1. How present is the legacy of former leaders like Allende and Pinochet in everyday Chilean life, even outside of political discourse?
2. Is there anyone I wouldn't have heard of in Chilean history that you think is notable or admirable?
1.- Allende and Pinochet are very present. A lot of people have pictures of them in their homes, Salvador is a very common name among people with leftist families and the experiences of people under their governments are the single biggest issue that has shaped political views across generations. When I was going to celebrate yesterday, one of my neighbors was hearing the last speech of Allende.
I think this is a good article to get a grasp of it:
https://www.elmundo.es/internacional/2021/12/20/61c01281e4d4d8bd318b45af.html, ran it through google translate.
El Mundo is a very conservative Spanish newspaper, so the report is framed in a way that says "hey, look at the left still so obsessed with Pinochet", but I would say that the testimonies of the people interviewed are fairly telling.
2.- Manuel Rodriguez, the "people's hero" of the Independence war. He was one of the few that wasn't an authoritarian elitist and actually wanted a somewhat democratic independent Chile. His guerrilla tactis against the spanish army are also badass.
Would you ever live in a precinct that voted for Kast?
In Chile precincts draw people from every part of the city, they are assigned to you randomly (very stupid, I know). Answering the spirit of the question... maybe? My father's family lives in Galvarino, part of the Araucanía and usually votes for the right and I think is nice, but my family there is mostly leftist, and is different visiting them in summer than actually living there. I was thinking yesterday that I was glad that my city is so left-wing and that we could celebrate and most people were with us.
Now, most fancy places to live are obviously right-leaning, so I guess I could live with that if the place is pretty enough, but I'm very into politics, I think I would be fairly uncomfortable living in very conservative places for a long time, I would have to actually experience that to tell if that if is a deal-breaker.
What do you like about Chile?
Mmm, this is actually a hard question. For one, I like how diverse it is in term of climates and landscapes, you can find ice fields, deserts, lakes, rainforests, lovely agricultural valleys. It's pretty neat that If I really wanted I could go to the snow in the morning and to the beach in the evening.
More broadly speaking, despite the huge inequality, Chile is still fairly developed by Latin American standards, and sometimes is easy to forget that we have it better than most. That is not an excuse to stop fighting for a better and more equal country, however
