Mariella Gattini

In the English language the concept of South contains more than a geographical location, and its interpretation is mostly negative. It means going down, down there, feeling down.

People of every race and background, from the United States, associate the South, on the one hand, with the southern states—the so-called Bible Belt—where people, with a very identifiable accent, are seen as set in their ways, extremely conservative, and still resentful for having lost the Civil War. For that reason, they are believed to have hung on to their religion so hard.

On the other hand, and in general, for people from the U.S., South America is basically Mexico, or at most, Costa Rica and the countries located in Central America and the Caribbean, because it’s what they know. South America is for them a place where criminals go hide and escape justice. For that reason, if they visit any of the Latin-American countries for a few days they feel they have been in a place that it is some version of Mexico, or, better said, their idea of Mexico.

I can’t blame them for thinking that way. First, it is true that people are religious and conservative in the southern states, but, for the most part, they also are very understanding and open to listening to others, particularly when they can increase their business by doing so. Many actually don’t know better, but their hearts are in the right place. I have been living in Texas for almost eighteen years now, and I’ve had my share of good and bad experiences with people, but I have to say that the good ones outnumber the bad ones, in every race and background.

When it comes to South America I sympathize with people who travel there for the first time, because the first thing you experience is poverty. Poverty gives you a slap on the face in any country you visit, with the enormous contrast between rich and poor, and the extraordinary nature that surrounds them.

If you go even farther, to the south of the South, you can face two countries that I know the most—Chile and Argentina. They don’t escape the poverty of their people, but, at least, the climate is more forgiving. In countries like Chile, where I come from, everything has to do with the magnificent Pacific Ocean and the extraordinary mountain chain of the Andes, which in the middle of the country is at its highest peak (Aconcagua); only comparable to the Himalayas. There, in the central valley, you can find Santiago (from the contraction of San Tiago, and its equivalent of Saint James in English), the Chilean capital, where the air pollution is high and the social inequality is palpable, equivalent to what is happening in New York City today, where real estate is very expensive and for the majority; very restrictive.

The first thing that I say to people here in the U.S. is that I come from an Italian family, born in Chile. I say this, first, because it’s the truth, and second, to put emphasis on the fact that in Chile I’m also considered a kind of foreigner, not quite from there. So for me moving to this country, and specifically to this state, wasn’t as shocking as it is for others, since being a foreigner is my trademark. I had some experience with the English language, because I had practiced as a translator for five years before we moved here with my family. My education helped me to enjoy my studies at Sam Houston State University, a school that I still remember and love. There, in that school, I met many reasonable people coming from all around the States, who helped me to have a more rounded idea of what it means to be from the U.S.

I’ve learned many interesting things in the past eighteen years. Among others, the one that has most shocked me to discover is that upper-mobility has always been a myth in this country. People want to believe otherwise, and politicians bank on this wish, election after election, but the reality is that the majority are born and die in the same socio-economic level in this country.

The other unexpected truth I came acquainted with is the fact that historians do recognize how hard-working and family-oriented the first Italian immigrants in America had been (To the Land of Promise — The Italian Exodus to America by Alexander DeConde). It was unexpected because I knew how much racism and mistreatment those Italians had to face in North America, and how the generalization imposed onto them was always associated to organized crime. I knew about Italian culture and work ethic from my upbringing, I grew up in a very hard-working environment, so for me the term mafia first came from the movie The Godfather—it wasn’t present in my surroundings.

Unfortunately, in the same way that South America is a blur for most people in the United States; the U.S. is a blur for people in Latin America. This country is seen by many as a land of badly-dressed, obese bullies, and the election of Donald Trump has done nothing but ratify this view.

It’s true that you can find criminals in South America—among them, Joran van der Sloot, responsible for the death of Stephany Flores in Perú, and a high-profile suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway in Aruba. Van der Sloot was finally detained in Chile by Chilean authorities, and sent to Perú, where he is serving his sentence.

In the same way, you can find criminals right next door in the U.S., of all races and backgrounds, but criminals don’t get to define culture. Countries and cultures are defined by the creative and constructive people that sustain them, and they are the majority in the entire American Continent—north, central, and south.

It’s very well known that the extreme right has proliferated in South America, particularly in the south of the South, even today, but it is also vox populi that alt-right movements have flourished in the U.S., longer than in the very same Germany, and they continue to disseminate in every field you can think of.

Even well-intended broadcasters like Stephen Colbert, who in his rush to attack the Trumps, has shown big ignorance and disrespect against places in South America, like Punta del Este, a high-end and respectable resort town in Uruguay, where the Trumps are planning to build a hotel. Colbert, in his ignorance, blatantly associated the term “punta” with prostitution, because if you eliminate the “n” in “punta” you have the word “prostitute” in Spanish. “Punta,” F.Y.I., is simply a geographical location, so Punta del Este can be translated into East Point, but in other contexts “punta” can also mean the tip of something, so Colbert made a bad-taste phallic association with an entire and respectable country and culture of which people in the U.S. know very little about. Adding to the ignorance and degradation we all are drowning in.

Television is a wonderful medium, I appreciate the good content, and the good sense of humor, but in their quest to make money, much of the content has become bleak, poor, in bad taste, and mostly irresponsible. People are watching because, in many cases, they don’t have access to more. For many their world revolves around their traditional T.V. networks. The fact that they get away with mediocre content doesn’t mean they understand, or that they know what they are doing. Audiences deserve better. There is no excuse for mediocrity when you have all the means and freedom in the world to create.

To go South, you don’t need to go to the southern states, to Mexico, or South America. In this country you can go south by simply watching mediocrity and human degradation on T.V.