The Solidarity of Citizenship
Marriage, Statelessness, and the Puerto Rican Nation in Laura Meneses’s Path to the United Nations
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24216794 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lisa G Materson (0000-0002-4772-6250) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 478-494 |
| Publication date | 2026-09-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Latino Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1476-3435 • E-ISSN: 1476-3443 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1057/s41276-026-00596-9 |
| OpenAlex | W7214708272 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 17 |
This article traces Laura Meneses’s anticolonial activism in defense of Puerto Rico’s independence through her shifting citizenship and hemispheric residences. Born a Peruvian citizen in 1894, Meneses became a U.S. citizen in 1922 upon marrying pro-independence leader Pedro Albizu Campos, but she became stateless in 1948 when the U.S. government revoked her citizenship. In response, Meneses fashioned her marriage and her solidarity networks toward oppositional imaginings of citizenship. She redirected the patriarchal logic of marriage law that made her a U.S. citizen to assert Puerto Rican national identity and citizenship. She also joined a solidarity network of Latin American exiles who identified as “citizens of the revolution” and practiced power-sharing. These strategies culminated when Cuba made Meneses a citizen and UN delegate in 1961, empowered to challenge U.S. colonialism at the United Nations despite Puerto Rico’s exclusion as a member nation.
American colonialism · Citizenship · Latin American exile · Marriage · National identity · Patriarchy · Pedro Albizu Campos · Puerto Rican independence movement · Puerto Rico · solidarity networks · Statelessness · United Nations · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Cuban History and Society · Latin American and Latino Studies
| Highly cited | No |
|---|