SEAN GRIFFIN

years ago, a Canadian em-
fficial in Santiago, Chile
promise to Hernan and Vic-
Mendoza that this country has
keep.

told, Hernan, a marine
ist with more than a decade’s
ence, that, if he emigrated to
la, he would have a job in his
in less than ten days.”

was in February, 1974.
» weeks after they had landed
Nada, on the basis of that em-
Official’s word, when the say-
that they and their three
en had brought with them had
ut, the promise had not been
Nor has it yet, although in the
ears since that time, both
and Victoria have found
‘own jobs, in a foundry, in
Tesearch work — at whatever
can find. Like hundreds of
Chileans who came to this

try, sent into exile by
Chet’s fascist coup of
mber 11, 1973, they have

ehow ‘‘got by.’

ut that was not the way it was
UPposed to be back in February, _

ORS

“Thad been working for more
an a year as the legal advisor to
le state laboratory in Santiago,”
toria says, remembering the
its that led up to the fascist coup
ch ultimately forced them to flee
country. ‘“‘My work involved

ercial; working with produc-
Nn committees and union organiz-
— it was very political.

‘On the day of the coup, I did
leave my home. From far away.
Ould hear.the bombs and planes
over; then came companero
ende’s last speech over the
10...

when I returned to the
Oratory, the man at the gate told
‘that I was forbidden to go to my
b — he sais that he was only
Owing orders.”’ :

hat phrase, ‘‘only following
ers’? was to be repeated again
Nd again but for Victoria as for
tes of others at the laboratory, it
Id change the fact that they had
Nn fired. And forced unemploy-
nt ‘for political reasons’ would
Only one of the many repressive
Pons the junta would use
inst the Chilean people.

‘or Hernan, the circumstances
different but within less than a
he, too, had been stripped”
Ss job as a marine biologist with
e’s department of fisheries.

‘I stayed on the job on the day
the coup but after the curfew was
fted, the navy, which had taken
T control of the department, sent
tain to tell us that our services
e no longer needed.”

Te was allowed to stay on for a
nth but during that time his ofice

that had been reduced to hunger in
wake of the military takeover.
tle by little, they sold off pieces
their furniture. Even at that, they
Te more fortunate than most —
hough there were the inevitable
tches, they were not arrested.

inally, the only option left was

We began to explore ways of

g the country,’’ Hernan
Is, pointing out that at the time
re was the possibility of going to
lumbia or to Britain where he
ght have been able to enrol in a
1D. program in one of the univer-
les. .

‘But when the embassy official
red me there would be a job for

‘The curfew lasted for three days ‘

The Chileans:

later

four
years

An interview with Hernan and Victoria Mendoza
possibilities was obvious. Hernan —
was even flown over to the Bam-

me in my field, we decided im- -

mediately to go to Canada.”’ ~ :

By February, 1974, the embassy
and the federal government had
been compelled to modify its initial
hostility to Chilean refugees and the
entry to Canada was made easier,
particularly for trained scientific
personnel like Hernan. But even so,
there were the interrogations by the
security branch of the RCMP,

which seemed more concerned than _

anything with whether or not pro-

spective refugees had ‘‘ever been to.

the Soviet Union.” ;

' The five Mendozas — Hernan,
Victoria and three children aged 11
months to four years — landed in
Vancouver on March 15, 1974.
Within three weeks, the accom-
modation costs had eaten up their
savings. And in ironic comment on
federal government policies, the
department of manpower and im-

migration (now Employment and

Immigration Canada) said it would
continue to pick up the bills for
hotel accommodation but did

nothing to make good its pledge to
find work for Hernan — even
though the major field of employ-
ment, the department of fisheries, is
under federal jurisdiction.

“They did nothing to help me
find a job,’’ Hernan says, referring
to the federal department, “‘and
finally I found my own job — ina
foundry in Richmond.’”? The job
lasted for two years, ending with an
accident and five months con-
valescence. ; ; :

There was one bright hope during
the first months when a director of
the Bamfield Marine Station, also a
professor at Simon Fraser Universi-
ty, proposed a unique project that
could be undertaken at the station,
utilizing Hernan’s special
knowledge attained during a work
project in Japan.

The project involved extracting
alginate, a highly versatile

substance used as a preservative and

in pharmaceuticals, from kelp, and
in the director’s letter proposing the

project, the excitement over . the-

field station and introduced to
several other researchers. z
But then there was silence. There

was the usual excuse, of ‘‘no
money’’ — a problem which hadn’t
existed earlier — but after that,

Hernan heard nothing. Further in-
quiries went unanswered. Ap-
parently such jobs were not.to be
given Chilean exiles, particularly
people who had been employed by
the Popular Unity government of
Salvador Allende. :

And that highlights a political
contrast: in other agreements to ac-
cept refugees, the so-called
“freedom fighters’’ from Hungary
in 1956 or the Czechs in 1968, the
federal government has wielded in-
fluence powerfully. The

Hungarians were found jobs by the

score in universities, particularly in
the forestry department.
Czechs were worked easily into the
professions for which they were
trained.

- “For the Chileans in Canada, the story has

been repeated over and over again:

engineers working as dishwashers, musi-

cians employed as helpers — and only for

~ those who have been able to get work at all.”

The:

But for the Chileans, the official
government attitude that had the
embassy gates closed to those seek-
ing asylum in the first days after the
coup, still lingers. For the Chileans
in Canada, the story has been
repeated over and over again:
engineers working as dishwashers,
musicians employed as helpers —
and that only for those who have
been able to get work at all.

Victoria, angry not so much at
the fact that jobs are few and far
between, but more at the federal
government which continues to in-
sist as it did back in 1974 that there
are jobs for those *‘who really want
to work’’; points to other cases
where talents and skills are being
wasted.

There is the case a friend who
studied for five years in applied
aerodynamics and also has the skills
at a translator, but was only able to
get a job as a helper in a shipyard —
and that only with the assistance of
the trade union, after he had been
unemployed for some time.

She tells of the case of another,
older man, a former miner, im-
prisoned for more than three years
in Pinochet’s concentration camp,
who has still not been able to find
work.

And there are hundreds of
others, in this province and
elsewhere in the country.

‘We could open up a restaurant
or a hotel and we would be able to

fill it with Chilean dishwashers, —

chambermaids, bartenders, and
laundry workers — all of the low
wage jobs,’’ Victoria adds ironical-
ly.

Victoria, herself, a lawyer with ©

experience in Chile in both labor
and commercial law, has faced
many of the same difficulties. There
have been jobs — briefly, with the
Company of Young Canadians, un-
til its dissolution
federal cost-cutting measure, and

on assignment to the MOSAIC ser- —
immigrants which has, —
however, provided too little work, _
too infrequently. =s

vice to

At -one point, she spent several

months preparing a special program —

for Spanish-speaking immigrants at
the encouragement of both the
department of manpower and im-

migration and the secretary of state,

but after four months’ work and
much more time spent in research,
it was shelved by the two depart-
ments. And as with Hernan, there
were no explanations, just silence.

For both Hernan and Victoria, as
for other Chileans, what assistance
there has been has come from the
trade union movement and the pro-
gressive community. Hernan has

twice been on staff for the United |

Fishermen and Allied Workers’
Union, using his expertise to assist
in preparing interventions for the

union in the West Coast Oil Ports —

Inquiry and the Roberts Bank-port

expansion hearings. And Victoria —
has worked with the Trade Union —

Research Bureau preparing material
for arbitration cases. But, of
course, finances

term work.

Despite the difficulties, they
stress that they haven’t had many of
the problems — including language
barriers — that others have faced.
More than anything, they recognize
that the unemployment that both
face has also caught thousands of
Canadians in its grip —
withstanding the assurances of the
embassy official four years before.

“We can’t separate the struggle —

that we waged in Chile from the

struggle in Canada,’’ Hernan com- |

ments emphatically. ‘‘The big strike
at INCO in Sudbury, the legislation
passed against the trade unions
here, the threats to democracy —
these are many of the same strug-
gles that we had in Chile.

‘“‘And we will take part in them
just as.we did in Chile.”’

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—DECEMBER 20, 1978—Page 9

in an_ earlier .

have always.
precluded anything more than short :

not- 3