Author: Iván Jaksic

I have a few clear memories of my childhood in Punta Arenas, Chile (at the time the southernmost city of the world), but none as clear as the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963. I heard the news on the radio, just like a previous generation had heard and panicked listening to “The War of the Worlds.” The event in Dallas, however, was terribly real. It was a jolt, a moment of heightened awareness that something big had happened well beyond the confines of my remote city. It hit me with enormous velocity and power. I probably ceased to be a child at that very moment (I was born in 1954) because I internalized, in a deeply personal way, an event that, until then was only discernible to adults. Then came the sorrow, the empathy with another child, Caroline Kennedy, closer to my own age. It was a shock that crossed the boundaries of time and space. It was my first encounter with the United States.