blacks that did not speak Spanish were added to the list of 'undesirable' races and banned from immigration. Then a law was passed that limited citizenship to those who already resided in the country. In 1931, Guatemala declared the immigration of foreigners of the 'black race' illegal, and later prohibited entry to people of the 'black races', 'yellow or Mongol' races and of 'Gypsies'. In 1936, Nicaragua shut out the Chinese, Arabs, Syrians, Armenians, Gypsies and Coolies. In 1925, a new law in El Salvador declared it illegal for 'members of coloured races' to enter the country.  
At the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, Liberalism made the ideology of racial mixing and whitening into a social norm. Those who did not fit within this scheme, like the indigenous and black groups, were converted into the 'others', and those who questioned it were viewed as uncivilized or combative. The ideology of order, progress and civilization would be joined to this racial ideology of 'whitening' that nullified the existence, achievements and social mobility of the non-Caucasian ethnic groups (Gudmundson, 1986).  
During the first half of the twentieth century, the main political demand of the second and third generation Antillean descendants would be that the state recognized their right to citizenship. Diana Senior Angulo (2011) shows that for Costa Rica, this right was achieved after intense political negotiation in 1948, as the civil war was unfolding. This also marked the beginning of the fight to get legal ownership of the lands in which these Afrodescendants had been living since the previous century.