Costa Rica's English-Language Heritage

Costa Rica’s English-speaking population is not large, even in terms of percentage of the population. But many say that those who do speak English do so very well, and this mixed with cultural affinity has long made the nation a good location for service centers. A recent editorial in the Tico Times shed some first-hand light on why those who do speak English speak it so well. “At the turn of the 20th century, the influx of Anglophone Caribbean immigrants… created a ‘country’ on the Caribbean coast that was fully autonomous from the central highlands of Costa Rica,” writes Natasha Gordon-Chipembere. “One of the great markers of this Caribbean identity was the creation and maintenance of private English schools by the local Black community.” Read on for the whole story.