Chileans identify with Europe and with the U.S., rather than with Latin America. For instance, my visit to Chile was under a University of Chile / University of California exchange program. That program had been founded not just to recognize the geographic fact that Chile and California occupy similar positions in the Mediterranean zones on the west coasts of their respective continents—but also to acknowledge that Chile and California are similar in their social atmosphere and political stability. My Chilean friends summed it up by the sentence “We Chileans know how to govern ourselves.”
