El Excepcionalismo Costarricense Redefinido: La identidad “tica” en la literatura costarricense contemporánea

Abstract

Aside from its reputation as the “Switzerland of Central America,” Costa Rica is rarely mentioned in international headlines or academic studies. The tendency to compare one Central American nation to another has defined Costa Rica as the exceptional country of the region due to its stable democracy, abolition of the military, and social equality. However, by focusing on just Costa Rica, this study questions such assumptions and suggests that the nation has not received the attention that its unique society deserves. From an exterior perspective, it appears that the pacifist country, amidst a region plagued by political corruption, civil wars, and severe poverty, is an uninteresting subject, but an interior perspective reveals a contrary conclusion. The influence of American capitalism, the presence of subcultures, and the existence of social inequality exposes a discrepancy between the “official” and the “real” versions of Costa Rica. The image of “pura vida” limits the country to a unitary national identity – happy, educated, and “white” citizens that live in harmony, connected by a culture of peace – that does not admit to the existence of cultural diversity outside the center of the country, from where the dominant vision originates. Although some of the scholars who have studied Costa Rica are beginning to expose the myth of Costa Rican excepcionalism, almost none have considered Costa Ricans’ thoughts of their own country’s national identity. Therefore, this work investigates to what extent the official representation of Costa Rica corresponds to the individual experiences and individualities of Costa Ricans themselves. In order to achieve this “tico” perspective, I analyze a selection of prose taken from contemporary national literature, the most authentic portrayal of the Costa Rican voice. The works of Tatiana Lobo, Alfonso Chase, and Uriel Quesada, despite the variety of their styles, do not represent a completely pacific Costa Rica with social equality and perfect democracy, but instead reveal how the official national identity excludes the experiences of many marginalized Costa Ricans – immigrants, women, the poor, and gay individuals – that do not fit the image of a “legitimate” Costa Rican. Instead of the typical pattern of defining Costa Rica based upon observations from the outside, these authors insist that Costa Ricans are the ones that must determine Costa Rican identity. In this way, the contemporary literature of Costa Rica tries to encourage citizens to examine what is really happening in the country beyond the guise of “pura vida.”