Immigration and racism in the first Chilean polices novels

Abstract

The first police novels establish a counterdiscourse with respect to the immigration polices of the Chilean state, causing conflict regarding the situation of the foreigners that came to inhabit in out territory. Italians are presented as a closed community through which money, body and crime flow. Given this scenario, they wouldn't bring any benefit to the country. Due to the fact that immigrants are disregarded as something possitive, it is proposed that their place must be taken by popular Chilean characters. This would be a way of rewarding them for the persecutions and the mistreatments they have endured for so long. The first police novels criminalise the immigrant figure and disregard the populat character as a criminal, aspiring to establish a new order in the territory.