My Name is Emilia del Valle: Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

Located in the north of the country, Iquique is the main port through which Chile exports its nitrates. Emilia arrives there in early June, a few days ahead of Eric and the Itata. The city is orderly, civilized, and heavily Anglicized—anything available in Britain can also be procured in Iquique. But it doesn’t take long for her to notice the stark differences between the wealthy ruling classes and the rest of the citizens. She’s also surprised to find that the del Valle are among the most prominent families, so her name opens many doors to her.

For her first column written in Chile, Emilia wrangles a tour of a nitrate mine. She and the driver the mine owner sends, Mr. Amador Troncoso, chat companionably on the journey through the arid, dusty countryside. He feels that President Balmaceda and the legitimate government have betrayed workers. Nitrate miners toil in dangerous conditions to make owners and politicians rich while facing poverty themselves. The rebels are just more members of the ruling classes. They don’t care about working people any more than the government does.

The mine administrator—a Scottish expatriate—explains the nitrate-mining process to Emilia and takes her out in the field to watch workers exploding sections of the desert with dynamite. She also visits the processing plant where the nitrate is extracted. Afterwards, Mr. Troncoso takes her into the crowded, dust-choked, and impoverished miners’ camp where he introduces her to some of the miners’ wives (and one unabashed sex worker). The women are overworked and sick of scrabbling for survival in their circumstances. But they’re also strong, dignified, and brave. They serve Emilia mate (a tea-like infusion made with the yerba plant) while telling her that they want good wages, schools for their children, basic sanitation, and clean water.

On the drive back to Iquique, Mr. Troncoso tells Emilia about fighting in the War of the Pacific. He characterizes the Bolivian and Peruvian forces Chile faced as “ignorant, uncivilized Indians.” Afterward, he mined nitrate for a year before becoming first a mechanic and then a coach driver. Driving coaches was the first time in his life he was paid in cash instead of scrip, and this change allowed him to save enough to settle down with his family, for which he’s grateful.

A few days later, Emilia is waiting on the dock when the Itata—and Eric—arrive. The rebels diplomatically turn over their American weapons without a fight, as a “diplomatic gesture,” although it’s widely known that they’ve received a shipment of German weapons in the meantime.

On the terrace of an Iquique hotel, Eric and Emilia plan their next steps, working out an elaborate code which, after they split up to cover the war from the north and south, will allow them to disguise their professional communications as passionate love letters. Emilia also tells Eric what she’s learned about John Thomas North, the British-born “king of nitrates,” whose control over so much of the country’s production has given him nearly unlimited political and social capital. He’s aligned with the rebels. Eric worries about separating from Emilia, given the way she’s drawn to danger, but he has no choice. Emilia books passage south on a steamer to Valparaíso, where she can catch a train to the capital of Santiago.