Costa Rican Americans
ethnic group
Costa Rican Americans (estadounidenses de origen costarricense) are Americans of at least partial Costa Rican descent.
The Costa Rican American population in 2018 was 154,784. Costa Ricans are the fourth smallest Hispanic group and the smallest Central American population in the United States.
Costa Rican populations are prominent in the New York metropolitan area, especially in North Central New Jersey (Essex County, New Jersey, Passaic County, New Jersey, Somerset County, New Jersey, and Union County, New Jersey). Additional areas with significant Costa Rican residents include New York City, Suffolk County, New York, and Fairfield County, Connecticut. There are also sizable groups of Costa Ricans in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, South Florida metropolitan area, and Lincoln County, North Carolina.
History
Costa Rican immigration to the United States, as a percentage of total immigration from Central America, has been declining since 1960. In the period from 1960 to 2009, total immigration from Costa Rica to the United States represented only 3 percent of total immigration from Central America over the same period. Lower prices and higher wages in the United States serve as strong motivators for Costa Ricans to emigrate. As with many other groups of immigrants, Costa Ricans send roughly $650 million in remittances every year to support their families in Costa Rica.
The public source identifies “Costa Rican Americans” as ethnic group. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Costa, Rican and Americans.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Costa Rican Americans”, the useful work is to connect “ethnic group” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q617982. The first chronological checks are 2018, 1960 and 2009.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Costa Rican Americans”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Costa Rican Americans primary sources, Costa Rican Americans archive and Costa research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Costa Rican Americans”?
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- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Costa Rican Americans” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.