Dodging Tear Gas and Debt, a Family Struggles in Santiago

(Bloomberg) -- Fresh from Santiago’s morning protest, Camilo Quiroz burst into the kitchen, opened the fridge and went for the chicken-and-corn stew even before hugging his mother. Less than an hour earlier, he had been dodging Chilean soldiers and splashing water mixed with bicarbonate on his face to soothe teargas burns.

“I should be studying, I know, but with all this going on I can’t concentrate — no one can,” the 18-year-old said, laughing at his mother’s horrified expression. “We students are always the first to protest, but this time it’s different. This time, grown-ups are with us as well.”

The son of a factory worker and a seamstress, Camilo is the hope of his indebted family, one of a vast number unable to gain purchase in South America’s wealthiest nation. At his home in Pedro Aguirre Cerda, among Santiago’s poorest neighborhoods, he has spent months prepping for a pivotal exam that would get him into the prestigious Universidad de Chile. Camilo dreams of being an economist and working at the central bank, or maybe at an investment house.

This week, the stasis trapping the Quirozes — and the country — split violently open with the largest protests since the return to democracy in 1990. Set off by a 30-peso (4 cent) increase in subway fare, the demonstrations metastasized within hours into a leaderless movement that channeled anger over pensions, health care, education and corruption. So far, at least 18 have died amid riots, looting and arson. “It’s not about 30 pesos, it’s about the last 30 years,” is one of the most popular slogans.

Despite its wealth, Chile is the third-most-unequal country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a club of 36 free-market democracies. To Camilo and his parents, Patricia Riffo, 52, and Esteban Quiroz, 46, the system’s unfairness is no abstract concept.

His maternal grandfather’s death 15 years ago forced them into debt to purchase private medical care and avoid the precarious public system. The debt deepened as they got hit by more illnesses, and as they paid to subsidize adequate educations for Camilo and his sister Catalina, 14.

Overwhelmed by debt, Esteban Quiroz four years ago left the factory where he had worked for two decades and invested his severance in a small restaurant in the city center.  El Chacarero Sentimental — named for a sandwich that features beef, tomatoes, green beans and peppers — paid for a new white SUV and to build a second floor on the house inherited after Riffo’s father died. There is a small balcony and a room for each child.

But two years ago, drug dealers took over the neighborhood around the restaurant and Quiroz’s working-class clientele was replaced by addicts almost overnight. Dealers even sold inside the restaurant. When he finally closed El Chacarero Sentimental on New Year’s Eve, found himself facing 2019 with a mortgage on the house, several bank loans and car payments.

“By the end of it, I just felt rage,” Quiroz said this week as he watched protests on TV. Since January, he has worked in an industrial cooler at a chicken plant. He spends his days at below-zero temperatures and his nights driving the SUV for Uber. “I’ve stopped paying the car debt and I’m crossing my fingers that I don’t get stopped while I drive it.”  

Saturday nights are by far the best for Uber, so he drives until dawn. They’re also the most dangerous and he knows drivers who have been assaulted and robbed. Police themselves are a worry. Driving with ride-sharing apps such as Uber or Cabify is illegal in Chile and drivers can be fined as much as $1,000 and their cars confiscated as long as 15 days. 

In a good month, Quiroz makes around 900,000 pesos, about $1,250, which is three times Chile’s minimum salary. It all goes for family expenses and debt.

Camilo’s exam prep school became a new bill this year. The teenager initially tried to pay for it himself, taking a job as a stretcher-bearer at the Universidad Catolica’s hospital. He left the house at 6:30 a.m. and came back just before midnight. The hours left no time for books.

“We decided to make the sacrifice and pay for it,” Riffo said, staring down at a yellow-and-red plastic tablecloth. “Studying is the only thing that will get him out of here. That’s what I always tell them, but sometimes I look around and I don’t even believe it myself.”

Camilo is one of just two students from the neighborhood high school trying to make it to university. Most former classmates go to technical school to become hairdressers, nurses, mechanics or electricians. At his prep school, on the same Plaza Italia where the protests take place, his difference from other students stands out. His clothes and speech belie his origins.

“You just look at them and you know it; they don’t really need to study because they have the money to go to any university they want, and when they finish, they’ll work at their father’s company,” he said. Camilo needs a higher score because he’s applying for a full state scholarship. “It’s funny. Rich people always talk about meritocracy. It’s so easy to talk about that when you have gone to a school with a fancy name.”

Chile’s burgeoning post-dictatorship economy produced a privileged elite. In 2015, the top 1% of earners earned just under a quarter of all pre-tax income, little changed since 1990 — and they paid a lower share of the country’s taxes, according to the World Inequality Database. Half the workers in Chile earn less than 400,000 pesos ($550) per month, according to the National Statistics Institute.

“The protests right now are not about this government or the previous one,” Esteban Quiroz said. “It comes from way before. We have been lied to for years and years.”

Quiroz and Riffo worry that their efforts to better their lot are doomed to fail. “I try to give my children everything I have so they can fulfill their dreams,” Quiroz said. “And they look around and they realize that other kids have better shoes, better phones and better opportunities. I worry we are raising a generation full of rage.”

Camilo Quiroz sat in his bedroom with its walls of wood and polystyrene foam, watching his sister play a game on his laptop and cleaning his cracked glasses.

“Of course I realize what’s happening out there and what my parents are going through,” he said.  “I pretend it doesn’t affect me because I don’t want to worry them. But also, what else can I do? I need to pass that exam. I need to succeed in that, because that’s my only option and there won’t be another one.”

Camilo takes his test Nov. 18.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Merelman at smerelman@bloomberg.net, Anne Reifenberg

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.