Why Others Have Gone Abroad

But in time they had thoroughly integrated themselves into the new way of life abroad and learned the customs so much so that in the 1990s one of the men, who had been born in San Vito, was elected diputado (senator) to fill a seat as a member of the Asamblea Legislativa (Congress) in San José. During his four years in office, he did a good job. During the Abel Pacheco administration, as head of the Housing Institute, he also did well. Proof that there has been good cultural mixing is the fact that downtown San Vito has some street signs in four languages: Italian, Guaymi (the Indian dialect of the region), Spanish and English.

Good things, however, are not eternal and when the international price of coffee took a steep downturn in the years 2000 and 2001, many of the early settlers decided it was time to return to Italy to pass their final years in their original homeland. Many sold their farms and businesses. By 2004, of the 111 families that originally had arrived from Italy, only 28 remained.