Unauthorized Migration

NICA IN COSTA RICA

There’s a heavy metal rock song called Nica en Costa Rica, which talks about Nicaraguan migrant workers in Costa Rica. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbtXhWnWJZQ&feature=related… Listeners are duly warned.)

I mentioned this issue in an earlier post, “The Campo,” because my host brother from San Pedro lives and works without documentation in Costa Rica for most of the year. At 24 years old, Moises has migrated for almost five years, busing seasonally from Managua to San Jose to work informally in construction sector and send money home.

Like in Mexico and the United States, the Nicaraguan economy is so poor that many people migrate without documentation to Costa Rica to work (usually) low-skilled labor jobs; Moises works in construction, but he has friends who cut sugar cane at a dollar per ton or work as housemaids in San Jose.

*As a side note, there’s a really incredible, life-changing documentary about Mexican/U.S. immigration called The Other Side of Immigration; I highly recommend you watch the trailer, and then the film (which is on Netflix instant)! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh8biWzG0Wo.

Life is full of the same dangers and pitfalls for undocumented immigrants in Costa Rica as those in the States. Our ROO session took place in Río San Juan – a stretch of land sharing the border with Costa Rica and, until recently, a sieve for unauthorized immigration. We met a man and his nephew who migrate to Costa Rica to work on sugar plantations, and they described their life: crossing the border through the rainforest, placing their fates (and identification, and savings) in the hands of untrustworthy coyotes, to arrive on the plantation to work fourteen hours a day, seven days a week and send money home. Employers would take room, board, taxes and “social security” from their paychecks, leaving them with barely enough to send home, and workers wouldn’t complain to the police for fear of getting deported.

Moises has described being the victim of discrimination as a Nicaraguan in Costa Rica. While North Americans might not notice, there are factors that distinguish Nicaraguans from Costa Ricans, ranging from skin color (Nicaraguans tend to be darker than costariccenses), to accent and dialect. A prevalent belief in Costa Rican superiority has contributed to the marginalization of Nicaraguan migrant workers in the country, similar to the discrimination Mexicans face in the U.S.

This discrimination is compounded by the border dispute over who really owns Río San Juan. In Managua, there are murals painted in bright pinks, yellows and blues which proclaim  Río San Juan: it’s ours, learn about it! Both countries have laid claim to the river in the past, and while it currently belongs to Nicaragua, Costa Ricans have been immigrating to the region and voting to become part of Costa Rica (reminiscent of the way the U.S. appropriated Texas from Mexico).

In Río San Juan, an estimated 50 to 60 percent of the population works in Costa Rica at least part of the year, down from 70 percent in earlier years. The recent development of tourism in the region has contributed to the growth of jobs and the economy, resulting in less migration than before.

It’s fascinating to live in a sending (rather than receiving) community for a change; a country on “the other side of immigration,” as the documentary title reminds us. To hook you into watching it, I’ll provide a sound bite that resonated with me: an interviewee in the trailer says, “The effect is migration. But that’s not the real problem. The problem is the lack of opportunities in the countryside.”

Almost every family in Nicaragua has or knows someone in both Costa Rica and the United States. Both my host families – as different as they were, living in the capital city and a small country town, with different politics, lifestyles, and economic situations – were no exception. These issues make me excited to take James Loucky’s Global Migrations class at WWU next quarter, and take a more in-depth look at the causes of, and possible alternatives to, immigration.