ABSTRACT

Chilestinians, or Chileans of Palestinian descent, constitute one of the largest Palestinian diasporas outside the Middle East. They were able to integrate, thrive, contribute to all walks of Chilean life, and reach out to the ancestral homeland. This is the case of Chilestinian journalist and author Faride Zerán, a fierce advocate of free speech, who had been exiled during the Pinochet regime (1973–1990), before becoming a board member of the Chilean National Television (2000–2004), then receive the Chilean National Prize in Journalism in 2007, and the prestigious Amanda de la Barca award in 2014. This chapter looks at examples of Zerán’s work, namely: La guerrilla literaria: Huidobro, de Rokha, Neruda [The Literary Guerilla: Huidobro, de Rokha, Neruda] (1992) and Tejado de vidrio. Crónicas del malestar [Glasshouse. Chronicles of Malaise] (2007), written in “crónica” style, which is the journalism sub-genre most popular in Latin America. In doing so, the chapter sheds light on Chilestinians’ contributions to Chilean print media and underscores how their immersion in mainstream press builds upon early Palestinian-Chilean immigrants’ engagement with journalism through their communal press. In this respect, the chapter specifically contends that, if one of the chief goals of Chilestinians’ communal press had been to update the Arab immigrants on the Middle East, today Chilestinian journalists like Faride Zerán continue to carry out that goal to the broader Chilean readership through mainstream Chilean press.