Interesting.
Iāve talked about this a little somewhere. Costa Rica has a fairly high percentage of foreigners - I think pushing 10% - and it doesnāt bother them that much. Portugal seems like it might be like Costa Rica but clearly it isnāt the same country. There are similarities - a lot of the āexpatsā in CR are Nicaraguan and not exactly rich, for example, and it has a heavy dose of retirees from the US and Europe. There are severe issues with poverty among the migrants, some resentment of stealing of jobs, and the like.
However CR has the advantage that the cultures are not so dissimilar; people have been migrating into CR from Nicaragua for quite some time, so thereās a āinstalled baseā of families and sympathetic friends, many activists on their behalf - thereās tensions but it seems managed. Or so I read. All this is balanced by the Americans and Europeans, many retirees, who bring cash which helps everyone. The cultures are different but Pura Vida seems to mellow everyone out about it all.
The PT news tends to say rather less about these kinds of things than say the Tico Times. The migrants are from Africa; I donāt see a lot of commonality there. Though if you look at the SEF stats of visas issued, the majority of visas issued are actually from Brasil and Israel, of all places. Iād think these are rather more benign sources of immigration - but perception and reality differ. Iāve been avoiding talking in FB groups because I donāt want my US friends to know Iām thinking about anything like this. But what I do note is that the CR FB groups Iāve followed have a mix of Ticos and foreigners interacting in very normal neighborly ways. I didnāt see that so much in the PT groups. But maybe Iām looking in the wrong place. And I know near squat except as a tourist and having a Portuguese friend or two, neither of which I know well enough to learn or extrapolate too much from.
Iām curious if there are folks here with more boots-on-ground experience.