Costa Rica has been a major immigrant-receiving society within Central America, all the more as tighter US borders and violence against migrants in Mexico have made travel northwards even riskier. But immigrants in Costa Rica--especially Nicaraguans--have faced discrimination in employment, education, health care, and more. Dr Carlos Sandoval and his colleagues have worked through multiple means, from community organizing to arts activism to a legal case before the Costa Rican Supreme Court, to build undocumented workers' access to basic rights in Costa Rica.

Carlos Sandoval is Professor in the Escuela de Estudios de la Comunicación and the Instituto de Investigación Social of the Universidad de Costa Rica. He is the author or editor of many books, including Shattering Myths on Immigration and Emigration in Costa Rica (2010) and Threatening Others: Nicaraguans and the Formation of National Identities in Costa Rica (2004). He completed his PhD in Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham, U.K., in 2000.