Supreme Court decides Puerto Ricans not U.S. Citizens

Historical Context Note

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.3: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Domains

Politics

Dates

Date of occurrence 1901

Places

United States (Location)
Puerto Rico (Involved)

Resources

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In 1904 Isabel González (2nd May, 1882 - 11th June, 1971) a young Puerto Rican woman was travelling from Puerto Rico to the US in order to marry her fiancé. On the voyage new immigration guidelines were issued that changed Puerto Rican's status to that of aliens. The unmarried and pregnant González was considered to be likely to become a 'public charge', relying on welfare, and so should be returned Puerto Rico. González challenged this decision, taking her case to the Supreme Court to argue that Puerto Ricans were all citizens of the US so could not be treated as immigrants. However, Puerto Rico was an 'unincorporated territory', belonging to, but not actually part of the United States. As such the Supreme Court ruled that though Puerto Ricans were not an aliens, nor were they…

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