I’ve been using it as a bookmark because I liked the cat and how collage-y it looks then I realized I’m kinda having a piece of history.
Not only cats reunite us as it’s our human condition to like them, but this reminded me to how subjugated this country is to developments in the First World.
Chile suffers from a centralization phenomenon, where most activity and job opportunities are found in the capital, which is Santiago. I believe that international relationships demand a high capital, coming from now a country in which it’s not precisely a common thing for the majority of people to travel to Europe.
This postcard does not meant that it was common, not saying that someone with foreign friends and residing in La Serena can’t have someone to write to and from Europe, but who really had that privilege during these years? It may serve as evidence of what was happening during a period of regional urbanism. There was a failed development plan focused on La Serena which spanned from 1948 to 1952, and brought settlers from Italy and Germany. Apparently it didn’t really work out but there is presence of neocolonial infrastructure to this day. But where Germans really consolidated was in the south, so that made me question why was it sent to a city in the north. I learned know that it was because of that plan.
Now off-tracking, I’m not really fond of how culture may have been influenced in a way that may seem purely due to colonialism and economic interests, I don’t think anyone would like that; in the coming years Chile would develop their own industries, then we had to change our economic project to adapt to free market and neoliberalism models and I believe that’s what stopped incentives to develop in this way and focus on our own country and regions.
I’d like to mention that there’s a South American tendency, or more so a Chilean preference we have of giving European immigrants almost free kisses in the mouth, but I believe this has been only because we historically lacked agency of our own progress. Among many things immigrants may contribute to the culture it’s such a shame to infamously have many German surnames among torturers and even more so having a president and many politicians glorifying a dictatorship. This may be coming from myself but it’s really inhumane to see how many indulges were given to r@pists(https://interferencia.cl/articulos/no-solo-pederastas-gobierno-de-kast-otorgo-dos-rebajas-de-condenas-presos-de-punta-peuco ) just because someone sparked a debate about giving pardon to torturers during dictatorship (among one of them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Krassnoff)
I know it’s a postcard but it just made me think and it’s frankly too embarrassing and sad to witness, and I hope that some of you may gain insight of what is happening in this country and how it came to be.

And of pure curiosity I like to know what’s written

I wrote in a journal a couple years back in a stupor, and it doesn’t help that I stopped writing in cursive since then!

Any help would be appreciated :)

Hi. I am a 19-year-old college student who never learned how to read or write in cursive, who is now taking it upon themselves to learn.Any advice? See how I'm doing so far!

Found on my doorstep today. No idea who it’s from

Hello, this is from a German Feldpost letter dated 1941. I believe the surname is Gras, but I'm not certain of the first name? It's addressed to Frau...

Thanks in advance.