ABSTRACT
From Belize to Panama, there exists an Afro-West Indian or Afro-Creole cultural continuum with roots in British colonial expansion and transnational commercial ventures of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In Costa Rica in particular, people of Afro-West Indian descent have had a signifi cant presence since the nineteenth century; however, this ethnocultural group is largely absent from the offi cial discourse of the nation in spite of the important contributions they have made to the social, political, cultural, and economic life of the country. Blacks in Costa Rica formed communities that adapted the cultural practices of the West Indies to refl ect their new reality and material conditions. The experience of migration and settlement of earlier immigrants from the Caribbean and the negotiation of identity of successive generations are refl ected in oral and written literature produced by Afro-West Indians and their Afro-Costa Rican descendants.
