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Racism and Nationalism in the Creation of Costa Rica's Pacific Coast Banana Enclave

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Ronald N. Harpelle
Ronald N. Harpelle*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Lakehead University
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Extract

The creation of the new banana enclave on Costa Rica's Pacific coast in the 1920s marks a significant watershed in the social and political history of race relations in the country. The culminating event in what was a lengthy battle over the composition of the workforce on the new plantations was the signing of the 1934 banana contract between the government of Costa Rica and the United Fruit Company. In addition to allowing for the continued growth of the industry in Costa Rica, the agreement took aim at the West Indian immigrant by prohibiting “people of colour” from working for United Fruit on the Pacific coast. Subsequent to the agreement, the state made a conscious effort to force the integration of the West Indian community. The government closed English schools, pushed farmers off their land, and deported West Indians in order to purge the province of Limón of people who were not citizens, but who belonged to a well-established immigrant community. As a result, resident West Indians were forced to re-examine their relationship with the country and they engaged in a protracted struggle to overcome heightened levels of discrimination.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 56 , Issue 3 , January 2000 , pp. 29 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2000

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References

1 For a discussion of the choices that people made refer to Harpelle, Ronald, “The Social and Political Integration of West Indians in Costa Rica: 1930–1950,” Journal of Latin American History, Vol. 25, Part 1, 1993.Google Scholar

2 Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso Press, 1983).Google Scholar See Chapter 8, “Patriotism and Racism,” for a discussion that is particularly relevant to the case of Costa Rican nationalism.

3 Biesanz, John and Biesanz, Mavis, in Costa Rican Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 1944), p. 3.Google Scholar

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5 For a discussion of the formation of the modernizing bourgeoisie see Winson, Anthony, Coffee and Democracy in Modern Costa Rica (Toronto, 1989), pp. 23–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Keith had married into a powerful Costa Rican family and therefore enjoyed the privileges of the ruling élite.

7 Government of Costa Rica, Anuario Estadístico, corresponding years.

8 The Liga Cívica de Costa Rica was a precursor to the Centre for the Study of National Problems which rose to prominence in the 1940s.

9 United States State Department, Lansing & Woolsey to The Secretary of State, 19 October 1928, 818.43.

10 Diario de Costa Rica, 15 July 1928.

11 United States State Department, 818.6156/37.

12 United States State Department, R. M. de Lambert to The Secretary of State, 21 August 1928, 818.43.

13 APRA was founded in 1924 by Peruvian Victor Raul Haya de La Torre while in exile in Mexico in 1924 and was influenced by the Mexican Revolution.

14 United States State Department, R. M. de Lambert to The Secretary of State, 21 August 1928, 818.43.

15 Sigatoka was another disease that contributed to the destruction of the industry in Limón. It attacked the leaves of the plant hindering the development of large stems of quality bananas. The effects of Sigatoka were first reported in 1938 and the disease devastated the crops in the years that followed.

16 Government of Costa Rica, Congreso Series, No. 15400, folio 18.

17 Government of Costa Rica, Congreso Series, No. 15400, folio 21.

18 La Gaceta Oficial, 1 February 1927.

19 Government of Costa Rica, Indice Completo de Opciones, Inscipciones y Naturalizaciones: 1824–1927.

20 There were some Costa-Rican born West Indians with status as British subjects but all indications are that very few parents registered their children with the local consul.

21 Casey Gaspar, Jeffery, Limón 1880–1940: Un estudio de la industria bananera en Costa Rica (San José, Costa Rica, 1979), pp. 197–198.Google Scholar

22 Government of Costa Rica, Anuario Estadístico, 1934. And even during the Depression years of 1930–39 they averaged more than 2,300,000 U.S. dollars per year or 46% of the total value of Costa Rica’s annual exports. (Calculations are based on data collected at the Banco Central de Costa Rica and the Dirección General de Estadística y Censos).

23 “Negrito” was and is a derogatory term for people who are apparently of African descent. Also, many of the people living in San José were the descendants of Central American slaves and not West Indians from Limón.

24 La Tribuna, 30 August 1930, signed by Rafael Calderón Muñoz, Otilio Ulate Blanco, Adriano Urbina, Carlos Manuel Echandi, Ramón Bedoya, José Rafael Cascante Vargas, Juan Guido Matamoros, Manuel Antonio Cordero, Francisco Mayorga Rivas, Victor Manuel Villalobos B., Marcial Rodríguez Conejo and J. Manuel Peralta.

25 The Searchlight, 28 June 1930.

26 Government of Costa Rica, Congreso Series, No. 16358.

27 Of note is the signature of one José Guerrero. This may be coincidence, but the name is the same as that of the man mentioned earlier who was Director of the Census Bureau, member of La Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País and the Liga Cívica and was also the author of articles attacking the West Indian presence in Costa Rica.

28 Government of Costa Rica, Congreso Series, No. 16753.

29 There is no other evidence of threats made by West Indians against Hispanics in this period.

30 The Times, 28 April 1911.

31 Diario de Costa Rica, 8 February 1920, p.4. See also Acuña Ortega, Victor Hugo, Los orígenes de la clase obrera en Costa Rica: las huelgas de 1920 por la jornada de ocho horas (San José: CENAP-CEPAS, 1986), for the context of the strike action.Google Scholar

32 See The Atlantic Voice for coverage of the strike.

33 See Koch, Charles W., “Ethnicity and Livelihoods, a social geography of Costa Rica’s Atlantic Zone.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Kansas, 1974, pp. 284–289;Google Scholar and Bourgois, Philippe I, Ethnicity at Work: Divided Labor on a Central America Banana Plantation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989, pp. 106–109.Google Scholar

34 Diario de Costa Rica, 23 September 1934, and The Atlantic Voice, 13 October 1934.

35 The Voice of the Atlantic, 25 August 1934.

36 Among them was Samuel Nation who became the editor of The Atlantic Voice in 1936.

37 Martin, Tony, Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (Westport, 1976), p. 16.Google Scholar

38 Hill, Robert, ed., The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers, III (Los Angeles, 1985), p. 536.Google Scholar

39 Cited in Cronon, Edmund D., Black Moses: The Story of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (Madison, 1969), p.88.Google Scholar

40 Hill, , The Garvey Papers, 3, p. 536.Google Scholar

41 Northern Railway Archives, Memorandum for heads of division and departments of the United Fruit Company, 17 August 1934,

42 The Voice of the Atlantic, 18 August 1934.

43 The Voice of the Atlantic, 25 August 1934.

44 Barrantes, Emel Sibaja, “Ideologia y protesta popular la huelga bananera de 1934 en Costa Rica,” unpublished M.A. thesis, Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica, 1983. p. 60–71.Google Scholar See also Arnaldo Ferreto, La Huelga Bananera 1934, pamphlet, nd.

45 The data for this section is taken from the original forms of the 1927 census. The two communities were Cahuita on the Atlantic coast and Siquirres which is located inland from Limón. The two communities contained a total of 748 individuals and with approximately half residing in each town. Cahuita had a larger West Indian population while Siquirres was more Hispanic.

46 Government of Costa Rica, Censo de Población de Costa Rica (11 de mayo de 1927), San Jose: Ministerio de Economía y Hacienda, 1928.

47 La Tribuna, 25 August 1934.

48 Trabajo, 4 November 1934,

49 The Voice of the Atlantic, 3 November 1934.

50 Government of Costa Rica, Congreso Series, No. 17004, folios 83–84 and folios 126–134.

52 See Harpelle, R., “The Social and Political Integration of West Indians in Costa Rica,” for a complete discussion of the period.Google Scholar