Mary Valencia arrived in Chile when she was a child. Far from Colombia, she became a soccer player facing racist attacks. With ‘La Roja’, the attacker will face her country of origin in the Copa América Femenina. In López de Micay, a majority black municipality in the Colombian Pacific, alternatives were scarce for the youngest.
The Colombian who plays with Chile
Ana Valencia, by then a 16-year-old high school student, gave birth to Mary. She wanted to pursue a university career, but due to a lack of resources, she decided to migrate five years later. Little Mary was left in the care of her grandmother.
“For me to do better I had to go to another country,” Ana recalls in conversation with AFP. In 2011, as a 21-year-old single mother, she traveled to the Chilean city of Viña del Mar. A job in a casino allowed her to live, study Financial Engineering and raise the money to return for her daughter in 2014.
Mary consolidated herself in Chilean youth soccer and at the tip of her tongue shut up the mouths that made racist comments at her from the beginning. She overcame the cumbersome nationalization process as a Chilean and on Wednesday, at the age of 19, she will face Colombia in the last date of Group A of the Copa América in the city of Cali, in a decisive duel to qualify for the semifinals.
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‘In Colombia I wouldn’t have had these opportunities’
At the beginning of the last decade, a wave of migrants from Colombia, several of them from the Pacific, landed in the prosperous Chilean economy. According to official data from the southern country, only travelers from neighboring Peru exceeded the number of Colombians who migrated there discouraged by lack of employment, access to education and violence. Ana always feared that her daughter might be a victim of discrimination.
“When I arrived in Chile there weren’t so many blacks, it was like a novelty to see dark-haired people,” he says.
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In 2021, Mary confessed to the portal ’emol.com’: “At school I was the only brunette, it was strange to others and they bothered me sometimes.” But Thanks to his skill with the ball, he earned the respect of his teammates. His career was on the rise and in 2021 he received a boost from the Chilean under-20 team, which opened its doors for him for a friendly match in which he scored two goals.
Mary, says her mother, was called “the African” and on her Instagram account she received comments accusing her of “stealing” the work of Chileans. She reproached him “why did they put an ‘African’ player” to play with her country, “knowing that in Chile there are also players who have the ability” to do so. Her team, Santiago Morning, denounced that fans of a rival launched racist statements against her. In her defense, the bars of the capital club displayed posters with the message “Mary is Chilean, period!”.
Finally, this year she received Chilean nationality, after which La Roja summoned her for the South American U-20 in April and DT José Letelier included her in his list of travelers for the senior team for the Copa América in Colombia. In her most recent match, against Bolivia, she scored a goal for the team that is second in the group with three points less than the locals. She felt “happy” with the support she received from the rostrum.
Valencia does not deny the country it represents. “Here I was able to finish school, I was able to play sports and now I’m doing well. It’s wonderful. In Colombia I would not have had these opportunities“, he expanded to ‘Emol’.
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AFP
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