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| San José's National
Theater was constructed in the late 19th century
to model the Paris Opera. The building continues
to be a reminder of the European influence on
the Costa Rican culture. |
| Courtesy ICT |
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| Immigration, globalization
and the media have all had a strong cultural
impact on Costa Ricans and their way of life. |
| Courtesy Costa Rica Sun
Tours |
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| Cartago, located about 15
miles from San José, was Costa Rica's
first capital, and contains many traces of the
country's Spanish Catholic colonial past. The
Ujarrás ruins, located just outside Cartago,
are the remains of the Ujarrás church.
Built in 1963, it was the country's oldest church.
|
| Courtesy ICT |
Costa Rica is a bridge which unites two continents
and separates two ocean masses. In recent decades
much has been said about the Central American Biological
Corridor which seeks to protect the fragile and
diverse ecosystems.
Less has been said about the area as a cultural bridge.
Costa Rica and the other countries of the area have
been the route of passage of cultural traditions from
the north and the south.
The Spanish presence in the early 16th century provoked
a demographic debacle in the Indian population: it
dropped from 400,000 to 10,000. The decimation of
the Indians and also their resistance to the conquest,
drove them from their cultivated lands, and the Spanish
were forced to import African slaves to work the cacao
plantations.
Out of this period arises the tradition of the appearance
of the black Virgin de los Angeles, substituting the
white Virgin of Nuestra Señora de la Concepción.
Every year on Aug. 2 a pilgrimage takes place involving
thousands of people who walk from various parts of
the country to the church of the “Virgencita
Negra” (the Little Black Virgin), Costa Rica’s
patron saint.
Development of the country based
on the relationship of small landholdings and big
exporters in the Central Valley
Confusing news of the independence from Spain and
from the Capitania de Guatemala came to Costa Rica
by mail in 1821. It was not until 1856, in the struggle
against William Walker’s filibusters, that
Costa Rica felt threatened by a foreign presence
and established its identity.
Parallel to this, in the 1840s there was a greater
opening to and diversification of the country’s
trade relations. Coffee cultivation is what definitely
transformed the independent country’s production
structure and established its position in world trade.
During this period the first German families came
to Costa Rica, marrying with economic and political
power. Several of these families became the operators
of the coffee, produced under the small-scale rural
production – the basis of our identity to the
present time.
The lack of man power since colonial days discouraged
the creation of large coffee plantations, which
resulted in an interest as quality rather than quantity,
creating an identity which cuts across society at
all levels.
The liberal state and the major
waves of immigration in the late 19th century
The small-scale production mentality
left commercial relationships in the hands of the
large agricultural exporters – coffee oligarchy.
This social group looked to Europe as its cultural
reference point, and later on they sent children
to Europe to study, brought European professors
and constructed the National Theater, identical
but smaller to the Paris Opera.
The need arose to facilitate the coffee export across
the Atlantic and integrate the peripheral areas of
the country into the rest of country. For the construction
of the railroad to the Atlantic coast, Minor Keith,
a US engineer, was contracted, and this project led
to massive immigration of Italians, Chinese and English-speaking
blacks from Jamaica.
The Italians protested over the terrible health and
living conditions, and most of them ended up marrying
women in the Central Valley. Many of the Chinese moved
to Panama to build the canal, while others settled
in the Port of Limón and went into business.
The Jamaican black population withstood best the difficulties
of the coastal climate and finished the railroad.
Therefore, the history of the Central Valley has very
little in common with the history of the country’s
peripheral cultures – poorer and isolated from
the economic development, educational and health facilities
of the Central Valley.
In the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s Costa Rica
went through a series of social struggles to improve
living conditions, such as the eight-hour work day,
social guarantees, and women’s suffrage. In the
Atlantic coast banana plantations struggled with strikes
and negotiation with the companies and the state.
The capacity for self government in the various communities
was as important, if not more, than the participation
of the state in developing these communities.
The 1948 revolution and its implications
on the development of a culture of peace during
the second part of the twentieth century
At the close of the 30’s,
the social struggle led to the war of 1948 between
the two political groupings constituting the two
party political pattern which only in 2002 has begun
to break down.
After this conflict Costa Rica abolished the army
and adopted an interesting course of development of
universal education and health care, honest elections,
local rural governments, etc.
In the 70’s President Figueres Ferrer created
the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, the Youth
Symphony Orchestra and other projects applying a
phrase which has made history: para qué tractores
sin violines (why have tractors without violins).
Likewise in the 70’s and the 80’s the country
received immigrants from several South American countries,
many of them intellectuals and artists who fled the
dictatorships in their own countries.
Groups of Central American refugees, especially from
El Salvador and later on Nicaraguans, begun to fill
the country, too.
What is true is that Costa Rica, at the dawn of
the 21st century, is gradually becoming more Central
American than ever before, and this is marking its
cultural identity.
Globalization and its effects
on Costa Rican culture at present
Immigration and its results
are part of the effects of globalization. Another
strong tool of influence is the media. In a way
we could say that we are experiencing the immigration
of Mexican and US culture in recent decades through
radio and TV. Latinamericanos view Costa Rica as
a very agringado (Americanized) country in its consumption
patterns and social aspirations.
At the close of the 19th century, Costa Rica was characterized
by two main events, each quite contradictory in principal,
however complimentary in practice. First, the greatest
immigration of the century was taking place, with
people relocating to the Atlantic coast of Costa Rica
to participate in activities such as the construction
of the Atlantic railroad. Secondly, the state —
the most important motor for development — was
looked outside, in this case to Europe.
At the close of the 20th century we again see a great
wave of immigrants to work in jobs the Costa Ricans
do not want to do. And secondly, the market, which
has increasingly become the focus of society, has
taken us, willingly or not, to look again to the outside
world for our development, in this case to the US.
In both cases it has not been easy to recognize the
wealth that these immigrations have meant. At the
same time we cloud our vision with development from
the outside, which does not allow us to recognize
our own special history.
The value of our biodiversity, our culture of peace,
our internal cultural diversity, our historic process
of community self-development and other features make
us unique and enable us to strengthen our identity
and development.
Loida Pretiz is a Costa
Rican artist, promoter of culture and researcher
in the area of popular culture
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