Fuera Nica — how grossly ironic. We were busing our way out to visit a community of illegal Nicaraguan immigrants when we saw these words, ordering Nicaraguans to "leave" Costa Rica, graffitied recklessly on a boulder on the side of the road.

Of Costa Rica's 4 million inhabitants, approximately 250,000 are permanent immigrant residents and 100,000 are seasonal workers who migrate to fill Costa Rican coffee and banana plantations. Seventy-six percent of this immigrant population comes from Costa Rica's northern neighbor, Nicaragua.

With Nicaragua's status as one of the poorest countries in the world, Costa Rica (the "Switzerland of Central America") offers an appealing work alternative with a substantially higher standard of living and an explicit demand for labor in the farming, service and construction industries.

These incomes, a portion of which are sent home to Nicaragua in the form of remittances, actually account for two-to-four times the amount earned in these same sectors in Nicaragua. Estimates for the year 2002 put the annual volume of remittances from Costa Rica to Nicaragua at nearly $110 million (a substantial portion of the country's GDP).

For many ticos (Costa Ricans), immigration is seen as a "necessary evil." As one tico student put it, "The Nicaraguan is the one who cleans, watches over and builds Costa Rica."

In a country where frankness and confrontation are generally avoided, I was shocked to see the blatant racism and xenophobia directed toward Nicaraguans — often referred to as nicas (a term that, just like any group name, can be made derogatory depending on the context).

With a sort of idealized and romanticized conception of their own country, ticos are often quick to point fingers at "outside" groups, particularly Nicaraguans, to explain negative realities such as drugs and crime. While reflecting on the recent murder of a taxi driver here in Heredia, for example, my sweet little host mom, Lilliam, was quick to assign blame with shockingly little hesitation. "Colombianos o Nicas," she determined casually, treating her accusation as if it were common knowledge or fact rather than racist speculation.

To bring ground to our studies on immigration, we taxi-bus-taxied for three hours out to San Ramon to visit a makeshift town of illegal Nicaraguan immigrants called Bajo Tejares.

So far, 72 families have migrated to the community, slapping houses together out of aluminum siding and wood planks and wiring into their neighbor's already over-tapped power line. Little Nicaraguan children kick up foot-fulls of dust while passing a partially deflated soccer ball over dirt pathways riddled with bone-baring stray dogs.

While bribes in the form of illegal drugs (particularly cocaine) keep police from sweeping out unregistered families, harassment and racism, particularly in schools, are a daily reality for those who even look Nicaraguan. A particularly outrageous case involved the 14-year-old daughter of a nica mother, born in Costa Rica to a tico father, who, because of her dark complexion, had school administrators convinced that she was Nicaraguan and therefore was refused acceptance into the classrooms until her papers could be evaluated.

Our group of 25 will actually be in Nicaragua for the entire last week of February, so it'll be interesting to see the flip side of this equation and get an insider's look at a country where 17 percent of its people choose to leave in search of better economic and living conditions.

Reach columnist Megan Taylor at features@thedaily.washington.edu.