Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies

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Todos juntos: hippies, rock music, and the Popular

Unity era

Jedrek Mularski

To cite this article: Jedrek Mularski (2016) Todos juntos: hippies, rock music, and the
Popular Unity era, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, 22:2, 75-93, DOI:
10.1080/14701847.2016.1223454

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Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, 2016
VOL. 22, NO. 2, 7593
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14701847.2016.1223454

Todos juntos: hippies, rock music, and the Popular Unity era
Jedrek Mularski
Saddleback College, Carlsbad, CA, USA

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Scholars traditionally have characterized the 1960s and early Rock music; hippie;
1970s as an era of political polarization in Chile stemming from an Popular Unity; Piedra Roja;
intensifying rift between those who supported the leftist Popular counterculture
Unity government (19701973) and those who opposed it. While
there is little question that this division was the fundamental political
axis in Chilean society at that time, it was not the only one. This article
traces the development of rock music and culture among Chiles
youth to assert that while Chilean society polarized over the Popular
Unity government, an additional segment of society emerged as
an additional socio-political pole. During the Popular Unity era, a
significant number of Chiles youth rejected both the political right
and left by assertively refraining from taking stances in regards to
party platforms or candidates, rejecting those sounds, images, and
traditions tied to the right and to the left in favor of an alternative
political and cultural orientation tied to rock music and hippie
counterculture.

Introduction
In October 1970, a mass of Chilean youth gathered on the western edge of Santiago to
attend an outdoor musical festival that included many of Chiles top psychedelic rock bands.
Designed as a Chilean version of Woodstock, Piedra Roja was envisioned as a three-day
festival that would unite Chiles youth in the midst of a society that was becoming polarized
along political lines. Despite this message of harmony and unity, the Chilean press unleashed
scathing criticisms of the festival for its subversion of Chilean moral values shortly after the
festival began. The conservative newspaper El Mercurio blamed foreign hippies for propa-
gating their degrading experiences inside Chile and asserted that the foreign-influenced
behavior of Chilean hippies exhibited a clear confusion and lack of maturity about principles
that inform proper conduct (13 October 1970). Another conservative newspaper, La Tercera,
characterized Chilean hippies as a group that consumes but does not produce and as an
impediment to social cohesion (13 October 1970). The leftist press similarly chastised Chiles
hippies and the Piedra Roja festival as both imitative and imported, with Clarn characterizing
Piedra Roja attendees as drug addicts and youth who almost never work, while empha-
sizing the degradation and sexual promiscuity among them (October 1970). El Siglo
extended this critique from the left to demean Chilean hippies intelligence, stating bluntly

CONTACT Jedrek Mularski jmularski@saddleback.edu

2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
76 J. Mularski

that Chilean hippiesherb-filled heads possessed only very vague ideas (13 October 1970).
At a time when Cold War-era polarization was escalating towards extreme levels that would
result in a right-wing military overthrow of democratically elected socialist president Salvador
Allende and the subsequent torture, exile, and execution of thousands of Chileans, the
Chilean left and right could find almost no common ground between them; yet criticisms
of Piedra Roja spanned across the political spectrum and demonstrated that much of the
right and the left shared strong distaste for Chilean hippies and their rock music.
Scholars traditionally have characterized the 1960s and early 1970s as an era of political
polarization in Chile stemming from an intensifying rift between those who supported the
leftist Popular Unity government (19701973) and those who opposed it. While there is little
question that this division was the fundamental political axis in Chilean society at that time,
it was not the only one. This article traces the development of rock music and culture among
Chiles youth to assert that while Chilean society polarized over the Popular Unity govern-
ment, an additional segment of society emerged as an additional socio-political pole. During
the Popular Unity era, a significant number of Chiles youth rejected both the political right
and left by assertively refraining from taking stances in regards to party platforms or candi-
dates, rejecting those sounds, images, and traditions tied to the right and to the left in favor
of an alternative political and cultural orientation tied to rock music and hippie
counterculture.

The social and political evolution of rock music in Chile

In the 1950s, a diverse array of domestic and international musical styles circulated widely
in Chile. Similar to earlier decades, jazz, swing, and bolero styles remained popular, as did
Mexican corridos and ranchera-style music among those who lived in rural areas and among
those who had recently immigrated from rural areas to the city. Tropical sounds such as
cumbia were common at dance parties and fiestas, and they would continue through the
early 1970s to be among the most popular musical styles in these settings for Chileans of
all political persuasions. At the same time, Chilean folk-based popular music struggled
against these imported styles to offer a domestic alternative during the 1950s and early
1960s. This folk-based popular music included msica tpica, or stylized musical representa-
tions of Chiles central valley huaso (cowboy) culture, as well as a more diverse array of
less-stylized representations of folk music from across Chile that would eventually evolve
into nueva cancin (new song) in the late 1960s. However, among Chiles urban youth, rock
music became the most widely disseminated music during the late 1950s and throughout
the 1960s.
The arrival of rock in Chile began in the second half of the 1950s, as the music of Bill Haley
and Elvis Presley quickly transformed Santiagos jazz and swing clubs into early rock venues.
American and European rock and roll recordings became top sellers in Chile, and Chilean
singers, modeling themselves in the image of their American and European counterparts,
began to take center stage on the domestic music scene. At the forefront of this movement
was Peter Moschulski von Remenick, better known as Peter Rock, a blond-haired 14 year old
who began performing in 1958 by singing rock and roll (using personalized and incorrect
English) and moving franticly in time with the new rhythm, as he attempted to mimic Elvis
Presley. As Rock noted, from the moment he heard the voice of Elvis for the first time, I felt
instinctively identified with rock and I understood that I should do something to spread it
(Rincn Juvenil, 8 September 1965).
 Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies 77

Following Peter Rock, a wave of Chilean rock and rollers emerged over the next half-dec-
ade. These musicians generally performed songs in English and/or covers of American and
British music, often under Anglicized names: Juan and Carlos Carrasco became Los Carr
Twins, Patricio Nuez became Pat Henry, Javier Astudillo Zapata became Danny Chilean,
Luis Misle became Luis Dimas, Reinaldo Rojas became Larry Wilson, Erwin Rasmussen became
Jimmy Lane, Nadia Zajc became Nadia Milton, Alex Moschulski became Alex Alexander,
Roberto Carvajal became Bob Bryan, and Gladys Lucavecchi became Sussy Veccky.1 As writer
David Ponce has summarized Chilean rock and roll in the late 1950s and early 1960s: At first
it was imitation. An invention of the first world, in colonies like Chile rock was learned in the
1960s through the most accessible means: transplantation (Ponce 2008, 67). However, as
the popularity of rock and roll grew and as more Chilean musicians acquired experience
with this style of music, Chilean rock gradually developed a trajectory and significance of its
own (see, e.g. Ponce [2008]; Gonzlez, Ohlsen, and Rolle [2009] for further discussion of the
early development of rock and roll in Chile).
In the early 1960s, the emphasis on Anglicized names and English lyrics began to give
way to a Chileanization of rock music as part of a movement dubbed la nueva ola (the new
wave). At its root, the movement rejected what it considered to be pale imitations of real
rock and roll. Accordingly, while the English-language music of American and British musi-
cians remained popular, English-language music by Chilean artists faded. As one disc jockey
noted, the public now preferred to listen to an authentic Paul Anka or Elvis Presley, as
opposed to an imitation of middling quality. English had permitted the incorporation of
many young [Chilean] performers without vocal quality to those who favored shouts and
noises (El Siglo, 5 May 1963). While some criticized the English trend in Chilean rock music
for reducing the musical qualities of Chilean music, others turned against it because they
believed it was tied too closely to a cosmopolitan impulse among more refined segments
of society that had long maintained an affection for European and North American culture.
As Eduardo Grunnert argued to the members of Los Diablos Azules, who initially planned to
call themselves The Blue Devils: Here we must start utilizing Chilean names. Enough already
with the curious and cosmopolitan names (Rincn Juvenil, 8 September 1965). Many shared
Grunnerts perspective that although innovative European and North American rock groups
remained the key source of musical influence, the excessive imitation of foreign music by
Chileans lacked an authentic sense of their experiences and identity as well as of real rock
and roll in general. Accordingly, even as American and British recordings of musicians such
as Elvis, Buddy Holly, Frankie Avalon, Dion, Dean Reed, and Connie Francis remained
immensely popular in Chile through the early 1960s, nueva ola established parallel to this
music a style that strongly reflected its influences, yet also asserted a Chilean character and
an attempt to reclaim rock and roll from those who considered it an expression of cosmo-
politanism (see Mularski [2014b] for further discussion of Dean Reed and his music in Chile).
As the use of Spanish lyrics and the number of new Chilean songs (as opposed to covers of
American or British songs) increased, so too did an associated popular youth culture industry
that included radio shows with Chilean disc jockeys, such as Ricardo Garca, and rock and
roll magazines, such as Ritmo de la Juventud and Rincn Juvenil.
From a conservative perspective, rock and roll created something of a predicament for
the Chilean establishment. Although elite sectors had more recently embraced notions of
domestic-based chilenidad (chileanness) as central to their identity, made evident through
their adoption of central valley huaso traditions and msica tpica, European- and
78 J. Mularski

American-based cosmopolitanism had deep roots among these segments of society and
remained an important part of urban middle- and upper-class life style (see, e.g. Barr-Melej
[2001]; Mularski [2015] for further discussion of the conservative relationship to central valley
traditions). The import-based consumerism that accompanied this cosmopolitan perspective
made rock music particularly compatible with middle- and upper-class orientations, espe-
cially among the young who, in Chile as elsewhere, were enjoying new levels of disposable
income. Additionally, during an era in which the world polarized into two world views that
US capitalism and Soviet communism were often considered to symbolize, the adoption of
North American images, practices, products, and traditions served as a representation of
ones opposition to the Soviet Union and Castros take-over of Cuba, just as the performance
of music from Russia, according to many conservatives, expressed an inherent support for
Communism and sovietization (personal interview with Pablo T., 3 June 2009). For example,
a popular shopping gallery in upper-middle-class Providencia became known as the
Drugstore, even though it had nothing to do with pharmaceuticals. Nonetheless, many
conservatives remained uneasy about rock music.
While those on the far left generally condemned rock music as consumerist or imperialistic
during its early years, many of the political center and right expressed concern over moral
issues and threats to Christian-based and Chilean values that the music posed. From the late
1950s, Chileans had taken note of the chaos caused in other countries by rock music and
films such as Blackboard Jungle; they often expressed concern over singers such as Elvis, who
sang rock rhythms and moved in a manner that moralists and psychologists have defined
as suggestive (En Viaje, April 1957). For many Chileans, particularly those middle-aged and
older who had acquired a taste for and connection to Chilean sounds such as msica tpica
during previous decades, rock music and musicians represented competition for such music
and what it represented. As Rincn Juvenil characterized a rock musician in 1965, [] with
his tight pants and a brightly colored shirt, plus a guitar, he transformed into the antithesis
of the traditional singer that appeared previously before the microphones (8 September
1965). More extreme expressions of this opinion, as articulated by El Musiquiero in 1965,
argued that both rock music from abroad and rock music created by Chilean artists were
equally un-Chilean:
Chile already has artists and it has its own music that does not need foreign ideas nor the
support of commercial interests in order to sound real. Hopefully the youth will understand
this and support that which is really ours, [] continuing to protect the foreign is absurd and
without logic. (June 1965)
The connection between rock music and cultural cosmopolitanism fueled the sharp rise of
rock and roll in the 1950s and early 1960s in conjunction with the expansion of Chiles ado-
lescent consumer culture; however, this impetus fails to explain why many young, left-leaning
Chileans who condemned American and European imperialism listened to and cited as
influences in the music they created the work of artists such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones,
the Doors, and Bob Dylan. In addition to their general popularity among Chilean youth, The
Beatles in particular gained strong popularity among young, left-leaning urbanites in Chile
during the 1960s.2 The musical magazine El Musiquero suggested that the popularity of rock
among diverse segments of society was the product of a simple cause: all that is new attracts
many people (June 1965). Indeed, the late 1950s and early 1960s in Chile were, as in much
of the world, years in which life changed at a rapid pace, from politics to economics to com-
munication technology. New practices, items, experiences, and modes of thought entered
 Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies 79

the lives of Chileans, who often acquired a taste for new sounds as well. The underlying
element of rock and roll music that enabled it to acquire popularity among diverse Chileans
was that it both fit and contradicted various social and political perspectives, with no pre-
ordained meaning or identification with any specific social or political class. As rock music
developed strong popularity among Chilean youth, youthful members of society formulated
their own associations between particular rock sounds and their individual experiences and
identity as young Chileans. For example, Adolfo M., a middle-class male who as a teenager
listened to rock and roll in the early 1960s, recalled that he and his friends enjoyed this style
of music because it was fun, never conceiving it as fundamentally foreign:
It was happy music, and people would dance and dance until they fell down. It was just like
rock and roll in the United States, but it came to Chile. However, I wouldnt say it was foreign: I
always thought it was Chilean music. The beauty and emotion it had for a person was based on
experiences that person had here in Chile. Whenever you heard a new rock song, you would form
a connection with the place you heard it, it didnt matter what style it was or where that song
was created. For me, that made rock music Chilean because it was attached to Chilean feelings
and memories. If I heard a song on the beach in Valparaso, I would then carry that memory
with me and associate that song with Valparaso and Chile. The most important thing was the
place you heard a music, not so much what it sounded like or where it was created. (personal
interview with Adolfo M., 25 April 2009)3
As the preceding testimonial demonstrates, the significance that a song or style held for an
individual stemmed not just from the origins of that song or style, but from the experiences
that individuals connected to the sounds. This reality, combined with the enigmatic character
of rock and roll as North American, but also new and rebellious music, and the relatively
tempered social and political climate in Chile during the late 1950s and early 1960s, allowed
rock and roll to attain tremendous popularity among Chilean youth from various social and
political backgrounds. This popularity extended from the upper class to the lower working
class, although as multiple testimonials from the period noted, rock music remained most
popular among, and most associated with, the middle and upper-middle class. For some,
rock and roll signified cosmopolitanism, for some it signified revolution, for some it signified
fun, and for some it signified something entirely different. This reality prevented politically
partisan and older Chileans from developing either a strong love or a strong hatred for the
music during rock and rolls early years, but during the second half of the 1960s, as Chiles
social and political climate shifted and political divisions became more defined alongside
the growing impact of the Cold War, so too would perspectives on rock music and culture.

Political polarization and rock music

The middle decades of the twentieth century marked a transition in Chilean politics, as urban
migration, industrial expansion, the erosion of the elites control over the rural electorate,
and growing social discontent created new opportunities for leftist politics. By the late 1950s,
the electoral power of the old aristocratic right was waning as the Chilean political landscape
shifted towards the center and the left. Although rightist candidate Jorge Alessandri won
Chiles 1958 presidential election, he defeated leftist coalition candidate Salvador Allende
by a mere three percent of the vote. By the next presidential election in 1964, continued
efforts by the centrist Christian Democrat Party and by the Chilean left to respond to the
growing appetite for reform among the middle and working classes forced the right reluc-
tantly to throw its support behind Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei Montalva as the only
80 J. Mularski

viable electoral alternative to a socialist government. As president, Frei pursued a policy of

cautious reform tied to Catholic social consciousness and modernization; central to Freis
reforms were promocin popular (community-based self-help organizations), expansion and
improvement of education, agrarian reform, and agreed nationalization of the copper
industry (Collier and Sater 2004, 31120). Even though the implementation of these reforms
was sporadic and limited, Freis platform perturbed many on the far right, who viewed it as
undermining Chiles social and economic stability; leftists, on the other hand, viewed the
reforms as progressing too slowly and/or as fundamentally insufficient. Rising inflation during
the later years of Freis presidency, coupled with frustrated leftists and struggling work-
ing-class Chileans taking matters into their own hands by seizing lands for home construction
and farming, led Chileans on both sides of the political spectrum to reject the idea that
centrist policies could cultivate a stable and prosperous Chile (Loveman 1976, 1979; Fleet
1985; Collier and Sater 2004).
By the end of Freis presidency, the Chilean electorate was polarizing either for or against
the implementation of further reforms, which appeared to many as if they verged on the
dismantling of Chiles traditional social, economic, and political structures (Mularski 2014a,
701). In 1970, the leftist Popular Unity coalition candidate, Salvador Allende, won Chiles
presidential election with a political platform that promised a revolutionary transition to
socialism through democratic means. Among Allendes objectives were the elimination of
imperialist influence within Chile, nationalization of key economic sectors, extensive agrarian
reform, wealth redistribution, and widespread expansion and improvement of social services
(Programa de la Unidad Popular). Throughout the election, the right campaigned against
Allende on the basis that his agenda would undermine Chilean values, order, and stability,
thereby plunging the country into a state of chaos. This claim, which Allendes opponents
both used as political propaganda and internalized deeply, became more pervasive and
problematic for the left over the course of Allendes presidency. As Allendes presidency
progressed, Chileans became increasingly divided over the direction in which Allende was
taking the country, and those who opposed the president pointed to real and fabricated
examples of crime, food shortages, economic disorder, Communist indoctrination, subver-
sion of traditional gender norms, and non-sanctioned seizures of lands and industrial work-
places to provide evidence that the country was falling into anarchy, systematic crime and
civil war (Duran 1976, 10; see, e.g. Power [2002]; Stern [2004]; Mularski [2014a] for further
discussion of both conservative propaganda about disorder and instability under Allende
and conservatives deep internalization of the idea that Allende was taking the country
towards chaos; also see, e.g. Guzmn [1975, 1977, 1979]; Winn [1986]; Tinsman [2002] for
additional discussion of sectarianism and turmoil among leftists and among the working
classes).
The political polarization of the late 1960s and early 1970s also extended into the realm
of popular culture. Through the mid-1960s, Chilean folk-based musicians shared a common
goal of promoting Chilean folk-based music in the face of imported pop music that domi-
nated the Chilean market. Cordial relationships, interactions, and collaborations were com-
mon throughout the folkloric community. This cohesiveness began to erode in the late 1960s,
as conservatives and leftists developed mutually exclusive conceptions about what consti-
tuted Chilean folk music and Chilean identity. The right became linked with musica tipica, a
form of folk-based music in which groups of well-groomed singing huasos performed stylized
versions of cuecas and tonadas from Chiles central valley, imbuing these songs with lyrics
 Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies 81

that sang nostalgically about idyllic and orderly rural life, pastoral romances, and Chilean
nationalism. Younger conservatives in particular developed an attachment to neofolclore
music, which was a chic, cosmopolitan reinvention of msica tpica designed to appeal to
younger, urban audiences from the mid-1960s. The left, in contrast, embraced nueva cancin,
a folk-based musical style that emphasized purer or less refined representations of folk
and indigenous traditions from various regions of Chile and from other Latin American
countries. In addition to cultivating a sense of pan-Latin American identity through the
adoption of musical practices from throughout the region, nueva cancin music commonly
utilized lyrics that narrated the struggles of the poor and proclaimed the merits of leftist
reforms (see, e.g. Fairley [1984]; Morris [1986]; Rodrguez Musso [1988]; Taffet [1997]; Garca
[2013]; Mularski [2014a] for further discussion of nueva cancin). However, while the right
and left divided over their favored forms of folk-based music and the social perspectives
and cultural identities that they represented, the popularity of rock music persisted among
many young Chileans, and diverse interpretations of rock shaped the reception and popu-
larity of its sound during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
As with the previously discussed conservative responses to rock music, the left similarly
struggled to form a cohesive response to a type of music that on one hand was a contem-
porary commercial product exported by American and European recording industries, but
on the other hand was a new sound that promoted protest and social reform in the United
States and Europe. While they never acquired the level of emblematic popularity of nueva
cancin music among youth closely tied to the political left, groups such as the Beatles and
the Rolling Stones remained significant for many middle- and lower-middle-class youth who
supported Popular Unity. As Miguel D. recalled, such rock groups were part of our identity
as youth and they taught us that we didnt just have to listen to official [msica tpica and
neofolclore] music. Miguel D. continued to assert that this music helped to open us up to
the musical diversity in nueva cancin, leading to the rapid rise of nueva cancin as a favored
music among leftist adolescents and university students (personal interview with Miguel
D., 1 December 2009).

Hippies, politics, and counterculture in Chile

While most of Chilean society polarized decisively over support for or against the general
trajectory of the Popular Unity revolution, an apolitical Chilean hippie movement linked
closely to rock music developed in the late 1960s. Although some youth on the left and right
shared some of these hippies affection for rock music and countercultural aesthetics attached
to it, Chilean hippies identified deeply and centrally with foreign hippie movements and
their counterculture, while decisively rejecting political engagement with either the Chilean
right or the Chilean left.
Scholars have noted the friction between the political and apolitical wings of the youth
movement within the United States during the 1960s, and many have asserted that this
friction created a divide between countercultural hippies and their more politically focused
peers of the New Left: the hippie movement claimed that members of the New Left were
squares who ignored the importance of fun in life, while the New Left accused the hippie
movement of luring American youth into passivity through drugs, spiritual revivals, and
messages of love (see, e.g. Miller [1991]; Rossinow [1988]; Braunstein and Doyle [2002] for
82 J. Mularski

further discussion of the relationship between US hippies and the New Left). As cultural
historian Peter Braunstein has asserted:
[the hippie] love ethic was criticized by the New Left as a watering down of youthful energies, an
irresponsible and apathetic stance that mystically promoted societal renewal not via concrete
structural changes in the political system but through a nebulous social stance based on love.
(2002, 52)
Historian Deborah Michals has noted that the New Left and hippies also divided over the
question of whether to perfect the self or society:
While individual members of the New Left experimented with LSD, they did so with none of the
visionary implications of the Learyites or Keseyites. In fact, the New Left considered it socially
irresponsible to focus on oneself when the real task was to benefit all mankind by ridding the
country of the existing political and economic system. (2002, 50)
Despite these distinctions, the hippies were never necessarily apolitical, and the New Left
never wholly disavowed countercultural behavior. In fact, the two factions ultimately devel-
oped towards what can be characterized more accurately as a single, overarching movement
that advocated cultural and political change. By the end of the 1960s, hippie war protests
and the rise of politically involved hippie groups such as the yippies demonstrate how the
hippie countercultural movement shifted towards a greater political consciousness. Similarly,
the New Left developed a strong orientation towards countercultural behavior. In other
words, as American Studies scholar Timothy Miller (1991, 11) has explained:
the visionary culture the hippies wanted to establish was based on such political ideologies as
peace, racial harmony, and equality; the political crusade of the New Left was deeply romantic,
and the great majority of the New Leftists lived the cultural values of the hippies, smoking
marijuana, engaging in liberated sex, and often living communally.
Or, as prominent anarchist Stan Iverson contended:
The hippie life style has superficially influenced a broad spectrum of the United States, and is
such an influence in the New Left that it is impossible and I think undesirable to draw a sharp
line of division between the two movements. (Miller 1991, 11)
Even historian Theodore Roszak, who had noted that the mind-blown bohemianism of the
beats and the hippies and the hard-headed political activism of the student New Left
appeared to represent two separate and antithetical developments: the one (tracing back
to Ginsberg, Kerouac, & Co.) seeking to cop out of American society, and the other (tracing
back to C. Wright Mills and remnants of the old socialist left) seeking to penetrate and rev-
olutionize our political life, still concluded that a common rejection of technocracy and a
prioritization of human experiences over doctrinal logic fundamentally united the two
groups (1969, 59 and 5658).4
For many young North Americans, defying mainstream culture and political protest went
hand in hand: both countercultural hippies and the New Left questioned social norms and
asserted an explicitly anti-war and anti-capitalist rhetoric. Additionally, rock music and culture
embodied an alternative lifestyle and served as a political platform against social injustice
and war. Although certain segments of the 1960s youth movement in the United States
emphasized cultural transformation, while others focused their agendas more heavily on
political action, countercultural behavior and political protest overlapped: politics became
culture and culture became politics. As historian Doug Rossinow has stated, Political doctrine
seemed to coincide with cultural style (2002, 108).
 Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies 83

A different situation developed in Chile where, despite some similar cultural tastes
between hippie youth and their politically active peers on the left and (to a lesser degree)
on the right, hippie counterculture and political activism were not one and the same.
Musically, whereas the growth of la nueva ola in the early 1960s sparked a transition to
Spanish-language rock and roll, groups such as Los Vidrios Quebrados in the mid-1960s
searched for a means to separate from the mainstream Chilean rock music that had become
popular among middle- and upper-middle-class youth. As Los Vidrios Quebrados member
Hctor Hugo Seplveda insisted:
In Chile, folkloric culture predominated and that made us want to look for something else.
Spanish was very associated with commercial music, with la nueva ola, and what we liked came
from England [] We didnt have any point of reference here, either in the music groups or on
the television. (Ponce 2008, 83)
By the late 1960s, many of the groups following this orientation had reacted against both
nueva ola and Chilean folk-based music, which was becoming a strong part of mainstream
Chilean culture and identity. These groups created music that reflected the psychedelic rock
style of North American and European groups such as the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton,
and Jefferson Airplane. For musicians who performed this style of music and for many
Chileans who embraced it, the sound represented the experiences and identity of a segment
of society that felt a stronger connection to hippie youth and their counterculture in other
parts of the world than to the identities and concerns of Chileans on either the political right
or the political left.
Chilean periodicals indicate that there existed a strong interest among both the left and
the right to diagnose the behavior of Chilean hippies, who eschewed the politics of the left
and right while embracing hippie music, products, and behaviors along with the youthful,
cultural identity tied to them. As Patrick Barr-Melej has noted, hippie counterculture in Chile
had much in common with hippie counterculture in other parts of the world: Chilean and
non-Chilean hippies protested against similar societal characteristics from positions outside
the political parties, organizations, and institutions that structured and sustained national
debates in an era marked by class, political, and generational conflicts (2009, 308). At the
same time, interviews conducted by newspapers and magazines on both sides of the political
spectrum demonstrate that Chilean hippies viewed themselves as part of an authentic,
distinctively Chilean expression of youth and a new way of life that rejected the archaic
lifestyle and divisions that they associated with older generations. As self-described hippies
explained to El Mercurio in 1970, We believe we are in a transition stage between two cul-
tures, one dying and the other about to be born; they claimed that although they rebelled
against their parents way of life, they did not necessarily hold a sense of vengeance or
animosity towards it. When asked why they smoked marijuana, these hippies answered that
they did it to have fun or to forget about their problems (12 October 1970). Moreover, hippies
noted that the rigid class distinctions that marked Chilean society were significantly less
important among hippies (Barr-Melej 2009, 31516). In striking contrast to the vast majority
of news coverage during an era in which the political divisions fomented by Allendes election
permeated both the mass media and quotidian life, the statements and actions of such
hippies stood apart. Not only did they make no direct allusions to political ideologies or
engagement, other than to criticize generally the politics and behavior of both the right and
the left, but they also reflected an orientation based on generational divisions but without
divisions by class, politics, or nation.
84 J. Mularski

Prior to the 1970s, Chilean media infrequently published articles on drug arrests and
youth delinquency, but the fixation of Chileans on these issues exploded after the Piedra
Roja festival in October 1970. Constructed as a Chilean version of Woodstock and as a means
to unite Chiles youth, Piedra Roja was a three-day music festival held on a plot of land in
the Dominicos sector of Las Condes, on the western edge of Santiago. The festival line-up
included several of Chiles top psychedelic rock bands, such as Los Jaivas, Lgrimas Secas,
Los Blops, and Aguaturbia; however, a surprisingly high turnout, coupled with a severe lack
of electrical infrastructure and insufficient amplification equipment, caused widespread
chaos at the festival and greatly hampered the musical performances, preventing Aguaturbia
from performing at all. Although Piedra Roja received little publicity prior to its opening day,
the press gradually began to arrive as it caught wind of the events transpiring in Los
Dominicos. As the festival progressed, the Chilean press offered a growing number of reports
over the radio and in newspapers that focused on vices at the event: marijuana, nudity,
and sex. These reports attracted even more people to the event, including young Chileans
from various social classes and many parents who frantically arrived to rescue their children.5
According to reports in the Chilean press, some parents were unable to locate their children
during or immediately after the festival, resulting in their filing missing children reports with
the police and speculation that hippies had corrupted or kidnapped children at the festival
(see, e.g. El Mercurio, 1318 October 1970).
Piedra Roja revealed the growing divide between Chilean hippie youth and Chiles polit-
icized mainstream, as both the left and the right responded to the festival and its participants
with harsh criticism. The right lashed out sharply at Chilean hippies, and in doing so stressed
links between marijuana use and the subversion of proper moral values, claiming that hippie
youth behave with a lack of inhibitions, demonstrate haughtiness in relationships with
their parents, and adopt habits like smoking marijuana habits that conservatives associ-
ated with mental and physical degradation, arrogance, and delinquency (see, e.g. El Mercurio,
1 September 1970; 13 October 1970; 16 October 1970). El Mercurio went so far as to describe
the scandal of the pseudo hippie festival at Piedra Roja as an orgy of marijuana and sexual
excesses that finished in a field of activity for common delinquents (16 October 1970). The
right also attacked the authenticity of the often long-haired/bearded, bell-bottomed Chilean
hippies, arguing that excessive foreign influence and consumerism drove the hippies acts
of rebellion, and that such behavior represented little more than attempts to copy hippie
aesthetics from abroad. At the time of Piedra Roja, Conservative periodicals voiced confidence
that only a small segment of Chiles youth were hippies and marijuana addicts; however,
they expressed a strong fear that hippie influence would spread, and they emphasized that
the importation of such foreign-derived attitudes and practices posed a major threat to
Chilean society: despite the actions of common delinquents at this festival, this depraved
and effeminate fantasy is abnormal in a wholesome country, but it serves as an attraction
for enemies from abroad (El Mercurio, 16 October 1970).6 In particular, conservative period-
icals lamented that the threat posed by marijuana grew day by day, with unquestionable
risk of contamination of the youth from yet unaffected sectors of society a perception
that fit closely with the rights broader political narrative that Allendes government would
be unable to maintain social and economic order (El Mercurio, 1 September 1970). This fear
about marijuana use was both evident and exacerbated in the aftermath of Piedra Roja, as
the Chilean press circulated reports of marijuana-smoking delinquents committing robberies
and sexual assaults at Piedra Roja, reports that one festival organizer attributed to a lack of
 Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies 85

police presence that might have dissuaded criminals from disguising themselves as hippies
to commit these crimes (El Mercurio, 13 October 1970). The media reports of crime at Piedra
Roja appear to have been overblown; nonetheless, these reports both reflected and furthered
the publics association of politically disengaged hippies, marijuana, and delinquency (for
a more detailed discussion of these reports, see Barr-Melej 2009, 31819). In response to
this association and the perceived threat that it posed, conservatives asserted that a return
to Chilean national values was necessary to prevent more widespread corruption of Chilean
youth. As El Mercurio editorialized: The recent [Piedra Roja] scandal is a call to attention for
parents, for educators, for the State and for the media. All of them should give a higher
example to the children and to the youth and associate that understanding with the moral
criteria that corresponds to Chilean society (16 October 1970).
A strong current of cultural conservatism also existed within the Chilean left, as reflected
by the Allende governments perpetuation of traditional gender roles through its programs
and perspectives. For example, as Heidi Tinsman (2002) has demonstrated, Popular Unitys
agrarian reform reinforced patriarchy by conceptualizing male-headed households as the
cornerstone of the rural society it sought to create. Moreover, as Julie Shayne (2004, 84) has
noted about Allendes assertion that he fundamentally equated women with the role of
wife/mother and a function within the nuclear family, these words could have just as easily
come from a politician on the right. Right-wing women, however, were oblivious to the
ideological similarities with respect to their positions as women across the political spectrum
(see, e.g. Townsend [1993]; Power [2002] for further discussion of rightist and leftist attitudes
and actions that reinforced patriarchal structures and traditional gender norms, even as the
right assaulted Allende for undermining traditional family values). In a similar vein, the left
much like its political opposition levied strong criticisms towards Chilean hippies for their
lack of morals and authenticity, mocking Chilean hippies claims that they used marijuana
to cope with their problems and frequently lamenting the perceived high level of sexual
activity among adolescent hippies: not only did the majority of the girls who arrived [at
Piedra Roja] bring birth-control pills in their purses and bags, but hippies publicly [made]
love without caring whether anyone is watching (El Siglo, 14 October 1970; Clarn, October
1970). The left further argued that Piedra Roja was a poor imitation of the famous and his-
torical Festival of Woodstock [] that a half million authentic hippies attended, and addi-
tionally that Chiles invented pseudo-hippies possessed a fundamental difference from
true hippies that demonstrated their inauthenticity: they bathe, [and] they use deodorants
(Clarn, 12 October 1970). In line with these criticisms, the Communist Youths Ramona Parra
Brigade also declared that it would undertake a fight against decadent hippism (Barr-Melej
2006, 772).
For the left, the concept of hippie counterculture represented not a subversion of con-
sumer society and socio-political power structures, as it did within the US hippie movement,
but rather the embrace of bourgeoisie consumerism and cultural imperialism that conflicted
with local values, true rebellion and patriotism, and constructive work (El Siglo, 13 October
1970). Similar to the right, the left held a strong aversion to marijuana use, which it believed
to be a key source of undesirable attitudes and actions among Chilean adolescents.7 For
most leftists, however, marijuana was not simply a source of delinquency, but also an imped-
iment to the revolution that the Popular Unity government envisioned. As Allende himself
explained, The uncontrolled use of drugs by youth is a sub-product of a consumer society
that does not offer other ideals, and drug use frequently pushes youthful rebelliousness
86 J. Mularski

down the road of escapism rather than [towards] the daily effort to construct a new nation
(Mensaje de S.E. El Presidente de la Repblica, 23 June 1971). Victor Jara, one of the leading
figures in the Chilean nueva cancin movement, a fervent Popular Unity activist, and member
of Chiles Communist Youth (JJCC), toured the United States during the winter of 19671968
and drew similar conclusions. Jara found United States hippies sympathetic to the social,
economic, and political difficulties facing the Latin American working class, but he concluded
that with Vietnam and draft protests, United States hippies had their own fight and their
own cause. He also felt that politically they tended to be very nave, [and] that they would
never achieve a revolution, not even of flowers the drugs would take care of that, defusing
what might have been a powerful movement of rebellion. Jaras perception was that
although countercultural efforts were a normal and justifiable reaction against this sinisterly
hygienic and mechanized [US] world that imprisoned [the US population] in a kind of plastic
cage which crushes them with its own weight, hippie counterculture would also undermine
political activism and true revolution (Jara 1998, 108). Leftists further argued that Chile was
in an entirely different context than the United States: hippie counterculture was not appro-
priate in a country that was underdeveloped or in a country where true revolution was
already moving forward. As El Siglo editorialized, The youth act as if they were living in North
America and were victims more of a consumer society than an underdeveloped country that
now is in the process of realizing its destiny (13 October 1970). To this end, the left ignored
the fact that many young Chileans from the working class identified as hippies and attended
Piedra Roja, erroneously portraying hippies strictly as manifestations of upper-middle-class
and upper-class privilege, as well as young people who study badly and almost never work:
Very caring parents went to drop off their kids [at Piedra Roja] in luxury cars. There they said Chao
pescado and while the kids went in to enjoy themselves [ the parents] went downtown to do
the same, but in restaurants, nightclubs, and more comfortable places. (Clarn, 12 October 1970)
Such claims simultaneously cast hippies as being exclusively of the conservative middle and
upper classes and attacked hippies as lacking the ethics and discipline that were fundamental
to achieving the Popular Unity governments goal of socialist transformation.
Criticism of Chiles politically non-aligned hippies and concern over their behavior was
one of the few characteristics that the right and the left shared, and both factions took
concrete action against elements that they viewed as central to hippie identity and culture.
For example, even as many politically active youth, particularly those allied with the left,
shared some basic cultural aesthetics with hippies, such as blue jeans, long hair, beards, and
even some interest in rock music, leadership on the right and the left sought to eliminate
what they considered to be hippie cultural aesthetics, with many conservative private schools
enforcing a ban on long hair in the late 1960s and early 1970s, just as Allendes Ministry of
Education did in public schools in 1972.8 On the issue of marijuana use, Christian Democrat
officials led a congressional effort to investigate marijuana use and the strange hippie rituals
exhibited at Piedra Roja that produced apart from the manifestation of vices, scandals and
immoral exhibitions, robberies perpetrated by undesirable elements at the event; Christian
Democrats also ordered crackdowns on marijuana circulation and use as part of this inves-
tigation (La Tercera, 14 October 1970). The Allende government, while publicly chastising
the Chilean press for alarmist portrayals of adolescent drug use (perhaps only to combat
the broader conservative narrative that Chile was descending into chaos), undertook further,
aggressive efforts to stop marijuana use: it participated in conferences and commissions
against marijuana, amplified the size and scope of the Vice Brigade, and passed Chiles first
 Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies 87

comprehensive Drug Law in 1973 (Law 17.934).9 Additionally, the right and the left both
targeted the psychedelic rock that provided much of the soundtrack at hippie festivals and
parties. El Siglo classified the soul music of groups such as Los Ripios and Aguaturbia as a
copy of true hippie music, while El Mercurio, noting what it perceived to be the troublesome
effects of such music, emphasized that hippie groups create with their instruments the
strangest harmonies that in many cases push the youth that hears them to the point of
hysteria (El Siglo, 14 October 1970; El Mercurio, 26 January 1970). Such denigration of this
music by the right and by the left was not uncommon, and it stood in stark contrast to the
right and the lefts open and official support for the competing msica tpica and nueva
cancin styles, respectively (see Mularski [2014a] for a detailed account of the rights rela-
tionship with msica tpica and the lefts relationship with nueva cancin).
The Chilean hippie movement represented an intense rift that had developed along polit-
ical and generational lines to the point that both the right and the left began to reach the
conclusion that hippies hated all older Chileans simply because they were old (Clarn, 26
October 1971). At the same time, Chilean hippies acquired an increasing heterogeneity in
the early 1970s; sub-groups such as Hare Krishna and Silo developed with small but highly
publicized followings (see Barr-Melej [2006] for a detailed discussion of Silosmo). More
notably, however, as the majority of society polarized politically between the left and right,
some blurring of the divide between hippie counterculture and leftist politics did exist.
Chilean psychedelic rock musicians such as Los Blops, Congreso, and Los Jaivas represented
this tendency, as they occasionally collaborated musically with nueva cancin artists, per-
formed intermittently at Popular Unity-affiliated events, and expressed a passive interest in
social justice. Los Blops were perhaps the most closely tied of these groups to nueva cancin
in the sense that they collaborated with Patricio Manns and ngel Parra, as well as with Vctor
Jara on recordings for his El derecho de vivir en paz album; Los Blops also released their 1970
album, Blops, through DICAP, the Communist Youths nueva cancin-focused recording label
although not without a struggle over DICAPs desire to censor some of the albums tracks.
At the same time, the relationship between these groups and the leftist establishment
remained tenuous, as they still identified closely with Chiles hippie youth and refused to
affiliate themselves openly with Popular Unity. Relations between Los Jaivas, arguably the
most popular of the hippie bands, and the left were especially strained. Los Jaivas embodied
many of the complexities and tensions that existed between the left and Chilean hippies:
they collaborated on music and film projects with US political singer, Country Joe McDonald,
who produced Los Jaivas 1971 album, El volatn; they provided music for the soundtrack of
Saul Landau and Ral Ruizs 1970 film, Qu hacer?; they collaborated musically with some
nueva cancin musicians, such as Julio Numhauser; they performed much to the deep
displeasure of many leftists at the State Technical University (UTE) and some other leftist
centers; and they held and promoted perspectives that conflicted sharply with Popular Unity
on issues of sexual morality, marijuana use, appropriation of North American and European
symbols and behavior, and participation in Chilean politics (see Stock [2002] for a detailed
history of Los Jaivas). Ral Ruizs 1973 film, Palomita blanca, illustrated the tensions between
social classes and between hippies and the left through its depiction of the difficulties facing
a young, upper-class Chilean who falls in love with a working-class girl he meets at a hippie
concert. Los Jaivas, who performed the soundtrack for the film, explained their perspective
on the relationship between hippies and the left more succinctly in a 1973 interview: We
cant say that we are not political, because that is impossible, but we do not define ourselves
88 J. Mularski

with any political party. The musicians continued to assert that while they preferred Allende
to the rights 1970 presidential candidate, Jorge Alessandri, voting was not worth the trouble
of filling out a ballot and they did not believe in fighting to improve society (Ramona, 9
January 1973). Such opinions, combined with Los Jaivas advocacy of marijuana as a creative
stimulant that permits the creation of better things and combined with widespread reports
of the groups participation in sexual orgies, created a division between Los Jaivas and the
left and caused many leftists to view Los Jaivas negatively. The Communist Youth magazine,
Ramona, editorialized:
We insist that musically they [Los Jaivas] win some applause, but their contribution to the values
of the youth is not exactly on the mark. In moments in which the pueblo constructs, in moments
in which the best of the Chilean youth sacrifices itself in volunteer works, Los Jaivas prove to be
an exotic flower, transplanted, that has little or nothing to do with our country, that in its base
imitates the Europeanized hippie vibe, the free seizing of life, but in the act, falsely free, and
prisoner of the most decadent forms of escape from the world that has defined the bourgeoisie.
(Ramona, 9 January 1973)
The music of Chilean hippie groups further expressed their complicated identity and
political orientation. For example, Todos juntos, the title track from Los Jaivas commercially
successful 1972 album, communicated a message of global unity and love at a moment in
which both Chileans and the world in general were strongly polarized. Unlike msica tpica
lyrics, the song focuses on a wider sense of community that extends beyond the borders of
Chile and Latin America. While the notion of a broader community resembles the pan-Latin
Americanism of nueva cancin, the broader community evoked in Todos juntos is a global
community that includes all people, leftist or otherwise, of the entire world. In making this
appeal for a united humanity, Los Jaivas incorporate nature as a motif in a manner different
from msica tpica or nueva cancin: Todos juntos references natural features common to
all parts of the world, thereby expressing a sense of global citizenry and the commonalities
that unite all people under Mother Nature. Todos juntos articulates a social vision that
neither fully fits with nor fully clashes with either msica tpica or nueva cancin. For example,
Todos juntos calls for an active transformation of society, not unlike nueva cancin music.
Yet, at a moment when leftists aggressively attacked upper-class privilege and demanded
social revolution through increasingly partisan and confrontational messages, such as we
will have to expropriate you, with your guns and your tongues and everything else youve
got (Victor Jaras Ni chicha ni limona), the momiaje is fleeing, what joy! (Quilapayns La
batea), and the light of a red dawn announces the life that will come (Quilapayns El
pueblo unido), the lyrics of Todos juntos refrained from divisive proclamations. Rather, the
lyrics of Todos juntos express a desire to transform society through love and mutual under-
standing, emphasizing the whole over the individual as they call for collective action and a
need for all people to work together.10
Musically, Todos juntos resembles many of the psychedelic rock songs of the late 1960s
and early 1970s that Chilean and North American or European musicians produced: an
electric guitar with heavy reverb plays long instrumental solos and improvisations backed
by keyboards and strong percussion. However, Los Jaivas also incorporated into their music
a local, folkloric flavor by utilizing altiplanic instruments (such as the quena and charango),
rhythms, and melodies to evoke a mystical sense of pre-Colombian indigenismo. As Catherine
Boyle and Gina Cnepas essay on Los Jaivas has explained, Los Jaivas broad repertoire mixed:
 Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies 89

the new with the traditional, the creole guitar with the electric guitar; quartz lights with quenas
from the Andean highlands, amplifiers with the trutruca of the Mapuche region of the south
of Chile; synthesizer with the charango from the Quechua-Aymara region, echo chamber with
the cultrn, a type of shamanic drum from Mapuche ritual. (1987, 237)
Drawing on Andean huayno rhythms, Todos juntos begins with an extended Andean flute
solo that eventually cedes the melody to vocals and electric guitar solos. At the conclusion
of the song, the Andean flute returns in a closing duet with an electric guitar. A combination
of charango, piano, and various percussion instruments provide the primary accompani-
ments for the vocals as well as the background for the Andean flute and electric guitar solos.
Although the incorporation of non-Western instruments into psychedelic rock was not
uncommon among North American and European musicians, those musicians generally
utilized Asian instruments such as the sitar and the tabla, as opposed to indigenous instru-
ments of local (North American or European) or South American origin. The integration of
altiplanic influences and psychedelic rock influences was a clear distinction between nueva
cancin musicians effort to reproduce authentic folklore and Los Jaivas effort to reinvig-
orate pre-Colombian sounds with contemporary technology and instrumentation.11
Moreover, this blend of folklore with psychedelic rock represented the complexity of Los
Jaivas, both musically and politically: they adopted certain North American and European
influences to create music that jibed with their hippie sensibilities and globalist orientation;
yet similar to nueva cancin music, they also utilized local folk-based influences and drew
heavily upon an altiplanic and indigenous identity that had become linked closely with the
political left.
Some of the more musically progressive members of the nueva cancin movement enter-
tained the possibility of integrating electric guitars and other psychedelic rock influences
into nueva cancin music in a manner not unlike what Brazilian musicians did in tropiclia
music. In fact, Vctor Jara, Patricio Manns, ngel Parra, Isabel Parra, Patricio Castillo, and Julio
Numhauser all experimented with rock influences at some point during the early 1970s (see
Salas Zuiga [2003] for a more detailed discussion of the integration of rock influences by
nueva cancin musicians). Additionally, groups such as Los Blops and Los Jaivas occasionally
performed at events that included prominent nueva cancin musicians, and as the previously
discussed comments from Miguel D. indicate, some young supporters of Popular Unity even
believed that rock music informed part of their identity. Although such instances raise the
possibility that a deeper convergence of the cultural sensibilities held by hippies and leftists
might have developed over the course of an uninterrupted Allende presidency, they
remained relatively infrequent and limited during the truncated Popular Unity era; in effect,
these instances failed to generate broader enthusiasm for rock music throughout the left
or to draw Chilean hippies into a Popular Unity movement that generally objected to what
it perceived to be hippie beliefs and practices. As Jorge Coun of Inti-Illimani explained:
I had little contact with it [the Chilean hippie movement], my militancy had already enveloped
me in other activities. I always saw it as a manifestation of cultural dependency [] I believe that
they took it more as a pastime than as a real instance of rebellion against their own affluence.
(Cifuentes 1989, 589)
Reinforcing the prevalence of this perspective among leftists, Los Blops member Juan Pablo
Orrego recalled that when Los Blops performed at a handful of Popular Unity events, mem-
bers of the audience always pointed out what they perceived to be contradictions in the
music:
90 J. Mularski

Although we were not partisan or part of the canon of political music, they [Popular Unity]
permitted us to perform our music in front of the workers. It was very crazy because after we
played there were forums and somebody always would say that they had been taught that these
[rock] instruments were imperialist. (Ponce 2008, 128)

Conclusions
As a North American and European cultural import, rock music initially found favor among
middle and upper sectors of Chilean society that traditionally modeled their cultural sensi-
bilities after North American and European trends. However, rock music and culture repre-
sented a complex set of contradictions for both the right and the left. Even as the appeal of
rock music and culture among a wide swath of Chiles youth created a broad, culture-based
generational divide, the nature and centrality of hippie counterculture and music to the
identity of Chilean hippies combined with their rejection of rightist and leftist politics to
make Chilean hippies a distinctive cross-section of society. The widespread perception of
Chilean hippies as lacking personal discipline, work ethic, and proper morals, coupled with
their staunch refusal to engage politically, made them fundamentally incompatible with the
political projects of the right and of the left during the early 1970s. Conservatives came to
view rock music and the hippie counterculture that attached to it as a threat to their vision
of Chilean identity and society, and they conceptualized hippie counterculture as a symptom
of what they perceived to be growing social and economic disorder under Allende. Despite
potential points of collaboration and agreement between Chilean hippies and the left, the
tensions and contradictions between these two movements proved too great for any pro-
found musical or political reconciliation during the Popular Unity era. Hippies refusal to
mobilize politically behind the left clashed deeply with Popular Unitys vision of an active
and engaged youth that would play a central role in Chiles socialist transformation. Moreover,
the lefts struggle to eliminate US cultural influence from Chile fundamentally complicated
any broad acceptance of hippie counterculture by the left; so too did the lefts real and
perceived political need to cultivate greater order and sectarian discipline within its ranks
and within Chilean society as a whole. As leftist factions quarreled with one another, as
working-class Chileans seized lands and industrial workplaces of their own accord, and as
the right sabotaged Chiles economy and created shortages of goods, the persistence of
what conservatives and leftists viewed as an extreme and disorderly hippie counterculture
gave both sides reason to attack Chilean hippies, and Chiles hippie youth remained primarily
a countercultural segment of society in conflict with the left and the right.
The divisions between the left and right eventually brought about the downfall of the
Popular Unity government and the establishment of a repressive right-wing military dicta-
torship that would last from 1973 until the late 1980s. The military government brutally
repressed the political ideas and musical expressions of the left, and it likewise worked
diligently and with a heavy hand to eliminate hippie counterculture and music. The wide-
spread repression of this era ultimately brought about a realignment of Chiles political
factions in opposition to the military regime, and hippie sensibilities and rock music acquired
important roles within this context. Songs such as Todos juntos, which exhibited what
Catherine Boyle and Gina Cnepa (1987, 237) have described as a markedly nostalgic and
utopian character, had provoked most Chileans during the Popular Unity era of sharp class
confrontation, but now reflected a longing for peace and harmony shared by a broad swath
 Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies 91

of the populace in the midst of the state-sponsored violence of the dictatorship period.
Within this political climate, new rock groups emerged and voiced political critiques more
subtle and diverse than the often overtly ideological lyrics of nueva cancin music, which
had focused on class conflict and anti-imperialism during the Allende era. For example,
although their music was a harder rock style than the hippie music of the early 1970s, Los
Prisioneros formed and produced songs during the 1980s that became anthems for Chiles
youth, addressing a variety of social concerns ranging from unemployment to pollution to
the alienation of young people (Neustadt 2004). In this sense, even as political and cultural
divisions between the left and right defined the Popular Unity era, the hippie movement,
its values, and its rock music molded the cultural and political sensibilities of many Chilean
youths. Vestiges of this movement persisted in Chilean society into the dictatorship era, and
its legacy ultimately helped to shape the cultural contours of the anti-dictatorship
movement.

Notes
1.
An exception to this trend existed among Chiles female rock and rollers, many of whom retained
their original names: Fresia Soto, Luz Eliana, Gloria Benavides, Mireya Gilbert, and Gloria Aguirre.
This trend existed even in communist states such as the Soviet Union (see Stefan Ernstings Der
2.
rote Elvis [Ernsting 2004] for an account of the concern that the head of Komsomol, the Soviet
youth organization, felt about the popularity of The Beatles in his country and the need to
develop Communist rock stars to supplant them). In Chile, artists ranging from the staunchly
leftist Vctor Jara to the more loosely left-wing-affiliated Congreso and Los Blops cited The Beatles
as influential in their musical development.
3.
The interviews cited in this article were conducted by the author as part of a broader study
focusing on Chileans musical preferences and memories from the 1960s and early 1970s;
the interviews were conducted with individuals from diverse socio-economic and political
backgrounds (see Mularski [2014a] for further details on this broader study).
4.
Roszak defines technocracy as the social form in which an industrial society reaches the peak
of its organizational integration and where society is run by a regime of experts (1969, 59).
Estimates on the size of Piedra Roja vary dramatically, with some contending that as few as 2000
5.
people attended and others contending that there were as many as 40,000 or 50,000 attendees.
6.
The idea that disruptive social forces and ideas come from abroad had deep historical roots in
Chile, even as conservatives often imported ideas and cultural sensibilities from Europe and the
United States. For example, conservatives in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
considered labor mobilization among the workers in northern Chiles nitrate industry to be
the result of working-class immigration and the arrival of foreign-inspired rabble-rousers in
the region; these perceptions played a significant role in the development of Chileanization
campaigns to eliminate subversive ideas among the working class (see, e.g. Palacios Rodrguez
1974). This general orientation also shaped conservative perspectives during the Popular Unity
era, as fears about Soviet and Cuban influence in Chile were widespread.
7.
The concern about hippie drug use included concern about the use of hallucinogens, including
LSD and mushrooms; however, the vast majority of the concern and discussion about hippie
drug use focused specifically on marijuana.
8.
Demonstrating that hippies and leftist youth shared some countercultural aesthetics, the
Communist Youth magazine Ramona defended long hair as a form of legitimate rebellion
(March 1970).
9.
For further details, see text of Law 19.934, published 16 May 1973. As Allende made clear in
his 23 June 1971 speech proposing comprehensive drug legislation, the use of marijuana
and other drugs by Chilean youth was the central impetus behind Law 19.934. However, the
emergence of northern Chile as a regional cocaine trafficking center in the early 1970s also may
92 J. Mularski

have played a role in fueling this legislation. Cocaine trafficking in northern Chile dissipated
after 1973, particularly after Chiles military regime unleashed a heavy-handed crackdown on
drug production and trade (see Fernndez Labb [2011] for further details on drug production,
trade, and consumption in Chile through 1970).
10.Selected lyrics from Todos juntos are included in Boyle and Cnepa (1987, 2367) along with an
English translation of the song. A live 2011 performance of Todos juntos with English language
subtitles can be viewed at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=79I5kTjz8w0.
11.From the perspective of Los Jaivas member Gato Alquinta, the group played fundamentally
pre-Colombian music on their instruments with new scales. Alquinta asserted that he had
never played a rock riff on [his] guitar (Stock 2002, 7677).

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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