Patrick Huewe, World Languages Chair, wrote this moving account of a recent guest speaker in our Spanish 450 class.
Jorge Thompson, who was just a boy of 13 years in 1973 when he and his family were uprooted from their home in Chile during the military regime of Augusto Pinochet, visited with Spanish students in Mr. Huewe’s Spanish 450 class to tell his story. Thompson explained that he grew up faster than most 12-year-olds not because of choice, but because of necessity during the period just after the coup d’état of Salvador Allende’s elected government by the brutal dictator Pinochet.
Thompson became accustomed to school visits by the military to control people from areas that tended to be anti-Pinochet and he experienced first-hand the repression that the military used to hold on to power. He explained that free speech and peaceful protest, which were common during the Allende government, were later met with kidnappings, disappearances, and torture during Pinochet’s rule.
Among the thousands of persecuted Chileans was his own father, Jorge Thompson Sr., who was imprisoned because of close ties to officials in Allende’s government. His mother searched for his father for eight months before she finally was able to make contact and learn that he was alive. Thompson Sr. was released after 23 months of imprisonment through an amnesty agreement. His family was one of 500 granted asylum through a program led by Senator Ted Kennedy to bring exiles to the United States.
Thompson decided to peacefully protest the Pinochet dictatorship alongside his siblings by forming a band called “Voces del Pueblo” and singing songs that called attention to the violence in Chile. They performed native Andean music throughout the United States, including a special performance at the United Nations in New York City, where his family lived when they came to the United States.
Thompson is now the CEO of Masters of Clinical Research in Augusta, Georgia, where he has worked on trials for COVID-19 treatments. MICDS Spanish Teacher Assistant Adria Concannon and her son Elliot Concannon ’24 are relatives of Thompson. Concannon arranged his visit to the Spanish 450 class where students prepared questions for Thompson related to the Pinochet regime and his childhood experiences.
Thank you to Jorge Thompson and Adria Concannon for making this experience possible for our Upper School Spanish students.