If You Turn to Look Back A Memoir and Meditation

by Hazuka, Tom

• ISBN13: 9781954907669
• ISBN10: 1954907664
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2023-09-05
• Publisher: Woodhall Press

Summary

If You Turn to Look Back combines memoir with political, social, and economic investigations of what it means to be an American and a citizen of the world. American influence is ubiquitous in South America, and If You Turn to Look Back explores these relationships in a personal context. For Tom Hazuka was once part of that influence, from 1978-1980 as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Chile, first in the capital of Santiago, then in the far northern city of Arica, near the Peruvian border.

In a chain of events springing from the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in 2003 Hazuka returned to Chile to examine changes in the country, the people and himself. He left Chile at twenty-four and returned at forty-seven. Every human knows what it's like to wonder where time goes, and to reflect on what has been gained and lost over the years.

One variable that has not changed for Hazuka is that he is an American. In South America, like it or not he is a representative in developing nations of the richest and most powerful country on the planet. The intricacies of that relationship and the dynamics it creates are the focus of If You Turn to Look Back.

Author Biography

Tom Hazuka was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Chile from 1978-1980, during the Pinochet dictatorship which began with a violent military overthrow of the elected government on September 11, 1973.If You Turn to Look Back chronicles his return to Chile after 9/11, and the changes in the author and the world he once knew. By examining the particular details of his personal experiences, he draws universal conclusions that connect to all of us.

Hazuka retired after years of teaching at Central Connecticut State University. Tom lives in Sebastian, Florida and Berlin, Connecticut.

Table of Contents

Preface--“ We Are in Pain” 5 Chapter One--The Politics of Goodbye 8 Chapter Two--Sweet and Right 14 Chapter Three--Sea A Tranquility 19 Chapter Four--The Gringo Advantage 26 Chapter Five--Misma Mierda, Distintas Moscas 44 Chapter Six--A Finite Window 51 Chapter Seven--The Snows of Yesteryear 64 Chapter Eight— The Broken House 83 Chapter Nine--Pilgrimage to Pisagua 92 Chapter Ten--The Past on Paper 105 Chapter Eleven--On Time 120 Chapter Twelve--Barriers: Broken Glass, Velvet Ropes and Dotted Lines 131 Chapter Thirteen--Santiago Mon Amour 143 Chapter Fourteen--The Concatenation Connection 168 Epilogue 191 Appendices 193