Nicaragua

When asked about Nicaraguans in Costa Rica, my mom made an inherent facial expression of disgust, but then she laughed and said she was just kidding. While I know her facial expression may have been in a joking manner, these jokes all have an origin of reality. There are prejudices and large stereotypes against Nicaraguans in Costa Rica, but what I did not expected to hear is that my family seems to have a higher disrespect and prejudice against Colombians.

My brother explained it as basically a difference in class. Nicaraguans are poor, have large families, use force instead of words to sort out problems, and are dumb. On the other hand, Colombians are intelligent businessmen in the drug trafficking business. Colombians are dangerous and you keep your distance with them. In a sense, both can be dangerous, but since the Nicaraguans aren’t smart, it is okay to be friends or acquaintances with them.

The most interesting problem that I heard from my brother is that the government may report, that there are only 3,000 Nicaraguans living in Costa Rica illegally, or without permanent citizenship, but what are not accounted for are those Nicaraguans living in Costa Rica with a cedula 8. I had never heard of the cedula 8 before, but it is an interesting concept. My brother said that it is very easy to get Costa Rican citizenship because all you do is fill out some papers and pay some money, but there is no test or true investigation into background. Just about anyone that wants citizenship can acquire it. For this, there are many Nicaraguans, and a growing number of Colombians living in Costa Rica that have the cedula 8. By having a cedula 8, they can open accounts, work in banks and government, get benefits, and be considered a citizen.

This is bothersome to many Costa Rican families because anyone with a cedula or cedula 8 is paying taxes, but Costa Rican families feel that Nicaraguans are taking advantage of those benefits. Nicaraguans tend to have large families, from 6 kids up, while Costa Ricans may only have 2 or 3 kids. Therefore, the example on my street is that there are 3 Nicaraguan families and 1 Costa Rican family on my street. The Nicaraguan families consist of around 6 kids each and our family, the Costa Rican family, has 3 kids. Therefore, on our street, there are 29 people who all need social benefits, but there are only 4 breadwinners. In my brother’s eyes, this is not fair that the Nicaraguans have such large families and take up a large part of social benefits, most importantly healthcare, and schooling.

What I found interesting is that in the U.S., we always claim that Mexicans are taking American jobs. But, in reality, much of the American people would not work these jobs anyways because our middle class is vanishing and more Americans have higher education levels. In Costa Rica, while the majority of the people are middle class there is also a large low class especially in the fields of agriculture. The impression here is that Nicaraguans are taking the jobs of the lower class ticans because Nicaraguan labor is cheaper.