Cold War Paradise
Settlement, Culture, and Identity-Making among U.S. Americans in Costa Rica, 1945–1980
Seiten
2022
University of Nebraska Press (Verlag)
978-1-4962-3079-9 (ISBN)
University of Nebraska Press (Verlag)
978-1-4962-3079-9 (ISBN)
Atalia Shragai examines the motivations for immigration, patterns of movement, settlements, and processes of identity-making among U.S. Americans in Costa Rica from post–World War II to the late 1970s.
In the wake of the Cold War, a diverse group of U.S. immigrants flocked to Costa Rica, distancing themselves from undesirable U.S. policies at home and abroad. Enchanted with Costa Rica’s natural beauty and lured by the prospect of cheap land, these expatriates—former government employees, businessmen and privileged bourgeois, dissident Quakers and self-seeking hippies, farmers and ecologists—sought a new life in a country that was often dubbed the Switzerland of Central America.
Cold War Paradise is a social and cultural history of this little-studied immigration flow. Based on extensive oral histories of these immigrants and their diverse writings, ranging from women’s club cookbooks to personal letters, Atalia Shragai examines the motivations for immigration, patterns of movement, settlements, and processes of identity-making among U.S. Americans in Costa Rica from post–World War II to the late 1970s. Exploring such diverse themes as gender, nature, and material culture, this study provides a fresh perspective on inter-American relations from the point of view of ordinary U.S. emigrants and settlers. Shragai traces the formation and evolution of a wide range of identifications among U.S. expats and the varied ways they reconstructed and represented their individual and collective histories within the broader scheme of the U.S. presence in Cold War Central America.
In the wake of the Cold War, a diverse group of U.S. immigrants flocked to Costa Rica, distancing themselves from undesirable U.S. policies at home and abroad. Enchanted with Costa Rica’s natural beauty and lured by the prospect of cheap land, these expatriates—former government employees, businessmen and privileged bourgeois, dissident Quakers and self-seeking hippies, farmers and ecologists—sought a new life in a country that was often dubbed the Switzerland of Central America.
Cold War Paradise is a social and cultural history of this little-studied immigration flow. Based on extensive oral histories of these immigrants and their diverse writings, ranging from women’s club cookbooks to personal letters, Atalia Shragai examines the motivations for immigration, patterns of movement, settlements, and processes of identity-making among U.S. Americans in Costa Rica from post–World War II to the late 1970s. Exploring such diverse themes as gender, nature, and material culture, this study provides a fresh perspective on inter-American relations from the point of view of ordinary U.S. emigrants and settlers. Shragai traces the formation and evolution of a wide range of identifications among U.S. expats and the varied ways they reconstructed and represented their individual and collective histories within the broader scheme of the U.S. presence in Cold War Central America.
Atalia Shragai is a lecturer of history at the Kibbutzim College of Education in Tel Aviv, Israel.
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Crossroads: The Movement of Individuals within the Sociopolitical Context
2. Places and Networks: Settlement, Community-Building, and Identity-Making
3. From Cowboys to the Guardians of Eden: Identity Work in Costa Rican Nature
4. Becoming a U.S. Woman in Costa Rica: Gender, Immigration, and Transnationalism
5. Material Culture on the Move: Things and Meanings between the United States and Costa Rica
6. Looking Back in Amazement: Negotiating Identities as Privileged Immigrants
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
| Erscheinungsdatum | 19.03.2022 |
|---|---|
| Zusatzinfo | 15 photographs, 1 illustration, 1 map, 2 tables, index |
| Verlagsort | Lincoln |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Themenwelt | Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik ► Allgemeines / Lexika |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte | |
| Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie | |
| ISBN-10 | 1-4962-3079-5 / 1496230795 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-4962-3079-9 / 9781496230799 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
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