Chilean American - Chilean American History

Chilean American History

Chileans and other South Americans had long been present in the state of California since the 1850s gold rush. Not all Chileans made it to the gold fields. Some remained in San Francisco, Sacramento and Stockton where they frequently worked as bricklayers, bakers, or seamen. Some with capital established themselves in various businesses, particularly the importation of flour and mining equipment from Chile. In the cities most tended to congregate and live in specific areas in the poorer sections of town. In the gold fields they lived in separate camp sites. In the summer of 1849 Chileans constituted the major element in the population of Sonora. Chileans frequently worked their mines as group efforts. When the placer gold ran out around Sonora the Chileans were some of the first miners in California to extract gold from quartz.

The descendants of these Chileno Forty-Niners can not only be proud of the achievements of their forefathers but of their own: Entrepreneurs, judges, congressmen and other people who have left their tracks in the History of the State. Many of the San Francisco Streets carry names of former residents of Chile: Atherton, Ellis, Lick, Larkin and others. Chilean women also left their names: Mina and Clementina. Manuel Briseño, an early journalist in the mines was one of the founders of the San Diego Union. Juan Evangelista Reyes was a Sacramento pioneer as were the Luco brothers. Luis Felipe Ramírez was one of the City Fathers in Marysville. The Leiva family owned at one time, much of the land in Marin County, including Fort Ross. Chileans integrated quickly and like their "Little Chiles," they were soon absorbed by the ever-growing State of California, becoming part of the mainstream of the present population of the Golden State.

Every mining town had its own Chilecito or little Chile. Historical remnants of those settlements influenced the names of locations such as Chileno Valley in Marin County, Chili Gulch in Calaveras and Chili Bar in Placer which was named after Chilean road builders. Names of Chilean towns and places are often found in the names of streets in Northern California: Valparaiso, Santiago, and Calera.

It is disputed that famous Californio or Spanish/Mexican Californian bandit Joaquin Murrieta may have been born in Chile, and his mother was of Cherokee Indian ancestry whose family settled in Chile in the late 18th century. Chilean poet Pablo Neruda published the play Fulgor y Muerte de Joaquin Murieta and used literary license to expand on the lack of unanimity about Murieta's origins to create a martyred Chilean Robin Hood. Another source claims that Murieta's national origin was changed from Mexican to Chilean after various transcontinental and translated reprints.

Because of their geographic location pertaining to the settlements associated with the California Gold Rush Chileans played an integral part in the foundation of cities such as Belmont, San Carlos, and Menlo Park (San Mateo County) in the 1800s. San Francisco's landmark North Beach neighborhood was previously the "Little Santiago" neighborhood.Other cities like Beverly Hills, Long Beach, Palm Desert (Coachella Valley), Sacramento, San Diego and Santa Ana, California (Orange County) have small but prevalent Chilean-American communities.

In 1975 Chilean exiles of the Agusto Pinochet dictatorship established La Peña Cultural Center in Berkeley, California, which is to this day the largest Chilean cultural center in the United States.