The Brown & White

As a military coup was overthrowing Salvador Allende's socialist government in Chile in the 1970s, Marjorie Agosín fled her native country to seek exile in the U.S.

Agosín, acclaimed Jewish poet and human rights activist, said despite living in the U.S. for more than half her life, she still considers home to be Chile.

"In a deep way, this is not my home," she said in a lecture Tuesday in Maginnes Hall.

The lecture, "Postcards from the South" is the first of the International Scholars Lecture Series sponsored by department of modern languages and literatures.

"I have been in one place my whole life. The speaker's idea of home is outside of my understanding," Ted Morrin, '08, said. "I couldn't conceive that on my own."

Agosín said the U.S. does not evoke the spiritual feeling she gets from Chile.

"When I left Chile I lost a bit of my soul, and I wrote, and because I wrote I was able to survive," she said.

When the Chilean government was overthrown, Agosín said she felt it was her duty to speak out against what was happening in her country. She realized at this point that her words had power. Her words were not meaningless; they could cause change.

Agosín said it is the habit of the Jewish community to remain quiet, and not to stand up for justice. This attitude, Agosín said, is why the Holocaust happened.

By writing about the brutality of the Chilean dictatorship and the horrors that were occurring, Agosín kept the people fighting alive and brought attention to what was happening.

"I believed that if I wrote about them they would not die," Agosín said. "A memory is the only thing that can transcend death. If we continue to write about the dead, they will never die."

As an activist, Agosín worked heavily with organizations in Chile. She worked with mothers whose children were abducted by the military forces, as well as grass-roots Catholic organizations intent on restoring the country to safety.

During these times, Agosín wrote mostly about her family and their experience with the Holocaust, drawing parellels to Anne Frank's story. Although the circumstances were different, Agosín said she saw a connection between the Nazis in Germany and the military in Chile. As she wrote about Anne Frank, Agosín realized she was also writing about the Latin American youth.

"I am writing about the disappeared of Latin America," Agosín said.

When writing about the youth of her country, Agosín wrote from the viewpoint of her mother, who grew up in southern Chile. Although she did not visit the place her mother lived until after she wrote about it, Agosín said she had inherited memory of the place.

Agosín said she believes she has inherited the memories of Europe and of her family's lives through listening to their stories, and developing upon them in her imagination.

An important part of the Jewish tradition is preserving memory. Stories are passed from generation to generation in order to retain them, and keep the past alive.

"My daughter says she is from Chile even though she has never lived there," Agosín said to cite an example of her idea of inherited memory.

Minh Trinh, a doctorate student, said Agosín's idea of memory was fascinating.

"This idea is really powerful, thinking about inheriting your memory," Trinh said.

Although most of Agosín's works deal with Chile, the majority of Agosín's readers are from the U.S., yet Agosín always writes in Spanish.

"I knew to change languages would be to change myself," Agosín said.

No translation is able to perfectly convey the nuances of an author's work. Agosín said she is happy to see her work translated but knows that it is never the same.

"I am another self in Spanish," she said.

Her writings have only recently been able to reach Chile. The dictatorship that was in place for seventeen years was horrifying and controlling, she said.

"It is being welcomed now because the country is opening up. Those of us in exile are being read," Agosín said.

Outside of her country, Agosín's works have been widely acclaimed. She has been named the recipient of the U.N. Leadership Award on Human Rights, the Jeanneta Rankin Award for Achievement in Human Rights, the Letra D'Oro Prize and the Latina Literature Prize.

Not everyone is a fan of Agosín's work, though. Agosín's siblings are not interested in the books that she has written about her family.

"They do not want to believe the history. People want to believe what they already know," she said.