The illegal immigrants continue to stream across the Rio Grande border — uh, make that FORMER border — between Mexico and the Greatest Nation in History. While many of them have come from as far away as Africa, Korea, Russia, etc., most of them speak Spanish, because they came from Mexico, or Nicaragua, or Venezuela, or Haiti, or Guatemala, or Cuba, or wherever from South of the Border.
Wait a minute! Where are the several thousand — at least — from Costa Rica? Don’t they know that living in Central America means you’re poor, miserable, and can’t wait to get out? That you’d do ANYTHING to get away from the huge continent discovered by Columbus?
WELL, COSTA RICA, population slightly more than 5 million people, which is situated between Nicaragua and Panama, doesn’t fit the Central America standard. Not in a NUMBER of ways.
For one, all the other Central American nations have ethnic mixtures of people that lean heavily toward the dark skins — often Native American, sometimes African-descended. White people in Central America tend to be a minority in most countries.
BUT HERE IS the percentage of all ethnic groups presently living in Costa Rica:
White and Mestizo (mixed European and Native American), 83.64 percent. And the European-descended Costa Ricans greatly predominate.
Mulatto, 6.72 percent. That’s mixed European and African.
Indigenous (Native American without mixture), 2.42 percent.
Black/Afro-Caribbean, 1.05 percent. And they tend to live mostly on the Caribbean coast, not mixed with the other ethnic groups.
Chinese, 0.21 percent.
Other, 0.84 percent.
And with tens of thousands of Central Americans, and smaller numbers from other regions, pouring across the Rio Grande and into the United States illegally day after day, because Joe Biden and his followers want to turn our nation darker than it’s ever been, guess how many natives of Costa Rica presently live in some other country? Approximately 2.8 percent! People don’t tend to leave native countries they like and can live in relative comfort in, to move somewhere else!
Now, has Costa Rica had a totally peaceful history since Columbus discovered that part of Central America in 1502? Of course not. After the country became independent, there were a few dictatorships, coups, etc. But in comparison to its neighbors, the Ticos (the nickname that Costa Ricans have had among other Spanish-speakers for many, many years) have lived more peacefully then any of their neighbors.
THE LAST ATTEMPTED coup occurred in 1948. It was squashed by the government, and after that, in 1949, that government abolished the Costa Rican armed forces. So, for the last 73 years, presidents and members of the 57-member, one-house Congress have been elected every four years, as required by the national constitution. For many years, the presidents, vice presidents and congressmen could only serve one four-year term at a time, with no re-elections allowed. Although they could run again, IF they sat out for a four-year term.
Hear that, members of the U.S. Senate and House, who can keep running every two years until the cows come home? Now, a few years ago a court ruling allowed the presidents to start running for re-election for a second term, while serving their first. But the “term limits” rule still applies to the congressmen.
Costa Rica is a very attractive country, visibly and in a number of other ways. Its natural beauty, in the rural areas, has been preserved much better than that of the other Central American lands, where revolutions, dictatorships, coups, etc., were a common occurrence for the past 200 + years. Ticos have been sensible farmers, in more recent years have built and operated efficient businesses, and maintained a very stable economy for a long time. In recent years, it’s been recognized as having the highest standard of living in Central America. And in 1987, Oscar Arias, elected president in 1986, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end civil wars then raging in several Central American countries. And in 2010, the first female president in Costa Rican history, Laura Chinchilla, was elected.
And all these good things have become known to many Americans — from the U.S., that is. There are more than 50,000 of us who have re-located to Costa Rica to live a more pleasant, peaceful retirement, in the last half-century or so.
In fact, I’ve thought about it myself.
Now, there is one change that I think the Costa Rican government needs to make (nobody’s perfect, you know). In the area of northeast Costa Rica near the border with Nicaragua, there are about 500,000 Nicaraguans who have been allowed to move into Costa Rica, but apparently without actually becoming legal immigrants. You’ve done a great job of building the best nation in Central America, Ticos; but you don’t want to start a mess in your country as the Biden administration has deliberately created at the Rio Grande!
