Even though they are mestizos and the government says they are a mestizo nation, the people themselves say they are white. We were taking a tour bus to Arenal volcano and the bus driver said “Look at the people. What makes us different from other countries is that we are white”. It was so strange to hear it said that way and with such obvious pride.
A lot of bi-racial people call themselves white.
Sicilians and Sardinians with olive skin and some with kinky hair call themselves white although just by looking at them we know they have North African/Moorish blood in them.
A simple genetic test of Costa Rica will show 25% plus Amer-Indian DNA in the vast majority of the population.
But one must also understand the differences when Westerners call themselves white and Latin Americans call themselves white. To most Westerners it is a racial/genetic demarcations.
In most of Latin America if you look at least South European “white”,not necessarily North European white,you speak only European languages and are a Christian that denotes you as “white” even though people are aware they have a grandfather or grandmother who was full blooded Amer-Indian or half Amer-Indian. This is how Brazil gets to the “we are a 47% white,43% mulatto, 6% black” plurality white nation. One only needs to look at TV images from the World Cup to know there is a massive population of Mestizos in Brazil that are classified as “white.” If we use a pre-Antebellum Southern definition of “white” where one drop of non European blood makes you a half-breed then 99% of the Costa Rican population is half-breeds excluding only the most recent immigrants from Europe.