Abstract

Chile diversified the migrant population, starting with the arrival of people from Latin America. This, still far from being statistically significant, has generated a proliferation of negative social imaginaries, institutionally consolidated through restrictive approaches towards certain foreign groups. Institutional racism is reflected in policies and practices, placing migrant bodies in positions of inequality. Through qualitative research carried out in the XI region of Aysén (Chile), and through an intersectional analysis, we present the ways in which different inequalities — such as national origin, class and gender are articulated — in access and care in public health. The results show the existence of institutional racist practices and the imaginaries of “otherness”; the ways in which institutional racism operates based on explicit discrimination; and the agencies and resistance carried out by racialized people.