A teenage boy who came to the United States as a refugee from Augusto Pinochet's Chile found that he and his family were welcomed with open arms. Now, nearly 50 years later, he wonders how the country he fell in love with could have started to resemble the country he left.
NEW YORK – Forty-eight years ago, my mother, my sister, and I arrived in the United States as political refugees from General Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile. Though we came from Latin America, no one accused us of being rapists or of eating cats and dogs. Immigration officials were kind. After we found a small apartment, the neighbors brought us pies, and the lady upstairs offered to teach me how to touch-type.
NEW YORK – Forty-eight years ago, my mother, my sister, and I arrived in the United States as political refugees from General Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile. Though we came from Latin America, no one accused us of being rapists or of eating cats and dogs. Immigration officials were kind. After we found a small apartment, the neighbors brought us pies, and the lady upstairs offered to teach me how to touch-type.