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In Costa Rica, Some Migrants Receive Special Treatment

Posted June 25, 2010 by Leslie Josephs

I am an undocumented migrant worker.

In search of work opportunities that are paltry in my home country, I entered Costa Rica eight months ago.

I was greeted with a smiling migration official and a tourist visa that has been renewed several times as I returned to my home country for holidays, birthdays, and vacation.

Each time, I received a warm smile or even a “pura vida,” the Costa Rican national motto.

As a freelance journalist, most Costa Ricans would hardly call me a threat to the system. The majority of tourists and residents from wealthy countries are in pursuit of surf, sand, sex, or silicone (Costa Rica has reputed and cheap medical care).

But had I come from Nicaragua—Costa Rica’s northern neighbor—I would likely have not received such a welcome mat.

I found it pretty easy to adapt to life in Costa Rica: the only real nuisances here have been Costa Ricans straining to understand my Spanish—a hideous tangle of Peruvian and Dominican accents I’ve picked up over the years—and long lines in the bank.

This is not the case for Nicaraguans.

According to the government migration agency, there are 342,000 foreigners living in this country of 4.1 million people, most of them—around 238,000—from Nicaragua. But the number of undocumented immigrants is thought to be much higher, close to a million by some estimates, as Nicaraguans often enter for seasonal work through the porous northern border.
Men work in agriculture, a fading industry that was once economic backbone of the country. Native-born Costa Ricans rarely choose to work in the sector.

In Costa Rica, a country that is much wealthier and more politically stable than its northern neighbor, it’s not uncommon to hear nationals blame Nicaraguan immigrants for violent crime and for straining the social security system.

I was mugged here in December, not far from my apartment. When I told some neighbors and cab drivers what had happened, they uniformly responded “Nicas?” sometimes without the question mark.

During the presidential campaign that ended in the February vote, at least a dozen voters told me that Costa Rica has to tend to its own population, not Nicaraguan immigrants.

“It’s not them as people, it’s their customs,” said Kathy Campos, 30, as she was varnishing some picture frames in Central San Jose. “They’re not trustworthy. They kill each other.”

Not all Costa Ricans agree.

“If you want to work, you can work,” said Martin Duran, a 49-year-old, who was watching cars at a popular San Jose luncheonette. “We’re all the same.”

But Nicaraguans tell another story.

“They think we are not as smart,” Jonathan Gutierrez, a 26-year-old business student, told me, of Ticos, the diminutive used for Costa Rican citizens. Gutierrez’s family moved from Managua, Nicaragua 20 years ago. “You hear offensive things, but nothing major. No violence.

He said that Nicaraguan immigrants have every right to Costa Rica’s robust social benefits if they work there.

“It’s a well-earned benefit,” he said.

While I do not have access to Costa Rica’s social security system, which, as Rush Limbaugh knows, includes robust health care benefits, I still live on the other side of the fence: I’m an outsider.

But no one scoffs at me when tourism revenue drops amid a financial crisis started by negligence in my home country. No one blames “my kind” for corporate greed up north.

Instead, I’m welcomed.

Image courtesy of Daquella Manera via Flickr

Tags : costa rica, migration, nicaragua, rush limbaugh