"A PHENOMENON OF OUR TIMES:
THE LIFE OF MIGRANTS"

by Jeanette Vargas Quesada of the Social Pastorate of the Diocese of Limon

Men and women capable of risking everything they own with the sole aim of offering a more dignified life to their loved ones.

Pushed by the instinct of survival, in search of better living conditions, humans are displaced to other nations. Because of its condition as a border country with a relatively high level of development with respect to the rest of Central America, Costa Rica is one of the principal receptors of Nicaraguan migrations. With 70 percent unemployment, the highest in Latin America, Nicaragua faces the consequences of long periods of war, laced with serious natural catastrophes which have buffeted this nation since its independence. In 1990, the peace process diminished the armed conflict in Central America. In spite of this, the condition of the people did not improve. On the contrary, today they are the ones who have to pay the poor record of their governments. The poorest populations are forced to abandon their place of origin, using different methods of transport, risking their life and that of their families. They migrate as a desperate answer to the situation they live in.In search of work Like many other compatriots of his, David left his home, left his land. His brothers, sisters and parents stayed behind. With the address of an aunt who lived in some neighborhood of San Jose, he began his long journey to Costa Rica full of hopes and dreams. Even though Rivas, his home town, was not that far from the border, he had not seen the border before. With a passport, a tourist visa and 200 Cordobas, he approached the border post of Peñas Blancas. Like him, hundreds of people were in line to exit Nicaragua. At the entrance control to Costa Rica, he changed his Cordobas, learning about a new currency: 4000 Colones to reach San Jose. He took out the telephone number of the house where his aunt worked as a maid, and called her. When he arrived in San Jose, Rosa waited for him at the park La Merced, to take him to the room she shared with three of her sons and two more nephews. The fifteen year old boy spent one month looking for work in the Capital city, and he was only able to work for one week washing cars at midnight. "On the banana plantations in Limon there is a lot of work, and you earn good money. Why don’t you go there?" his aunt said. So David departed one Monday morning to Cariari de Pocosi. He asked for work and they sent him to La Catalina, a banana plantation. Because he no longer had any money to pay for transportation, he spoke with the foreman, and on the following day he had work and a mattress on which to sleep. By that time his tourist visa had expired, and his room mates began telling him about the risks of walking in town without his documents. For fear of being caught and taken back to Nicaragua, David spent five months without going to town. When he did, he was lucky, because two of his friends were asked to show their documents, and finally had to pay all their salary in order to be let free. In the afternoons he played baseball with his friends, on Sundays, domino and beer at the bars of the banana company. Weekends with a radio, a checker board, the bar and the loneliness of the banana plantations.

The rule of arbitrary acts

"Emigration is a massive phenomenon of our times, a permanent phenomenon that takes on new forms and affects all the continents and almost every country, posing human and spiritual problems." (John Paul II). In face of the situation of forced migration, the Nicaraguans in Costa Rica are subject to multiple arbitrary acts by the Costa Rican authorities, and subject to exploitation by their bosses. They have no access to health, education or housing. They live almost clandestinely, nor do they enjoy worker guarantees. Angela had worked in Costa Rica for eight years to support and raise her eight children. She first started at a restaurant, where she worked from two in the afternoon to three in the morning, suffering the screams of her female boss when Angela would complain about not feeling well. She then looked for work in sales, but had no migratory documents. She went to the banana company and they also asked her for her documents. So she worked packing yucca from six to six, standing all day long with her hands in water washing the tubers. The day she cut her finger while preparing the yucca, her boss fired her. He told her to return in two weeks to collect the money of the last three days he owed her.

Migration control

"The immigration policies of numerous nations are in crisis. The last decade of the 20th Century, like the first of the 21st, will be characterized as the era of migrations." (Stephen Castles, The Migratory Age). For several years, the governments of Costa Rica have intensified the restrictive measures of their migratory policies, with the aim of slowing down the enormous influx of Ni-caraguans, even though the Ministry of Labor recognizes that Costa Rica needs the labor force and that Ni-caragua has an over supply of labor due to the economic crisis in that country. In a presentation during the Bilateral meeting carried out in San Jose, January 30th of 1995, Costa Rica recognized the presence of a high percentage of "undocumented" Nica-raguans in the national territory. It estimated a population of around "300 thousand Nicaraguans who have not normalized their migratory condition". There are no statistics to serve as reference in order to define precisely the number of undocumented or "illegal" Nicaraguans there are in the country, but surely the number offered by the government is extremely conservative. One could well say that there are more than half a million Nicaraguans. An important reference point regarding the influx is that approximately 600 persons enter the country daily at only one of the Nicaragua-Costa Rica border control posts. A temporary or permanent"residence" is one of the traditional mechanisms of legalization, however, not everyone can gather the requisites or enough money to obtain such a status. The condition of refugee is another means, but only serves under situations of war. In 1995 a seasonal work card was created, but its processing depen-ded on the willingness of the employer to normalize the situation of the workers. Few were benefitted by this,since for the companies this implied greater economic costs for having to pay minimum wages and insure the workers. Currently, the governments of Costa Rica and Nicaragua are discussing the need to create a control mechanism that would regulate, and at the same time facilitate the use of Nicaraguan labor in Costa Rica. Nevertheless, despite the agreements and treaties between the two countries, the great majority of undocumented Nicaraguans in the country still have few possibilities of becoming documented.

A reality that cannot be hidden

The participation of the means of mass communication have contributed to strengthen an attitude of rejection of Nicaraguans by the common Costa Rican citizen. If it is true that some migrants have committed abuses, the description of these cases by the press has generated xenophobic attitudes in the Costa Rican population. The people in general are uninformed about the magnitude of the problem and of the critical situation the Nicaraguan people are currently suffering. At the same time that the influx of Nicaraguans to Costa Rica grows, so do the measures of migratory control. Despite the fact that there are migration control posts along the border, and a strict vigilance is maintained, the influx of Nicaraguans to Costa Rican territory continues. The economic, political and social crisis that our Nicaraguan brothers and sisters are living, is even more severe if we consider that the demands of the international market force gove-rnments to sacrifice their people in order to satisfy those demands. Given the crude reality suffered by Nicaragua, the emigration of its sons and daughters will not stop. They continue to arrive to Costa Rica, legal or illegal, professional or illiterate, workers and those who are fleeing the law; they all constitute a cheap labor force for construction, sugar cane harvests, coffee picking, domestic work, and banana plantations.