Faces of Costa Rica

Counting on the Future

Maria Gabriela's mother and siblings look to her to change family fortune. The thin girl with huge brown eyes is their hope for a better future, a way out of the small wood shack, now rotting patched with plastic bags and metal sheets. She does her homework inside, sitting on one of several threadbare chairs, swatting at mosquitos that enter through the unscreened windows.

"I want to be a math teacher when I grow up," said 12-year-old Maria Gabriela Mendieta with a glowing smile, "I like to work with numbers."

Reaching her goals will be more of a challenge than for most children in Costa Rica. Maria Gabriela is one of the approximately 300,000 to 400,000 thousand illegal Nicaraguans living in Costa Rica.

She lives in Corralillos near the Nicaraguan border with her mother, Alicia Gonzalez, stepfather and three younger siblings. Because Costa Rica offers free education to not only Costa Ricans but also illegal immigrants, she and her brothers and sisters are able to study and build a better future for themselves and their family.

Her illegal status does cause problems, despite her access to free education. "She cannot win a scholarship to one of the better high schools, because she is not a Costa Rican citizen," said her mother, "We could try and fight it with the help of a lawyer, but it would cost a lot of money and we don't have any."

Maria Gabriela will attend the local high school, which is free, and then apply to college in San José.

The outgoing and dark-haired girl smiled as she talked of helping her family, and moving them from the small, rotting and cramped shack in which they now live to something nicer.

Back to Nicaraguan Immigrants Hope for a Better Life