CU Boulder showing of film, followed by panel discussion including Chileans who grew up in the dictatorship, will address the 50-year legacy of the 1973 military coup and Augusto Pinochet’s 17-year rule

Fifty years ago this month, Gen. Augusto Pinochet led a military coup to overthrow democratically elected Chilean President Salvador Allende and his Popular Unity government.

In the almost 17 years that followed, the Chilean people lived under a brutal and violent dictatorship during which an or executed, tens of thousands more were arrested and often tortured and an estimated .

Pinochet banned political parties, had national electoral registries destroyed, privatized government social welfare programs and redrafted the constitution, which had been in place since 1925, to give himself sole authority to curtail individual rights.

Though Pinochet , or yes/no vote by everyone in a country, to determine whether he should be president for eight more years, the legacy of the coup and his dictatorship continue resonating in Chile, 50 years later.

Julio Sepúlveda grew up in Chillán, Chile, during the dictatorship.

“The dictatorship left a lot of scars,” says Julio Sepúlveda, a University of Colorado Boulder associate professor of geological sciences and Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research fellow who was born during the dictatorship and grew up in Chillán, Chile. “It’s a trauma, and it’s a trauma for society and for individuals and families. You didn’t have to be alive in 1973 to suffer that trauma—many generations were impacted and still are impacted.”

Sepúlveda will be part of a following a screening of “The Coup in Santiago: The Last Days of Salvador Allende.” The event, hosted by the CU Boulder Latin American and Latinx Studies Center, will focus on the complex social, political and economic legacy of the coup and dictatorship.

“When I was a child, we didn’t speak about it very much because I think people were afraid,” says Viviana Huiliñir-Curio, a PhD student in the CU Boulder Department of Geography who also will be a panelist Wednesday.

“It was super taboo, and I think some people decided they couldn’t talk about it because someone could hear you and put in a call to the carabineros (the national law enforcement) saying that you were a Marxist.”

Growing up in a dictatorship

Both Huiliñir-Curio and Sepúlveda were born during the dictatorship, beginning school when nationalism and Chilean identity were strongly emphasized even to young children. Huiliñir-Curio, who grew up in Temuco, Chile, belongs to the Mapuche indigenous group. However, because of policies of discrimination against indigenous groups during the dictatorship, she didn’t grow up speaking—or even learning—her native language of Mapudungun.

“Persecution was part of the experience during the dictatorship,” she says. “The older generations preferred not to teach Mapudungun because for them, it was something that could be dangerous. And in school, I never heard the word ‘dictatorship,’ it was always ‘the government of Pinochet.’ I realize now that the education in school during the dictatorship tried to reinforce distorted ideas about how Pinochet brought development and progress to the country, and it was very influenced by the U.S. culture of the American dream and reinforcing patriotic feelings and national symbols. And indigenous people in these stories were only part of the past, impacting our identities, while discrimination and racism were part of daily life.”

For Viviana Huiliñir-Curio, a member of the Mapuche indigenous group, state-sanctioned discriminiation was part of daily life during the dictatorship.

However, she also remembers growing up singing the songs of Quelentaro and , a folk singer and activist who was tortured and murdered by the military junta in 1973. “I didn’t totally understand the meaning,” she says, “but they wrote songs about injustice, about inequality and the impoverishment of Mapuche and Chilean campesinos (peasants) and the experiences of low-income families living in the ��Dz���������ó�� (marginalized urban neighborhoods). They were songs of resistance.”

As a child during the dictatorship, Sepúlveda says he wasn’t aware of the political and economic nuances that were the daily reality for Chileans, but he was aware of divisions even within families—that Pinochet supporters could report anti-Pinochet family members to authorities.

He also has an uncle who was detained and tortured; an aunt's husband who was in Chile’s FBI-equivalent helped trace and gain his uncle's release.

‘It’s a part of us now’

Living in the United States has also given Huiliñir-Curio and Sepúlveda distinct perspectives on the legacy of the dictatorship and how it continues affecting Chile today. , some as , detailing U.S. involvement in the events leading up to the coup, generally justified as preventing the spread of communism. Also this summer, Chilean President Gabriel Boric to track down the desaparecidos, or disappeared, who were never found.

However, Sepúlveda mentions that Chile—like many countries, including the United States—is seeing a surge in right-wing rhetoric and extremism, “and we’re hearing many similar things that were said before the coup, as well: socialism is hurting the economy, the government wants to take our land, society is more violent and we’re not safe. These are things you hear in America, too.”

In September 2022, Chilean voters rejected a referendum for a new, progressive constitution, keeping the one written during the dictatorship in place, and in May conservatives won the majority of seats on a 50-member commission to redraft the constitution.

“The right wing has really started emphasizing policies of fear, creating a sense of chaos, telling people that the left wing is going to bring us back to the ‘70s, to socialism,” Sepúlveda says. “If you’re writing policy for social benefits, for access to education, if you support those initiatives, then you get labeled a communist. The far right is creating a campaign of fear that we’ll become the new Venezuela, which is not the case.

“Chile is a diverse society, and it’s difficult to see how countries that have so much good in them are being corroded by a system that is so rigged, by a narrative that is so convincing.”

However, Sepúlveda says he sees hope in the Estallido Social protests of the previous four years that brought hundreds of thousands to the streets against social inequality. Further, Huiliñir-Curio says she sees hope in the ever-growing focus on identity, political memory and indigenous rights, in people’s willingness to speak out against economic and social inequality shaped by the dictatorship and in younger generations' using education and artistic expression, among other tools, to not allow the lessons of the past 50 years to be forgotten.

“It’s a very complicated legacy, and there are those who say we need to move on, we need to put it behind us,” Huiliñir-Curio says. “The denialism from political parties that do not officially recognize the damage provoked by the dictatorship is difficult to talk about, forgive and forget. It’s a part of us now, it’s a part of who we are, and we must ask every day what we learn from this history, this reality.”

Top image: Soldiers force presidential palace employees to the ground during the September 1973 coup; photo by Chas Gerretsen for Gamma

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The Nahuatl Evening features speakers, performances and books on display, and will formally recognize the additions to the University Libraries’ collections.

The University Libraries and the Latin American Studies Center at the University of Colorado Boulder will celebrate the addition of over 100 book titles by indigenous authors and about Andean topics to the libraries’ collections in the Nahuatl Evening on Oct. 28 from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.

The Nahuatl Evening will feature performances by Mexican Nahuatl poet Fabiola Carrillo Tieco (above), the Boulder Children’s Chorale (at the top of the page, photo by Eugene Yen) and a Quechua musical group.

The Nahuatl Evening features speakers, performances and books on display, and will formally recognize the additions to the University Libraries’ collections including children’s books, adult literature, poetry and more.

The initiative to expand the libraries collection started back in 2019 when a student asked Romance Languages Librarian Kathia Ibacache for help locating books written by Indigenous authors in the libraries. Ibacache found the request eye-opening.

“University libraries are important participants in keeping alive traditions from around the world that are at risk of dying out,” said Ibacache, who worked to expand the collections and . “As librarians, it’s appropriate for us to strengthen library collections by adding works about indigenous languages and cultures, especially those from indigenous authors so that these languages, creators and works continue to be part of the global narrative.”

At the Nahuatl Evening, three speakers, including Ibacache and Director of the Latin American Studies Center Leila Gomez, will talk about the research, courses and conferences at CU Boulder in support of Latin American Indigenous languages and cultures. The event will also feature performances by Mexican Nahuatl poet Fabiola Carrillo Tieco, the Boulder Children’s Chorale and a Quechua musical group. The Boulder Children’s Chorale consists of four ensembles for students from kindergarten through ninth grade. They focus on helping expose children to diverse, quality choral repertoire while building their abilities as musicians and a love for singing! Their two auditioned ensembles, Bel Canto and Volante, will be performing “Koonex” and “Macochi Cochi Pitentzin.”

Dozens of books collected as part of Ibacache’s work to expand the libraries’ indigenous language titles will be available for attendees to browse and check-out.

Discover the role that universities can play in the revitalization of Latin American indigenous languages and cultures Thursday, October 28 from 5 p.m. - 6 p.m. in the Center for British and Irish Studies on the fifth floor of Norlin Library. The event is free and open to the public.

This release was republished with permission from University Libraries.

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The week will include educational panels and roundtables, hip-hop concerts, poetry readings, cooking lessons, film screenings and more

Indigenous artists, advocates, community leaders, educators, scholars and professionals will spend next week celebrating Indigenous languages, cultures, activities and cultures.

is a week of virtual events hosted by the Latin American Studies Center at the University of Colorado Boulder from March 1-5. All events are free and open to the public, and attendees may register on for one or all of the 14 scheduled events, which feature 49 speakers.

During the week, experts from CU Boulder and around the world aim to celebrate the “ever-renewed presence of Latin American Indigenous languages and cultures in daily life, activities and professions.” 

Planned panels and roundtables cover food sovereignty, bilingual education, social movements, land reclamation, migration, environmental justice, university-community partnerships, broadcasting and communication. 

The week will also include hip-hop concerts, poetry readings, cooking lessons, film screenings and more.

A full list of speakers, which includes Charlie Uruchima, the co-founder of ​Kichwa Hatari​, the first Kichwa radio project in the U.S., Liberato Kani, a Peruvian Quechua rapper and composer, and Moira Ivana Millán, a Mapuche novelist and co-founder of the Movement of Indigenous Women for Good Living, is available .

CU Boulder’s Latin American Studies Center is a home for research, teaching and discussion on Latin America and Latinx Studies on campus and is the host for the event. 

​The center fosters cross-disciplinary research and education through its research clusters, Quechua language training, community events, new curriculum and outreach collaborations, strengthening links with Latin America and with communities of Latin American origin in the United States.

Celebrating the Indigenous Americas is sponsored by the Latin American Studies Center, the U.S. Department of Education, Title VI IFLE (International and Foreign Language Education), the Center for Native and Indigenous Studies, University Libraries, the American Music Research Center, the CU Boulder Museum of Natural History and the Center for Humanities & the Arts.

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A widely spoken Indigenous language of the Americas to fulfill undergraduate requirement starting spring 2021.

Since her debut in 2014, has become a huge hit with kids, featured not just on television and in books, but also on countless lunchboxes and school backpacks. Bilingual Dora travels the world seeking adventure with her monkey companion Boots, learning about interesting people, places and animals, and often helping others in need. 

And when Paramount Pictures released the first live-action Dora adventure, , in 2019, the little heroine had to expand her linguistic repertoire beyond Spanish and English to Quechua, an Indigenous language spoken in the Andes region of South America.

“Besides Spanish, Quechua is the most widely spoken language in the Andes, with about seven to eight million speakers,” says Leila Gómez, associate professor of Spanish and director of the Latin American Studies Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. 

At the top of the page: A child in traditional garb in Cusco, Peru. Above: Leila Gómez, associate professor of Spanish and director of the Latin American Studies Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. 

A native of the Andes in Argentina, while traveling frequently in the region for her research on archeological sites, Gómez studied Quechua in Cusco, Peru, becoming fluent. 

“While I was doing research for my book on Yale historian Hiram Bingham and his explorations around Machu Picchu, I wanted to learn the local language, and not only the language, but also the philosophy that comes with it, the worldview of the people who speak Quechua,” she says.

And now, thanks to the Latin American Studies Center that Gómez directs, CU Boulder will become the first institution in this part of the country to offer Quechua as an option to fulfill the university’s undergraduate language requirement. It’s also the first Indigenous language to hold that distinction at CU Boulder.

“I know of a few other universities that offer Quechua or other Indigenous languages, but the highlight of this new program is that these courses will be offered in a sequence so they could be used to fulfil a core requirement,” she says. 

Quechua instruction will begin spring semester of 2021, courtesy of a grant from the U.S. Department of Education to help preserve endangered languages, Gómez says. The grant will cover the instructor’s salary, training for professors, campus and community events, national and international speakers and scholarships for students to study abroad.

To launch the new program, , coordinator of the Quechua language program at the University of Pennsylvania, spoke remotely to a CU Boulder audience on October 17 about his role as a consultant on Dora and the Lost City of Gold.

“Américo made sure the script was respectful of the actual grammar and phonetics of Quechua, and not something merely folkloric or exotic, as we have seen in Hollywood,” Gómez says.

The film’s star, Isabela Moner, now 19, had to learn to speak the language for the role. 

Many, many disciplines and departments can work with Quechua, from anthropology to international affairs and professional programs."

“Between scenes, I'd call my great aunt in Peru to ask her about certain phrases and how to say them in Quechua,” Moner Forbes magazine in 2019. “I'm still trying to grasp the fact that Peru is finally being represented so largely in Hollywood because it never has before.”

The Latin American Studies Center also will host Indigenous Languages and Cultures Week in March 2021, featuring a host of academics, cultural producers and activists. The event is likely to be remote, due to continuing concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“One advantage to that is that we can bring to the conversation people who are from very far away—South America and Europe, as well as the U.S. and Canada,” Gómez says.

Gómez is particularly excited about the interdisciplinary possibilities of the Quechua program.

“Many, many disciplines and departments can work with Quechua, from anthropology to international affairs and professional programs,” she says. “Learning Quechua can improve students’ career prospects in fields such as art, engineering, international development and more. More importantly, we are diversifying our curriculum, opening it to non-Western thought, and making it more inclusive of all peoples of the Americas.”

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