You are not a Tico

(Unless, of course, you were born here, then you are a Tico, obviously!) I was thinking about this subject the other day, because a friend of mine (who lives in Peru) asked me if I felt like a Tica now, after living here almost 8 years. The answer is, No. I feel like a Gringa in Ticolandia. I will probably always feel like a Gringa, even though I married a Tico and have a Tico son and live in a Tico neighborhood with Tico neighbors; even though I speak Spanish well enough and probably write it a lot better than many Ticos. The reason is not up to me: Ticos are never going to accept me, an "outsider," as a Tico. Never. And that's just fine by me; I'm perfectly happy with who I am and where I'm from. So forget any aspirations you might have of someday becoming a Tico, it just ain't gonna happen, and if you think that because you've lived here a while that somehow makes you Tico, you're just fooling yourself. Maybe, perhaps, possibly if you live here most of your life and marry a Tico and have Tico kids in Tico schools, maybe then you'll be accepted into Tico society, but you still won't be a Tico.

As an example. A friend of mine who has lived most her life in Costa Rica, speaks Spanish like a native, but whose parents are Gringo and Nica, is not considered a Tico. She's around my age; she's lived here just about forever. If she ever has kids, they will be considered Tico, but she never will. It's just the way things are here, culturally.

The other thing is that (and I'm saying this from my own experience plus the experience of people I know personally and people I don't but whom I've written about) it can be hard to make friends with Ticos if you're not from Latin America (and even if you are, to some degree). I don't know what it is, but Ticos are very closed off to people who are not Ticos. (They can talk quite a bit of smack in regards to Nicas, Panamanians, Mexicans, Colombians, etc., let me tell you!) Again, I think it's just cultural and I don't really let it affect me. All of my friends here are either Americans, Brits or Canadians (with a few other random nationalities thrown in the mix for good measure :-) ). I don't really take offense, and neither should you. It's just the way it is.