Is Costa Rica Different?
Spring/Summer 2024 Volume XXIII, Number 3
Cover Image by Jose Díaz @josediaz2491
Table of Contents
Editor’s Letter →
by June Carolyn Erlick
Is Costa Rica Different?
Paradise Flawed: Contemporary Costa Rica and its Future
There is no doubt that Costa Rica is a natural paradise. But none of Earth’s paradise is perfect.
Is Costa Rica Different? Democracy and its Challenges in a Regional Context
Let’s face it—the social and political history of Latin America over the past two centuries has not been a felicitous one.
Is Costa Rica Different? A Treasure Chest of Discoveries
At the beginning of the 16th century, the territory that is now as Costa Rica was part of a spatial limbo between what was known as Castilla de Oro y Veragua.
Clear Principles and Tangible Realities: Costa Rican Foreign Policy
On March 27, 2014, as Costa Rican Ambassador to the United Nations, I mounted the podium of the General Assembly with a clear mission: to express my country’s repudiation of the Russian annexation of Crimea, consolidated nine days earlier by Vladimir Putin through an illegal referendum with unbelievable results.
Yes, Costa Rica is Different: A Successful Experience at Risk
Everyone knows her as “Doña Nena.” At 75 years old, she has been a leader for half a century in the community of Luzón, in Matina—one of the poorest counties in Costa Rica—on the Caribbean coast, 84 miles northeast of the capital: San José.
Peace, Democracy and Security
Crisis of Citizen Insecurity in Costa Rica: A Challenge to the Model of Demilitarized Democracy
I began my political and public service career thirty years ago as Minister of Public Security, the first woman to ever hold that post in my country, Costa Rica.
From Barracks to Museum: The Intersection of Memory and Forgetting
The former Bellavista Barracks, the main headquarters of the National Museum since 1949, has been a witness, protagonista and symbol of Costa Rican history, not only because of its physical presence, but because of the imaginaries with which it is associated.
Security Matters: Risks for Costa Rica’s Exceptionalism
We live in a small dot of pale blue light in the middle of the universe, as Carl Sagan described it in (A pale blue dot, September 2015).
EARTH University: Local Lessons in Global Leadership
Mekdes Gelete Tikuye, a woman in her 20s from rural Ethiopia, spent the last four years 8,000-miles away from her home, at EARTH University, immersed in the heart of the Costa Rican tropical rainforest.
Art, Culture and History
Behold the Tropical Arcadia: Costa Rican Cinema
One of the most successful films of all times, Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993), depicts San José, the capital of Costa Rica, as a coastal town where the U.S. protagonists scheme in the midst of sandy beaches and banana trees.
The Game of the Little Devils
Documentary photography about the most important cultural celebration of the Brunca people.
Cultural Resistance in the Costa Rican Caribbean: Music and Ethnicity
Sitting in the restaurant of the Park Hotel in Port Limón, I began to reminisce about the years I’ve spent visiting, learning about and studying the culture and people of the Caribbean province of Costa Rica.
“Calufa” and Don Quincho: Two Visions of the Banana Republic
In the heart of the memory, history, and literature of Costa Rica lies the story of an agricultural company that changed the way of working the land, planting, harvesting, distributing, marketing and advertising its product.
Monteverde: A Colorful Mirror of Costa Rican Life
The first time my family went to Monteverde in our native Costa Rica, we thought we were well-prepared for what we anticipated to be a long trip on dusty country roads—as travel-loving Ticos, we had been on many such trips around our country.
Harvesting History: The Untold Story of United Fruit in Costa Rica
Growing up in Costa Rica, we read Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez’ One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Focus on Economics
Biomedical Exports and Costa Rica: The Great Reallocation of Global Supply Chains
What was Costa Rica’s greatest source of export revenue in 2023? If you guessed coffee, pineapple or bananas, you’re wrong. Medical devices—ranging from surgical and therapeutic devices to diagnostic equipment—lead the list of exports.
Costa Rica’s Path to Success: Five Key Policies
I fondly remember my childhood days, walking alongside my father amidst the aromatic expanse of his coffee plantation in Heredia, Costa Rica.
Attracting Multinationals to Boost Development? Some Evidence from Costa Rica
Costa Rica’s global image is typically dominated by sights of mountains, beaches and volcanoes, with the smell of coffee in the background.
Costa Rica Amidst Climate Change: Navigating the Economic Perils and Opportunities
The devastating Hurricane Otto made landfall in Costa Rica in November 2016, adversely affecting the livelihoods of more than 10,000 people and causing economic damages estimated at least US$185 million.
Environment and Beyond: A Plethora of Challenges
Costa Rica and Environmental Displacement: Natural Events do not Follow Protocols
Water, a divine and essential element, symbolizing life and constant motion, conjures images of the beauty found in rivers, seas, or rainfall.
Pura Vida, Pura Sustainability: Costa Rica’s Path to a Green Future
I was born a “Tico” in 1985, an affectionate term that symbolizes my Costa Rican heritage.
Artificial Intelligence: The Next Challenge
The world is undergoing constant change, with a speed that provoks a sense of uncertainty and flux.
Costa Rica and “the Others”
I never felt myself to be the “other” until I emigrated to Costa Rica. I’d never imagined that leaving one’s own country to install oneself in a foreign land redefines identity, and, sometimes, even one’s purpose in life. At least, that’s what happened in my case.
Youth Unemployment Crisis in Costa Rica: A Call to Action
As a Costa Rican student at Harvard, I discovered an alarming situation back home when I returned to my country for winter break: youth unemployment.
Voices of the Caribbean
The Caribbean Spirit: Preserving Our Heritage and Ancestral Rights
Our community and other Afro-descendant tribal communities on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast are confronting what seems to be a systematic attempt by the state to uproot our community. For decades, Costa Rica has refused to grant property titles and infringed on our rights to property by targeting ownership over our ancestral lands, even to the extent of issuing demolition orders.
Cloudy Horizons in the Costa Rican Caribbean: Identity and Architecture
I was raised in Limón, the poorest province in Costa Rica, with the lowest human development index and the highest rate of self-destruction among young people, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INEC).
Voices of the Caribbean: Afro-Costa Ricans Move Towards Empowerment and Equality
Dawn begins to appear on the coast of Cocles in the Costa Rican Caribbean and the first rays of the sun reflect on the sea. With an invitation from the Brown Hudson family, local residents who are proud Afro-Caribbeans, I am on my way to a journey of discovery and connection
Challenges and Achievements in the Afro Context
As an Afrodescendant from the Caribbean coast in Costa Rica, I’ve asked myself what is different about the Afro-Costa Rican experience?
Focus on Education
Homecoming and Public Education: The Cancel Culture (of class time) in Costa Rica
When I returned home on my sabbatical, I couldn’t stop thinking about Svetlana Boym’s extraordinary book, El futuro de la nostalgia.
Educational Blackout in Costa Rica: The Challenges of a National Emergency
I grew up poor in San José, Costa Rica, and the possibilities for getting ahead were thanks to my public elementary, high school and university.
The Evolution of Education in Costa Rica: Challenges and Opportunities
If you were a child in Costa Rica in the late 19th century, you would have been able to go to public school free of charge—a social privilege and means of inclusion virtually unknown in the developing world. This early investment in education has enabled Costa Rica to achieve one of the highest literacy rates in Latin America.
Book Reviews
A Review of Alberto Edwards: Profeta de la dictadura en Chile by Rafael Sagredo Baeza
Chile is often cited as a country of strong democratic traditions and institutions. They can be broken, however, as shown by the notorious civil-military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). And yet, even a cursory view of the nation’s history shows persistent authoritarian tendencies.
A Review of Born in Blood and Fire
The fourth edition of Born in Blood and Fire is a concise yet comprehensive account of the intriguing history of Latin America and will be followed this year by a fifth edition.
A Review of El populismo en América Latina. La pieza que falta para comprender un fenómeno global
In 1946, during a campaign event in Argentina, then-candidate for president Juan Domingo Perón formulated a slogan, “Braden or Perón,” with which he could effectively discredit his opponents and position himself as a defender of national dignity against a foreign power.
A Review of Aaron Copland in Latin America: Music and Cultural Politics
In Aaron Copland in Latin America: Music and Cultural Politics, Carol Hess provides a nuanced exploration of the Brooklyn-born composer and conductor Aaron Copland (1900–1990), who served as a cultural diplomat in Latin America during multiple tours.
A Review of San Fernando: Última Parada, Viaje al crimen autorizado en Tamaulipas
One of Mexico’s best investigative journalists, Marcela Turati, takes readers to terrorized and traumatized San Fernando, a town known for dozens of mass graves, and exposes the depths of criminal brutality and official corruption that hid the bodies and the truth for years.
A Review of Until I Find You: Disappeared Children and Coercive Adoptions in Guatemala
A student in my “Introduction to Cultural Anthropology” course at the University of Delaware approached me several weeks ago, after hearing about my long-term research in Guatemalan communities, to tell me that they were born there, in Guatemala.
A Review of Default: The Landmark Court Battle over Argentina’s $100 Billion Debt Restructuring
In February 2019, I found myself serving as the special attorney general for the then newly recognized interim government of Venezuela, tasked with addressing more than 50 claims before the U.S. courts stemming from the $140 billion debt inherited from Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro.