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| Essay Archive | November 2, 2002 |
LAUGHTER AND TEARS
Nicaraguans in Costa Rica
The theater is full, as the Costa Rican audience awaits the start of the surprising smash hit "El Nica". They sit impatiently in the ingenious little playhouse of the Café Britt coffee company, set in the hills just outside San José, Costa Rica. The house lights go black.
The solemn figure of El Nica (José Mejia Espinoza, as played by César Meléndez), a Nicaraguan immigrant construction laborer, drags his battered and beaten body past the front row of the audience and onto the stage. Drenched in sweat, with bloody elbows and knees, El Nica limps into his solitary one-room living quarters made up of a small table, wooden chair and tiny bed that sits under a window looking out on his newly adopted home, Costa Rica. El Nica is the creation of Nicaraguan born, Costa Rica raised, actor and singer César Meléndez. The play's two-hour monologue takes its audience on a tragic and humorous trip through the trials and terrors of being Nicaraguan in Costa Rica.
El Nica grabs his bad knee, sits gingerly down in silence at his little table, and looks mournfully at his wooden icon of Jesus on the cross. The icon of Jesus is the straight man for Meléndez' brilliant tragic-comic stage work, "I've got nothing to say to you dam it" says El Nica to Jesus, his strength returning to him. "I am pissed at you, where were you when I needed you? Where were you when I needed you?!" Thus begins the history of El Nica, an immigrant worker who has received his first payday in the land of democracy, progress and justice. El Nica divides his miniscule pay into four piles of local currency on his little table. He encloses his hard earned money, save one note for himself, in three separate envelopes, all addressed to family in Nicaragua. What follows is a scathing attack on the treatment of Nicaraguan immigrants in Costa Rica, one that blends the brilliant humor of César Meléndez with the sad, tearful real-life drama of being desperate for work, brown skinned and marginally literate in Costa Rica.
The issue of the play is a pertinent one and reflects more than 150 years of uncomfortable relations between Nicaragua and Costa Rica and the plight of Nicaraguan laborers in Costa Rica, estimated at 300,000 permanent and 200,000 seasonal who come to work in construction projects, banana and coffee plantations, and as maids and nannies. This wave of Nicaraguans (many of them undocumented upon arrival) come to Costa Rica in the desperate hope of finding a decent wage to support their families back home. The superb monologue of César Meléndez is a frontal attack on treatment of "Nicas", by Costa Rican society. Incredibly, and to credit of the Costa Rican people, the play has not only been well received, but is a complete success, with all of its weekly performances at the little Café Britt's playhouse having sold out since its debut in January of this year.
César Meléndez hopes that his stage work will bring about consciousness and it seems to be working. At the sold-out performance I attended in mid-September, his monologue drew both nervous and hearty laughs, mixed with eerie silence and watery eyes. The effect even has reached a government level, demonstrated by the heart-warming words of the new Costa Rican Minister of Labor who stated to Nicaragua's daily, La Prensa, in October 26 of this year, "we must eliminate xenophobia, confrontations and every day become more brotherly".
Problems between the Nicaragua and Costa Rica are nothing new. They date back to at least 1812, near the end of Spanish colonial rule in Central America. In colonial times Costa Rica was a sleepy province, nearly unpopulated, politically administrated by Guatemala, with the Bishop of León in Nicaragua running the Costa Rican Church. In 1812 Spain decided to award Nicaragua's southernmost province of Guanacaste to Costa Rica, so Costa Rica could achieve the minimum population to qualify as a colonial state. Guanacaste had been largely ignored by Nicaragua, yet even today it remains very different from the rest of Costa Rica retaining a certain Nicaraguan flavor. After independence from Spain was achieved by the Central American states just nine years later, the people of Guanacaste voted to determine whether to rejoin Nicaragua or become part of Costa Rica. Though concrete evidence of this vote's numerical results is hard to come by, most reports indicate that the southern portion of Guanacaste favored San José and the northern Managua. These same reports claim the south won, yet the province remained, in essence, independent until 1858.
With the 1856 invasion of the North American mercenary army of William Walker in Nicaragua, Costa Rica's army moved into southern Nicaragua. Their forces fought well and were critical in the success of combined Central America troops' defeat of Walker's army during a series of gruesome battles. After Walker was finally expelled, Costa Rica's army remained, occupying the coveted trans-oceanic route of the San Juan River, Lake Nicaragua and the ultra-fertile isthmus of Rivas. There was even talk in Costa Rica of annexing Granada, Masaya and Chontales as well. Under occupation of the Costa Rican armed forces, Nicaragua's post-war government signed a treaty that provided for the withdrawal of Costa Rican troops, but under the condition that Costa Rica would receive land until the southern border of the San Juan River (east of El Castillo) and annex formally Guanacaste to Costa Rica. Today Guanacaste is home to many of Costa Rica's most profitable tourist destinations, including the Monterverde Cloud Forest, Arenal Volcano and numerous Pacific beach resorts. It is the biggest province in Costa Rica.
Populations of both countries grew dramatically in the following years, but Costa Rica mainly via European immigration and Nicaragua mostly from within. Costa Rica already a predominantly Caucasian country, became even whiter, Nicaragua very much a mixture of indigenous and Spanish, became yet more mestizo.
During the mid-20th century Costa Rica was at war with itself, instability was the rule, yet democratic forces won the last battle. In 1948 a new constitution was created, one that would make it the pride of Latin American democracy for the rest of the century. Nicaragua meanwhile had enjoyed years of political and economic stability, but at the cost of a most un-democratic Somoza family dictatorship. As the revolution in Nicaragua against Somoza took up speed in 1978, the Costa Rican's left their comfort as a neutral state and allowed the Sandinistas to use their country as a base for attacks and administrative center for the rebel government. Arms for the anti-Somoza rebels flowed into Costa Rica from Panama, Venezuela and Cuba. After the victory against Somoza, Costa Rica became a base once again for armed attacks on Nicaragua, this time for war against the Sandinista government by the "Contras" southern front. During both wars, political refugees from Nicaragua flooded into Costa Rica. To the benefit of the Costa Rican economy, which was buoyed by cheap labor, but to the dismay of many Costa Ricans, xenophobia was on the rise.
According to an English language sociological profile, the book titled The Costa Ricans (Waveland Press, 1988), Nazism was a popular theme during the period of WWII in Costa Rica. The authors state, "During the Nazi era, many advocated 'racial purity' and discriminatory laws." They continue, "Few people today are inclined to such extremism, but prejudice persists." The book explains how whiteness has oft been equated with civilization and progress and how Costa Ricans from Guanacaste resent the white majority's seeming sense of superiority. A letter to the editor of the San José periodical La Nación, from a native of Guanacaste, complained that "Simply because our skin is a little brown and we have some Indian features, we are objects of ridicule". According to the same book The Costa Ricans, as late as the 1970's, tourist brochures in Costa Rica boasted of the "whiteness" of its country. For Nicaraguans who are mainly ethnically indigenous and mestizo with strong indigenous traits, refuge in Costa Rica became a mixed blessing.
After peace was brokered between the Sandinistas and the Contras, with a critical role played by then Costa Rica president Oscar Arias Sánchez (earning him a Nobel Peace Prize), yet more Nicaragua immigrants, now strictly economic ones, flooded into tiny Costa Rica. The kettle simmered. In 1998 Costa Rica's National Guard was caught patrolling inside Nicaragua on the San Juan River in a camouflage-painted boat, with mounted machine-gun and automatic rifles at the ready. Costa Rica claimed they were simply moving troops from one border post to another. Nicaraguans understood that Costa Rica's National Guard was looking for possible immigrants to Costa Rica - inside Nicaragua's territory.
Outrage in Nicaragua and threats from Costa Rica followed, when Nicaragua reacted with suspension of Costa Rica's rights to navigate inside its border. A prerogative guaranteed by a 100 year-old treaty between the two countries that allowed for Costa Rican "commercial traffic" on the San Juan River. Costa Rica threatened to expel all Nicaraguan immigrants. Nicaraguans, offended, talked about Guanacaste being "stolen" and pointed to reports by international human rights groups that documented abuse of Nicaraguan immigrants by Costa Rica's armed forces. The pot threatened to boil over. Costa Rican warned of an international legal fight in The Hague, even putting future court battle monies in its national budget proposal. In 2002 new president of Costa Rica Abel Pacheco has taken a more conciliatory stance and negotiation for renewed Costa Rica rights to navigate inside Nicaragua appear to have made progress, though Costa Rican troop movements inside Nicaragua remains an impasse for both countries.
Few could argue that without cheap Nicaraguan labor to pick coffee and bananas and build and clean its hotels, the Costa Rican agro-tourism economy would collapse. Nonetheless, Costa Rican social problems, like rising crime, are blamed on Nicaraguan immigrants, not to mention that many Costa Ricans just don't like having so many Nicas in their little country. The stage piece of César Meléndez, El Nica, is directed at Costa Rica's collective consciousness on Nicaraguan immigration and cross-country relations. It is an olive branch extended with a smile and a slap in the face.
El Nica proceeds in his brutally honest dialogue with his only friend, the wooden icon of Jesus, as he sits at his little table after a hellish day at work. He accuses Jesus of not doing his job properly as the Son of God, at times screaming, in change crying, as he describes his day. After a full day of breaking concrete under the Costa Rican sun ("dam it little brother, isn't it supposed to be cooler here?"), his Costa Rican boss invites him for a fraternal beer at the local canteen. In the bar he learns gratefully that he will have another contract job, albeit for longer hours and the same pay. El Nica quips, "They say cheap Nicaraguan labor is making Costa Rican construction more profitable. Why would they say that? It still pays me the same."
El Nica's boss has to take leave and he is then left alone in the canteen with some of his fellow workers, all Costa Ricans disgruntled at the loss of their soccer team. His colleagues are drunk and begin to insult him. El Nica alone at his table steams. He calls on Jesus to help him "turn the other cheek". His strong faith in God and Jesus failing him ("where the hell were you when I needed you?"), El Nica rises to his feet to confront the drunken hecklers. Instead of going to blows, El Nica resorts to a long, brilliant and deeply ironic socio-anthropological dissection of the broad differences in Nicaraguan and Costa Rican character, lifestyle and historical influences. This emotional section of the monologue is based largely on an editorial titled "I too am Nicaraguan" by Costa Rican writer Rodrigo Soto (sited by César Meléndez as the inspiration for his work), which appeared in local newspaper La Nación in 1997.
El Nica describes with ample irony his native country. "My beautiful little country of disasters, earthquakes, hurricanes, tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, wars and happiness." Within the framework of his monologue, as the El Nica character, César Meléndez is addressing Costa Rican construction workers, but on stage alone, facing the Costa Rican theater audience, it is clear who are the real subjects of his plea. He begs forgiveness for being hungry, for crossing the Rio San Juan at night illegally, which cost the life of his only child, swept away by the midnight river current. El Nica asks to be pardoned to be from Nicaragua, a country of world-renowned poets and writers, a country where people love and promote their own culture, a country where people live outside of their houses, help each other in times of crisis, speak much too loudly, laugh without restraint and congregate in parks. Dragging his fingernails across his forearm and through his scalp with angst, El Nica cries for pardon for his brown skin, black eyes and Indian straight hair. He asks for sincere forgiveness for the hunger that pains his stomach and even worse his conscious, too aware of his family in Nicaragua, and how they rely on his remittances to eat.
The speech of El Nica is melodramatic, heavy handed and aggressive, but it is also reality. In previous, non-Café Britt, performances of the monologue, this series of clear-eyed and brutally direct judgments on Costa Rican-Nicaraguan relations have rewarded actor César Meléndez with audience heckling, sudden "power failures" in theaters and even the stage being showered by rocks in one outdoor presentation.
Within the confines of the monologue, the response to El Nica's speech to fellow workers at the bar is met with little sympathy. The workers attack El Nica and together they beat him. Writhing on the floor alone, César Meléndez acts out the dozens of punches and blows that fell upon El Nica. It is a horribly physical scene, one that no doubt takes all of the actor's energy to perform week after week. Finally, while El Nica is on the ground being kicked in the back and stomach, one of the workers destroys his knee. El Nica crawls home, in this verbal history of his day recounted to Jesus, and once again he is angry with Christ. With ironic humor he blames the Lord for his own lack of restraint, but not for his life, his life's luck, or lack of it.
The monologue ends with El Nica in his tiny bed, singing to the stars outside his window, able to shrug off his horrible day and his trying life, with eternal hope for a better day tomorrow. The audience watches in total silence as El Nica, now chilly, wraps himself in a blue and white blanket. It is the flag of Nicaragua. He sings some more, then shivers, still cold, "Jesus, what a cold country, this!" and he pulls out a second blanket, this time a Costa Rican flag and the audience erupts in spontaneous patriotic applause. El Nica combines both flags and wraps his tired body in bed. After the play's final words, César Meléndez stands up exhausted and takes his bows to a prolonged standing ovation. With the house lights up, he looks into the eyes of the Costa Rican audience, his own eyes full of a stirring mixture of vindication and compassion.
When El Nica opened at the Café Britt Theater on January 19, 2002 it was planned for only a one month run. It is still playing. In the words of Costa Rica's biggest newspaper, La Nación, "The theatre, which holds 200, made room for 600 on opening night. Since that day, the demand to see the work has not declined."
For more information on performances of the Spanish language monologue "El Nica", see the Café Britt web site: http://www.brittcafeteatro.com/
The fine Costa Rican periodical La Nación can be viewed at: http://www.nacion.co.cr
La Prensa, Nicaragua's best daily newspaper, can be viewed at: http://www.laprensa.com.ni
Copyright © Richard Leonardi