Honor and Violence: Nicaraguans in Costa Rica, 1930s–40s

Nicaraguans were involved in two critical events in Costa Rican history, the 1934 banana strike and the civil war of 1948, however, the historiography obscures or marginalizes the role of Nicaraguan immigrants.  My paper will examine how Nicaraguan migration to Costa Rica during the 1930s and 1940s helped reshape Costa Rican national identity through the analytical lenses of labor, gender, and violence. Through an analysis of Nicaraguan participation in Costa Rican social movements, my work seeks to disrupt the established narrative of a white and peaceful Costa Rica.  Furthermore, it focuses on the critical role that gendered constructions of masculinity played in the development of the Costa Rican elite violence and state repression against labor movements.  Finally, it explores the relations between Nicaraguan and Costa Rican men in their places of work.  My paper employs archival research, novels and memoirs of Nicaraguan and Costa Rican laborers and contributes to the growing research on Costa Rican national identity, ethnicity, and class formation.