segregation and racism

Racism is a problem that we can see more frequently because inmigration to chile has been increasing during the last years.

The problem is with some particular kind of foreigners, because while most chilean people are very kind and can be well integrated with some foreigners like americans and europeans, racism and discrimination have been aimed at people from other latin american nationalities like peruvian, haitian and colombian .

Racism has been linked with another problem, which is segregation. For example the most of the haitian foreigners that came to Santiago live in Quilicula, because there is a growing haitian community who live there because they work in the factories of Quilicura, and this created another problem, which is segregation, because they only have been involved in this place, and can only know the reality of this place.

Segregation is a problem that no only affected  foreign people, because in Santiago the distribution of the “different kind of people”, has been very segregated, and the design of the city is not helping to improve the integration of its inhabitants.

the segregation towards foreign people also affects the inmigrants’ children, because it is very difficult for them to be integrated into the chilean educational system, because they have to validate their studies with the chilean school system, and this validation process can be very annoying, because they have to take tests in a retroactive way. There is a problem also with the chilean law of immigration, which was created during the dictatorship, and this law does not facilitate the process of immigrants settling down in Chile, but this is currently under discussion to be changed.

The problem with racism and segregation is that they produce ignorance, and reduce the posibilities of integrating new kinds of people. Integrating new kinds of people means incorporating new ways of thinking, and this is positive for any society.

internet: good or evil?

I think the internet can have positive and negative effects on people, depending on how it is used. There are many good things about the internet. The first is that it makes life easier in many ways. For example you don’t have to go to a bank to pay the bills, because you can do this from your home if you have internet connection. In this sense the internet saves you a lot of time and that is a good thing. Also, there is more access to information in the internet and people can learn about anything they want. And the information is in general more attractive because you can read, watch videos, etc. The other positive aspect of the internet is that it is a powerful tool for communication. You can send emails with text, images, videos, links etc and that was not possible 30 years ago with normal mail. Additionally, you can “meet” people online in a videoconference and this is almost like meeting face-to-face.

But the internet can have negative effects too, especially on teenagers. There is too much information on the internet and teenagers can spend a long time watching irrelevant stuff. so with the internet and also with tv you could stay in front of a screen for hours and you don't know what happen around you, and you can be totally disconnected to the other people around you. 

In general I think that the most important thing is education and values. The internet is more dangerous if values are not strong, but if this is ok the internet is a great tool to make life more simple.