film The Mask of Zorro, Murrieta is portrayed as the brother of the lead character played by Antonio Banderas, and he is featured as a supporting character in Isabel Allende's 1999 novel Daughter of Fortune. Allende, first cousin once removed to Salvador Allende (president of Chile from 1970 to 1973), was born in Peru where her father served as Chile's ambassador, and later immigrated to the United States during the Pinochet regime, which succeeded her cousin's presidency. Allende's work, which at least overlaps with, if it cannot be placed entirely within, the genre of magical realism, often deals with themes of exile and liberty.

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