The black diaspora in Costa Rica: upward mobility and ethnic discrimination

The history of the negro as a labourer is ancient and simple -perhaps more so than that of any other race or people... With few notable exceptions, the negro labourer has little initiative -he is an imitator... experience has proved over and over again that only with rare exceptions has the negro been able to pursue theoretical studies with any degree of success. [Letter from the manager of United Fruit Company operations in Central America to the British Consul, June 11, 1919.] ...For forty long years we Costa Ricans were displaced from the best jobs of the Atlantic Zone by Negroes. They were warehouse supervisors, chiefs of commissaries, clerks and formans [sic]. ...They think that they are superior to us... They look down upon our language...