My Name is Emilia del Valle

Egan then quietly explained that, in Chile, political and economic power was held by a handful of families, landed gentry who owned the large haciendas and managed them like feudal lords. Whippings and the stockade were common punishments for tenants, who were often sold along with the lands they worked. This did not constitute slavery, he said, because the campesinos were free to leave, but in reality, they had nowhere else to go. No one else would hire them and they would end up as beggars and vagabonds on the roads and in the cities.

The upper-class families used the surnames of both father and mother to locate a person’s place in the social hierarchy and within the intricate web of relatives. Del Vale was a high-ranking surname, according to Egan, but no one had heard of Claro from Chihuahua.

I was about to leave when I realized that he was silently sobbing. My indifference gave way to compassion, and I saw him as he was in that moment—a sick man—not the villain my mother so detested, that arrogant young buck who had engendered me on a whim. I approached him timidly, without knowing what to do or say to console him. He took my hand and pressed it between his, racked with sobs, and we remained that way for several minutes, united by some strange complicity, until he collected himself.