Jake Kilburg
Small pieces of artwork hang together on the string, depicting unity within the global community.
“Draw something.”
Gail Nystrom offers this simple instruction as she places paper and colored pencils on a table inside her humanitarian foundation in La Carpio—a densely populated neighborhood on the outskirts of Costa Rica’s capital, San José. But for the Venezuelan women and children gathered around her, the invitation is anything but simple.
Some hesitate, unsure of where to begin. Then, as they begin to move their pencils, some sketch their happiest memories. Others draw their harrowing journeys through the Darién Gap, the treacherous stretch of rainforest between Colombia and Panama that thousands have crossed while fleeing persecution, economic collapse, and political instability. Others draw faces of the parents and siblings they left behind.
In these moments, the act of drawing becomes a language in and of itself. Each person, carrying the physical and emotional weight of displacement, finds a way to express what words alone fail to capture. Putting something of their own making onto paper becomes an act of reclaiming agency.
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Jake Kilburg
One piece of art depicts the past a community member has lived, along with the future they hope for.
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Jake Kilburg
A piece of art created by one of the foundation's beneficiaries looks toward the future, breaking through the hardships endured.
Over the past few years, Nystrom has met many Venezuelans who have arrived in Costa Rica in the face of displacement caused by political turmoil and fear of persecution. But recently, more arrivals, Venezuelan and otherwise, to the Central American country have come from the north, rather than the south, abandoning their dreams of building a life in the United States as part of a growing “reverse migration” fueled by the mass deportations and targeting of immigrants by the U.S. government.
Nystrom now regularly meets people who had been living in the United States and decided to leave, or who had changed course partway through their journey north to the U.S., beginning a life in Costa Rica instead. Some fled from the United States because of the threat of deportation or family separation, while others left after programs that offered work status or support were terminated.
The reversal began in early 2025, when the Trump Administration began its campaign of aggressive immigration enforcement. Shortly after Trump’s Inauguration, the administration ended Temporary Protected Status—which allows immigrants fleeing war or natural disaster to work and live in the United States—for Venezuelans, stripping approximately 607,000 Venezuelans in the United States of the legal protections that had shielded them from deportation. Court backlogs have caused average asylum proceedings to drag on for years, and as legal challenges to immigration policies have mounted under the Trump Administration, for many, the path to permanent status in the U.S. has grown uncertain.
This has led some Venezuelans to accept offers to self-deport rather than carry out the lengthy legal process, or potentially face detention and forcible removal. In 2025, for the first time in decades, the United States experienced negative net migration, meaning more migrants departed the country than entered.
In La Carpio, migrants find support through the Costa Rican Humanitarian Foundation, an organization Nystrom founded more than two decades ago.
Throughout her career in humanitarian work, Nystrom has repeatedly returned to art as a tool for healing and connection. In the 1980s, she worked with Salvadoran youth displaced by civil war. She went on to support Indigenous communities along Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast and Nicaraguan migrants fleeing political unrest. Nystrom’s approach has remained consistent across generations and borders: She believes that art offers a way to process trauma, restore dignity, and build resilience.
Over time, these creative expressions have accumulated, turning the organization’s site in La Carpio into a living time capsule. The walls are filled with art created by people who arrived during different moments of Latin America’s history, each piece marking a period shaped by the political and economic forces that continue to drive migration today.
Jake Kilburg
In the common area of the Costa Rican Humanitarian Foundation, the walls are filled with art created by community members.
In a classroom used for lessons similar to Montessori education, quilts hang from the walls. Each square tells individual’s stories of exile from Nicaragua, stitched together by women who once arrived with little more than their families and their memories. A drawing made by a Salvadoran refugee more than forty years ago hangs in Nystrom’s office, a reminder of the urgency that first pulled her into humanitarian work.
Where there is no artwork, the walls themselves become the canvas. Murals display the foundation’s logo of four hearts arranged like a shamrock, each representing one of the organization’s core principles: body, mind, heart, and soul. Other murals illustrate the foundation’s Poverty Reduction Model of Development, which places food, housing, and health care at the base of reducing poverty. In smaller corners are paintings of Costa Rica’s mountains, jungles, and wildlife, grounding the space in its physical surroundings. One mural reads simply “Pura Vida,” a phrase that captures the Costa Rican emphasis on appreciating life’s simplest moments.
The space reflects Nystrom’s work, but perhaps more importantly, the people who pass through its doors, as well.
On any given day, the foundation is alive with activity. In the costura, or sewing room, women gather around tables, stitching reusable bags as part of a small business initiative that provides income and routine.
Jake Kilburg
In the foundation’s costura, small pieces of art, trinkets, and photos serve as ongoing inspiration for community members.
Nearby, children attend classes. Every Thursday, lessons pause for día del arte—two hours devoted entirely to creative expression. The sessions offer students a chance to draw and paint freely. For the children of La Carpio, many of whom face ongoing instability, the routine itself becomes meaningful.
“It gives the children something to look forward to each week, and as they create art— paintings, drawings, origami, collages—you can tell they’re calm,” Nystrom says. “You can feel it.”
What Nystrom observes aligns with psychological research on the use of art in trauma recovery among refugee populations. Displacement results in the loss of home, but through art, studies suggest, individuals can regain a sense of belonging. Creating something tangible allows people to process experiences on their own terms, restoring a sense of agency that displacement often strips away.
When people experience a crisis, art can be an important channel for their response. When a mother once described having to evacuate her home due to flooding, Nystrom asked her children to draw what they had experienced. When women report situations of abuse, Nystrom frequently invites them to work with clay, allowing physical movement to release emotions that feel unsafe to speak aloud.
Jake Kilburg
A quilt hangs in the foundation's classroom, each square representing a family's story fleeing from Nicaragua. Beside it, a tree is painted on the wall.
Nystrom describes her goal as supporting the community to be equipped with tools to begin working through trauma and hardship rather than being defined by it.
“I want them to know that in spite of everything, they can create something,” Nystrom says. “So that they have the skills to be creatively resilient and move forward.”
That vision plays out throughout La Carpio, where the art created is carried home. Yajaira Fernandez, a Nicaraguan mother, fills her walls with her teenage daughter’s drawings and paintings. Her daughter dances as well, performing each Sunday at the church the family attends in La Carpio. Fernandez, who faces health challenges and is unable to work, says watching her daughter create carries her through difficult days.
“When I look at these drawings or videos of her dancing, I’m filled with so much joy I begin to tear up,” Fernandez says in Spanish. “I hope that she will be an artist, share this gift with the world, and impact others like she’s impacted me.”
Fernandez is one of more than 30,000 people who call La Carpio home. While the neighborhood has long consisted of largely Nicaraguan migrants, Venezuelan families are increasingly becoming part of its fabric. Costa Rica has built a reputation as a migrant-receiving country in the region, shaped by relative political stability and a strong civil society. Still, many in La Carpio face challenges with accessing social services, issues often made worse by difficulty finding work and bureaucratic obstacles.
Researchers at the Migration Policy Institute describe Costa Rica’s migration history as occurring in three phases: the first beginning in the 1980s, driven by conflict in El Salvador and Nicaragua; the second shaped by economic migration; and the third, ongoing today, fueled by political deterioration in countries including Colombia and Venezuela.
Inside the foundation, these phases are visible as each wave of migration leaves its marks on the walls, creating a collective record of survival. In moments defined by uncertainty, the act of creating art is simple, but for many, it’s the first step toward feeling at home again.