There is a phenomenon that occurs to children like mine, born and raised in Washington, DC. They are swaddled and nursed in the political zeitgeist of whatever administration might be in power at the time, and the accompanying fervor (pro or against) permeates the air they breathe. As such, they have strong political opinions by the time they hit second grade.
I exaggerate, but not by much. Politics defines identity in some places as much as religion or gender. I didn’t grow up with politics sprinkled like salt around our dinner table. But when we moved to Costa Rica in mid-1981, we arrived in time for the presidential election campaigns. The atmosphere was carnivalesque. I remember people and cars all clad in the colors and banners of the candidates we supported, forming honking conga lines through the streets. It did not seem serious. I don’t remember what colors we wore.
But I do remember hushed whispers of a relative who had made a political choice that landed him in legal jeopardy. No explanations beyond that. Maybe, unlike in my adopted hometown, politics were not considered a subject suitable for children. And so I was completely unaware that, behind the jubilant election festivities, a battle for the soul of Central America was raging.
In “La Familia,” the concluding novella of my book, Litany of Saints, I went back to my reporting roots and embarked on a historical journey, sifting through newspapers and political reports, and interviewing people who lived through the actions of leftist revolutionary groups that saw themselves as bulwarks against right-wing extremism that was wreaking havoc across the isthmus and risking the destabilization of Costa Rica itself.
The result is a tale that weaves true story with fiction, lending humanity to the cold facts that history has enshrined.
John or Juan Manuel, is a Costa Rican immigrant to the United States who gets pulled back to the country of his birth amid the messy Cold War politics of the early 1980s when his brother gets arrested for questionable political activities. The ensuing efforts to understand and free his only brother force him to question his loyalties, his ideas of what it means to be Costa Rican, and to decide what it is he wants to be.
In late 1982, Ronald Reagan visited Costa Rica. Even though my parents had been Carter supporters, Dad eagerly gigged as a chauffeur for the American Embassy to ferry folks around during the historic two-day hullabaloo. I never asked him about this episode. I never asked him enough questions about any of his stories, or his philosophies. (He died in 2019) When I was researching this story and thought about this job of his with the embassy, my love of fiction made me want to indulge in a nostalgic backstory for his decision, like that maybe at 37 he did it to make a statement about wanting to be seen as an American, his chosen citizenship. Or that maybe he was humble-bragging, Reagan notwithstanding, about how he was a little more important than his friends and family because he had left Costa Rica and explored the world outside its borders. I wanted a sexy explanation.
Instead, when I pressed Mom for answers, hoping for some dramatic revelation, she didn’t even break her stride from whatever task she was engaged in. She just shrugged and said, nonchalantly: “He did it for the money, of course.”
Sometimes, alas, real life is just real and fiction lies in the eye of the beholder. And in the end, we are left to interpret the stories as we choose.