Constructing Martial Whiteness: Memory, National Identity, and El Roto Chileno

This paper examines the creation and construction of the Roto Chileno war memorial in downtown Santiago’s Plaza Yungay as a complex site of Chilean national and racial identity making in the late nineteenth century. Officially commemorating military victories against the combined forces of Bolivia and Peru, while also implicitly celebrating the “pacification” of indigenous communities south of the Bio-Bio River, the Roto Chileno was a physical manifestation of an intricate process of national identity construction that celebrated the mixed-race (indigenous/European) heritage of average citizen-soldiers while also contributing to an increasingly popular idea that Chileans were effectively White. Successful military campaigns against combatants (internal or external) portrayed as more indigenous were used as proof of Chileans’ racial exceptionalism and superiority within the South American continent. Especially important in the acceptance of this narrative was a corresponding visual image that portrayed the average Chilean, the roto, as a man with mixed-race heritage but traditionally European physical features. Using fine art, this paper highlights the entangled relationship between memory, nationalism, and race in late nineteenth century Latin America to consider the role that militarism and masculinity play in the construction of White identity.