Ethnic Groups
As of 2012 most Costa Ricans are of primarily Spanish or Spanish/Mixed ancestry with minorities of German, Italian, French, Dutch, British, Swedish and Greek ancestry. Whites, Castizo and Mestizo together comprise 83% of the population.
European migrants in Costa Rica to get across the isthmus of Central America as well to reach the USA West Coast (California) in the late 19th century and until the 1910s (before the Panama Canal opened). Other European ethnic groups known to live in Costa Rica include Russians, Danes, Belgians, Portuguese, Croats, Poles, Turks, Armenians and Georgians.
Many of the first Spanish colonists in Costa Rica may have been Jewish converts to Christianity who were expelled from Spain in 1492 and fled to colonial backwaters to avoid the Inquisition. The first sizable group of self-identified Jews immigrated from Poland, beginning in 1929. From the 1930s to the early 1950s, journalistic and official anti-Semitic campaigns fueled harassment of Jews; however, by the 1950s and 1960s, the immigrants won greater acceptance. Most of the 3,500 Costa Rican Jews today are not highly observant, but they remain largely endogamous.
Costa Rica has four small minority groups: Mulattos, Blacks, Amerindians and Asians. About 8% of the population is of African descent or Mulatto (mix of European and black) who are called Afro-Costa Ricans, English-speaking descendants of 19th century black Jamaican immigrant workers.
In 1873, the Atlantic Railroad imported 653 Chinese indentured laborers, hoping to duplicate the success of rail projects that used Chinese labor in Peru, Cuba, and the United States. Asians represent less than 0.5% of the Costa Rican population, mostly from China, Taiwan and Japan.
There are also over 104,000 Native American or indigenous inhabitants, representing 2.4% of the population. Most of them live in secluded reservations, distributed among eight ethnic groups: Quitirrisí (in the Central Valley), Matambú or Chorotega (Guanacaste), Maleku (northern Alajuela), Bribri (southern Atlantic), Cabécar (Cordillera de Talamanca), Guaymí (southern Costa Rica, along the Panamá border), Boruca (southern Costarable portion of the Costa Rican population is made up of Nicaraguans. There is also a number of Colombian refugees. Moreover, Costa Rica took in lots of refugees from a range of other Latin American countries fleeing civil wars and dictatorships during the 1970s and 80s – notably from El Salvador, Chile, Argentina, Cuba and recently from Venezuela.
Currently immigrants represent 9% of the Costa Rican population, the largest in Central America and the Caribbean. By 2014 the three largest Immigrant Diasporas in Costa Rica are people from: Nicaragua, Colombia and United States.
Language
The official language of Costa Rica is Spanish.[6] However, there are also many local indigenous languages, such as Bribrí.[7][8] English is the first foreign language and the second most taught language in Costa Rica, followed by French, German, Italian and Chinese.[9][citation needed] A creole language called Mekatelyu is also spoken in Limón
Religion
A 2007 survey conducted by the University of Costa Rica, found that 70.5% of the population identify themselves as Roman Catholics (with 44.9% practicing, 25.6 percent nonpracticing), 13.8% are Evangelical Protestants, 11.3% report that they do not have a religion, and 4.3% declare that they belong to another religion.
There are several other religious festivals in the country; Costa Rica has various religious denominations: Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Baha'i Faith, Scientology, Rastafari, Taoism, Jehovah's Witness, and Neopaganism
Art
Painting and sculpture
At the beginning of the 19th century, some wealthy Costa Ricans paid visiting foreign painters, usually European, to paint their portraits.[20] It was not until some of these painters, such as Bigot, Henry Etheridge, or Santiago Paramo settled in the country that Costa Rican artists learned modern techniques for drawing, oil painting, and sculpture.[20] These teachers directly influenced Tico artists Jose Maria Figueroa, Faustino Montes de Oca, and Felipe Valentini.
Towards the end of the 19th century Costa Ricans produced artists with stronger national identities. A short list of these artists would include Ezequiel Jimenez, Wenceslao de la Guardia, and Enrique Echandi. Current renowned Costa Rican painters include Gonzalo Morales Sáurez, Rafa Fernandez, and Fernando Carballo, and sculptors such as Ibo Bonilla, Max Jimenez, Jorge Jimenez Deredia, Domingo Ramos, Mario Parra, Olger Villegas, Nestor Zeledon, and William Villanueva Bermudez.
Music
Most of the music and folklore comes from the north of the country, including the Nicoya Peninsula (Mayan culture) and the Atlantic coast (Afro-Caribbean culture). Costa Rican music is marked by a rhythm known as tambito, as well as a distinctive musical genre known as punto. Two examples are the punto guanacasteco from Guanacaste Province, and the sancarleño from San Carlos in Alajuela Province.
Dance
Dance remains an important cultural tradition in Costa Rica. Most Costa Ricans learn several traditional dances from a young age. The vast majority of Costa Rican traditional dances were born in the province, Guanacaste. National holidays are often celebrated by spirited displays of dancing in the streets[.
Many consider the Punto guanacasteco to be the national dance, which showcases three different stages of courtship. Occasionally, all dancers will pause mid-dance so that one person can shout out a bomba. A bomba is a rhymed verse which can be memorized or improvised and is usually racy or witty.
Writing
The readers of Costa Rican Literature are very rare beyond the Central American border, but their works are deserving of further acknowledgement. Costa Rican Literature is arguably carried by women, who played a large role in every literary movement in the century. Most Notably, Carmen Lyra whose overall subject matter and perspective made her a revolutionary figure.[22] Other well known authors include Jose Leon Sanchez, Aquileo J. Echeverría (Concherías), Manuel González Zeledón (La propia), Joaquin Gutierrez (Cocori, Puerto Limón, Manglar), Carlos Luis Fallas (Marcos Ramírez, Mamita Yunai), Carlos Salazar Herrera (Cuentos de angustias y paisajes), Isaac Felipe Azofeifa, Fabián Dobles, Jorge Debravo, Alberto Cañas Escalante, Yolanda Oreamuno and Eunice Odio.
