what is your opinion about the article A Lesson on ImmigrationFrom Pablo Neruda By Ariel Dorfman SANTIAGO, Chile — Chile, likenumerous other countries, has been debating whether to welcomemigrants — mostly from Haiti, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela — or tokeep them out. Although only half a million immigrants live in thisnation of 17.7 million, right-wing politicians have stokedanti-immigrant sentiment, opposed the increased rates ofimmigration in the past decade and directed bile especially againstHaitian immigrants. Immigration was a major issue in elections herein November and December. The winner was Sebastián Piñera, a68-year-old center-right billionaire who was president from 2010 to2014 and will take over in March. Mr. Piñera blamed immigrants fordelinquency, drug trafficking and organized crime. He benefitedfrom the support of José Antonio Kast, a far-right politician whohas been campaigning to build physical barriers along the borderswith Peru and Bolivia to stop immigrants. Chileans aren’t alone inwitnessing growing xenophobia and nativism, but we would do well toremember our own history, which offers a model for how to act whenwe are confronted with strangers seeking sanctuary. On Aug. 4,1939, the Winnipeg set sail for Chile from the French port ofPauillac with more than 2,000 refugees who had fled their Spanishhomeland. A few months earlier, Gen. Francisco Franco — aided byMussolini and Hitler — had defeated the forces of thedemocratically elected government of Spain. The fascists unleasheda wave of violence and murder. Among the hundreds of thousands ofdesperate supporters of the Spanish Republic who had crossed thePyrenees to escape that onslaught were the men, women and childrenwho would board the Winnipeg and arrive a month later at theChilean port of Valparaíso. The person responsible for theirmiraculous escape was Pablo Neruda, who, at the age of 34, wasalready considered Chile’s greatest poet. His prestige in 1939 wasindeed significant enough for him to be able to persuade Chile’spresident, Pedro Aguirre Cerda, that it was imperative for theirsmall country to offer asylum to some of the mistreated Spanishpatriots rotting in French internment camps. Not only would thisset a humanitarian example, Neruda said, but it would also provideChile with much needed foreign expertise and talent for its owndevelopment. The president agreed to authorize some visas, but thepoet himself would have to find the funds for the costly fares ofthose émigrés as well as for food and lodging during their firstsix months in the country. And Neruda, once he was in Francecoordinating the operation, needed to vet the émigrés to ensurethey possessed the best technical skills and unimpeachable moralcharacter. It took considerable courage for President Aguirre Cerdato welcome the Spanish refugees to Chile. The country was poor,still reeling from the long-term effects of the Depression, with ahigh rate of unemployment — and had just suffered a devastatingearthquake in Chillán that had killed 28,000 people and left manymore injured and homeless.An unrelenting nativist campaign byright-wing parties and their media, sensing a chance to attack thepresident’s Popular Front government, painted the prospectiveasylum seekers as “undesirables”: rapists, criminals,anti-Christian agitators whose presence, according to onechauvinistic editorial in Chile’s leading conservative paper, wouldbe “incompatible with social tranquillity and the best manners.”Neruda realized that it would be cheaper to charter a ship and fillit up with the refugees than to send them, one family at a time, toChile. The Winnipeg was available but since it was a cargo boat ithad to be refurbished to accommodate some 2,000 passengers withberths, canteens for meals, an infirmary, a nursery for the veryyoung and, of course, latrines. While volunteers from the FrenchCommunist Party worked around the clock to ready the vessel, Nerudawas gathering donations from all over Latin America — and fromfriends like Pablo Picasso — to finance the increasingly exorbitantenterprise. Time was short: Europe was bracing for war, andbureaucrats in Santiago and Paris were sabotaging the effort. Withonly half the cash in hand one month before the ship was set tosail, a group of American Quakers unexpectedly offered to supplythe rest of the required funds. Through it all, Neruda was fueledby his love for Spain and his compassion for the victims offascism, including one of his best friends, the poet FedericoGarcía Lorca, who had been murdered by a fascist death squad in1936. As Chile’s consul during the early years of the SpanishRepublic, Neruda had witnessed the bombardment of Madrid. Thedestruction of that city he loved and the assault upon culture andfreedom were to mark him for the rest of his life and drasticallychange his literary priorities. After the fall of the Republic, hedeclared, “I swear to defend until my death what has been murderedin Spain: the right to happiness.” No wonder he proclaimed theWinnipeg to have been his “most beautiful poem” as it steamed away— without him or his wife, as they did not want to occupy spacethat was better occupied by those whose lives were in danger. Andwhen that magnificent, gigantic, floating “poem” of his, after ahazardous voyage, finally reached Valparaíso, its passengers —despite the protests of right-wing nationalists and Nazisympathizers — were given a welcome befitting heroes.Awaiting thepenniless survivors of Franco’s legions was President AguirreCerda’s personal representative — his health minister, a youngdoctor named Salvador Allende. Cheering crowds amassed on the dock,singing Spanish songs of resistance, gathered to greet therefugees, some of whom already had jobs lined up. The refugees whocame ashore on the Winnipeg would go on to help fashion a moreprosperous, open and inventive Chile. They included the historianLeopoldo Castedo, the book designer Mauricio Amster, the playwrightand essayist José Ricardo Morales and the painters Roser Bru andJosé Balmes. Almost 80 years later, those undesirables posedisturbing questions for us, both in Chile and elsewhere. Where arethe presidents who welcome destitute refugees with open armsdespite the most virulent slander against them? Where are theNerudas of yesteryear, ready to launch ships like poems to defendthe right to happiness?