The italo-costarican historian Rita Bariatti named Girolamo Benzomi, Stefano Corti, Antonio Chapui, Jose Lombardo,[6] Francesco Granado, and Benito Valerino are between those who created important families in colonial Costa Rica.

[8] The harsh work conditions prompted them to leave the railroad project although many remained in Costa Rica, settling in a government-sponsored colony known as San Vito in the Southern Pacific region.

Julio Acosta García, a descendant from a Genoese family in San Jose since colonial times, served as President of Costa Rica from 1920 to 1924.

In 1939 there were nearly 15,000 Italians resident in Costa Rica and many suffered persecutions during World War II[10] In 1952, there was an influx of Italian immigrants, mainly farmers, who arrived in San Vito armed with tractors and other farm machinery, and began to farm the land intensively and to raise cattle.

This Italian immigration is a typical example of directed agricultural colonisation, similar in many ways to the process in other places in Latin America.

Among the Italian linguistic inheritances, the best known is the pronunciation of the "r" and "rr", which the majority of the population pronounces as a deaf alveolar rhithic fricative, as do the Sicilians.

In modern Costa Rican slang, a multitude of Italianisms also exist such as acois (from the echo: here), birra (from the beer: beer), bochinche (fight, disorder), capo (someone outstanding), bell (from it: bell jergal: spy, means to watch), canear (from the "canne: police baton, means to be in jail"), "chao" (from the "ciao: goodbye"), facha (from "faccia": "face, used when someone is badly dressed"), used when someone is poorly arranged) and sound (from the suonare: sound, means to fail or hit), among many others.

Likewise, Creole dishes typical of the Italians in Costa Rica were created, adapting to the local food availability.

Other favorite dishes of Italian origin are spaghetti soup, fettuccine, gnocchi, tagliatelle, calzone, cannelloni and lasagna.

[20] Pizza also exists in Costa Rica in countless varieties; the traditional Italian, American Creole, with different types of pasta, by the meter and filled, among many others.

Costa Rican pizza is made with Creole cheese and tomatoes; minced meat, ham, onion, olives and sweet pepper.

[21] As for the consumption of desserts, they are quite common: gelato, Neapolitan ice cream, tiramisu, cannoli, biscotti and, during the Christmas period, panettone.