Berkley Center

Second only to the United States in immigration influxes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Argentina is a melting pot of ethnicities and backgrounds. However, it seems some people are able to melt into the demographic mix more than others. When my host mom goes to the grocery store she often says, “Voy al chino,” or in English, “I’m going to the Chinese man.” The first time she said this, I thought I must have misheard her. Sure enough, when I went to the market, the grocer was Chinese. In fact, the overwhelming majority of local markets and grocery stores are owned and operated by Chinese or Korean families, and Porteños nonchalantly refer to these stores as chinos. Part of what distinguishes Argentina from the rest of South America is its extremely European population. Many Argentines come from Spanish, Italian, or German descent, groups that moved here in masses after WWII. Non-white, non-European ethnic groups are more readily distinguished by appearance.

Although referring to the grocery store as el chino seems like a vast overgeneralization and stereotype, it does seem to be accurate. In Buenos Aires, people of different ethnicities occupy specific positions in society, on both a socioeconomic and cultural scale. Aside from Chinese and Korean Argentines, Bolivians are often characterized by certain lines of work, including housekeeping, restaurant services, and low-earning public service jobs like street sweepers, garbage collectors, and public transportation conductors. From my own observations, I honestly have not seen an Argentine-Bolivian occupy a position outside these parameters. Like Chinese Argentines, Bolivians rarely ascend to higher social or economic statuses. The socioeconomic inequity runs much deeper; it is perpetuated in very tangible cultural discrimination. The typical Argentine is white and European-looking. Anyone else is labeled “other” and are consequently isolated from and devalued by society on numerous levels.

In my oral Spanish class we spent a week discussing discrimination in Argentina. We looked at many advertisements and public media to explore the topic as it manifests itself in daily life. One news headline took me completely by surprise. In 2006 there was a car accident in the Flores neighborhood of Buenos Aires that claimed three lives. The headline on the main news channel read, ¨Fatal accident in Flores, two killed, and a Bolivian.” The bold contrast between the Bolivian victim and the two other, presumably white, victims was startling. In my own experience, I have found that news channels at least try to appear unbiased and non-partial in order to maintain legitimacy, whether in the United States or in Argentina. The idea that a party attempting to appear unbiased would publicly and unapologetically distinguish between white and non-white persons demonstrates how culturally institutionalized this discrimination is. The news headline seemed to suggest that somehow these two people of European descent were inherently more valuable than the third, a Bolivian. Furthermore, this small example illustrates well the idea of what it means to be “Argentine.” Popular culture appears to consider a person of Italian or German descent as more Argentine than someone of Bolivian or East Asian descent.

With such rigid socio-ethnically aligned strata, one has to wonder, is there a way out? Is there any way for someone so stereotyped and confined by society’s perception to advance? My host sister once told me about a medical student that she knew that spent his time out of class scavenging garbage bins for recyclables to sell. Public education in Buenos Aires is free even at the university level, so with hard work and determination, this economically disadvantaged student was able to make his way through medical school and become a doctor. Despite the stigmas associated with certain ethnic groups, there is hope to overcome these social restrictions. Although the system is riddled with inequity and certainly injustice in its treatment of different ethnicities, it also offers, through free education, a way to build equity and overcome the inherent injustices.