Contributed by Charles R. Venator-Santiago

              Congress possesses the constitutional power to unilaterally enact legislation abolishing birthright citizenship in the United States territories. While Congress cannot unilaterally enact legislation stripping persons born in a U.S. territory of their birthright citizenship, it can enact a statute that prevents persons from subsequently acquiring a jus soli or birthright citizenship. This was not always so.

            The original Constitution did not contain a Citizenship Clause. In 1866, Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act to grant birthright citizenship to back Americans while excluding Native Americans and the children of ambassadors born on U.S. soil. Following the enactment of the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, Congress began to extend birthright citizenship to the territories via legislation or statute. By 1898, the Supreme Court had already opined that territories were a part of the United States, and the Constitution applied on its own force. That is, birth in a territory was tantamount to birth in the United States to acquire birthright citizenship.

            However, following the Spanish-American War of 1898, Congress embraced the idea that the United States could annex two types of territories: incorporated and unincorporated. Incorporated territories were treated as a part of the United States and were destined to become states of the Union. Alternatively, unincorporated territories could be selectively ruled as foreign possessions in a domestic or constitutional sense. In 1901, the Supreme Court began to affirm this new vision of territorial expansionism in a series of opinions generally known as the Insular Cases. It followed that so long as a territory remained a foreign location, then birth in this territory was equivalent to birth outside the United States. Thus, like other persons born outside of the United States, racially eligible persons born in an unincorporated territory could only acquire citizenship via a naturalization statute.

            Between 1898 and 1900, Congress invented a non-citizen nationality to rule persons born in Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, territories acquired after the War of 1898. For example, persons born in Puerto Rico acquired Puerto Rican citizenship. Administrative courts subsequently adopted the position that the inhabitants of annexed territories would retain their non-citizen nationality until Congress enacted an organic or territorial act providing for the collective naturalization of the territory’s inhabitants. Congress has neither enacted an organic act for American Samoa nor enacted citizenship legislation for its residents. For more than a century, persons born in American Samoa have acquired citizenship of American Samoa.

            Early citizenship legislation provided for the individual naturalization of some residents of the unincorporated territories, in the case of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rican women could acquire U.S. citizenship under the terms of the doctrine of Coverture (1898-1934), that is, by marrying a U.S. citizen. In 1906, Congress enacted an immigration act that enabled Filipinos and Puerto Ricans to naturalize and acquire U.S. citizenship. In 1914, Congress passed legislation allowing persons born in the insular areas or territories to treat their time serving in the U.S. Coast Guard as a form of residency in a state for naturalization purposes. Again, in the case of Puerto Rico, in 1917, Congress enacted legislation that collectively naturalized Puerto Rican citizens and the residents of the islands more generally (1917-1940). Yet, because Puerto Rico and the other unincorporated territories were governed as foreign possessions for domestic or constitutional purposes, birth in an unincorporated territory was tantamount to birth outside the United States. Thus, persons born in unincorporated territories could only acquire a “naturalized” citizenship.

            Because naturalized citizenship created numerous administrative problems for its bearers, Congress began to enact legislation or statutes that treated unincorporated territories as part of the United States to extend jus soli or birthright citizenship. In 1927, Congress passed legislation extending the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Virgin Islands. In 1940, under the terms of the Nationality Act, Congress applied this precedent to Puerto Rico. By 1952, Congress had enacted statutes providing for the collective naturalization and extension of birthright citizenship to persons born in Guam. Since then, millions of persons born in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Guam have acquired birthright citizenship.

            However, because Congress or the Supreme Court has not incorporated these territories, these islands remain foreign in a domestic or constitutional sense. That is, the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment does not apply on its own force. Birthright citizenship in unincorporated territories is legislated. Thus, Congress can unilaterally pass legislation that abolishes birthright citizenship in its U.S. territories.

Contributed by Bessy Reyna 

I can’t remember when I first learned about El Instituto. Sadly, when I was a grad student at UCONN (1970-72 MA) and a PhD candidate later, there were no Latino groups I could be involved with. The Puerto Rican Center was the first of the student centers to be created. I created the Women’s Center and advocated for gay and lesbian rights. I don’t remember exactly how I first knew about El Instituto; maybe a friend told me, or I decided to introduce myself to the then-director. That first introduction resulted in a warm welcome, and I felt comfortable sharing information about my writing and upcoming poetry readings. That relationship has continued to this day, and I am very grateful to the staff for their support of my work.  I hope El Instituto will continue to be allowed to serve not only as an anchor for Latinos at UCONN but also to extend knowledge and appreciation of our culture to the general population. 

 -Bessy Reyna MA 1972, JD 1986..(www.bessyreyna.com) 

Bessy Reyna is a poet, memoirist, and journalist. Born in Cuba and raised in Panama, Bessy is a graduate of Mt Holyoke College (BA Magna Cum  Laude) and earned her Masters and Law degrees from the University of Connecticut. She had the opportunity for a poetry reading at the CT’s Old State House in October 12, 2024.  She is the author of two bilingual books of poetry, The Battlefield of Your Body (Hill-Stead Museum, 2005) and Memoirs of the Unfaithful Lover/ Memorias de la amante infiel (tunAstral, A.C., 2010, Toluca Mexico). Born in Cuba and raised in Panama, Bessy is a graduate of Mt Holyoke College (BA Magna Cum  Laude) and earned her Masters and Law degrees from the University of Connecticut. For nine years, she was a monthly opinion columnist for The Hartford Courant and a frequent contributor to Northeast, the Sunday magazine of the Hartford Courant. She conducted radio interviews with poets appearing at Hill-Stead Museum’s renowned Sunken Garden Poetry Festival in Farmington, CT, for several years. She wrote an arts-and-culture page for the Hispanic newspaper Identidad Latina and  www.CTLatinoNews.com.   

Contributed by Anne Gebelein 

El Instituto and the Human Rights Institute hosted filmmakers Pamela Yates and Paco de Onís February 12th for a showing of their new documentary “Borderland: The Line Within”.  

Pamela Yates is the Founder and Creative Director, and Paco de Onís the Executive Director and Executive Producer of Skylight, a non-profit media organization that seeks to highlight the courage of activists defending human rights. Yates has a long history of working in Latin America, and her first film “When the Mountains Tremble” of 1983 is a classic. The film introduced many in the world to Rigoberta Menchú at a time in which news from the violence in Central America was being heavily censored by the Reagan administration. Yates created other films about Guatemala: “Witness to War”, “500 Years” and “Granito: How to Nail a Dictator” that contributed to Rios Montt’s conviction for genocide. She also made a film about Fujimori’s use of the fear of terrorism to weaken democracy in Peru in “State of Fear: The Truth about Terrorism”. 

“Borderland” profiles 2 activists: Gabriela Castañeda, a immigrant leadership trainer at the Border Network for Human Rights in El Paso, and Kaxh Mura’l, an environmental activist and defender of ancestral Maya-Ixil lands. Kaxh needed to flee Guatemala when he received death threats for trying to keep mining companies from extracting barite, and he fled to the U.S. border seeking asylum. Gabriela suffered her husband’s deportation, leaving her with 3 children, and the government revoking her DACA for her activism. A third thread of the film is a team of digital humanists who build a database exposing the border industrial complex and its web of private prison contracts across the U.S. 

Borderlands is true to Skylight’s spirit of inspiring activists by highlighting the courage of people who risk their country, time with their family, and their very lives for causes they believe in. It reveals the need for persistence in fighting back against mining and prison corporations, as well as against unfair immigration policies of the United States, revealing the damage both inflict on families, communities and the environment.  

BORDERLAND | The Line Within is the website for the movie, and viewers can find not only a study guide to accompany the film, but data on the amount of money each county in each state receives in contracts to support the border industrial complex.  

The documentary is available streaming from Babbidge library. Because Skylight is a non-profit organization, the filmmakers invite human rights and activist groups to use their film for fundraising events as well. Yates and de Onís are quite busy given the renewed interest in the border with Trump’s declared emergency over immigration; they showed the film 30x between Sept 10 (Hartford Real Art Ways) and Nov 4, 2024 (Yale) and their inboxes are full of requests. Even though they had a showing the day after their Wednesday UConn presentation, Q & A and reception, they were generous enough to spend time in Anne Gebelein’s Human Rights on the U.S./Mexican Border class before they left town on Thursday to share their thoughts about the power of storytelling in the defense of human rights.  

“Borderlands II” is currently in production, so hopefully we will be seeing Yates and de Onís again soon.  

Contributed by Apoliana da Conceição dos Santos

With the support of travel funding of El Instituto, I attended and presented at the II Congresso Nacional de Linguística Aplicada (CONALA) & I Congresso Internacional de Linguagem, Literatura e Discurso (CILLID) in Maranhão, Brazil. My presentation, “XIX-Century Brazilian and Cuban Racial Realities: Aluísio Azevedo’s Mulatto and Manzano’s Autobiography of a Slave,” explored how both works reflect racial and social hierarchies in 19th-century Brazil and Cuba, particularly through the concept of social death and its role in shaping racial identity. 

This congress was an enriching experience, and among all levels of academic research presented, I was particularly impressed by the undergraduates. Unlike the U.S., undergraduate studies in Latin America span four years with fewer courses per semester, and witnessing young scholars present such rigorous work in an international setting was both nostalgic and inspiring. 

The opening talk by Dr. Josimayre Novelli (UEM) on “Formação de professores de línguas: dilemas e perspectivas no contexto das TDIC e IA” was especially impactful. Her commitment to teacher education and deep understanding of Federal Public Universities in Brazil highlighted her dedication to her students’ professional development. 

I attended a diverse range of presentations, including those in French, and from scholars affiliated with institutions in Germany, Chile, Austria, and the U.S., reinforcing the importance of global academic collaboration. One of the highlights was the closing keynote by Dr. Jerome Branche (University of Pittsburgh) on “Beyond Socialism or The Revolution Will Not Be Sacralized: Memory, Maroonage, and Animism in the Poetics of Jesus Cos Causse.” The Q&A session afterward, discussing Manzano, Césaire, and the Caribbean, provided invaluable insights for my research at ELIN. 

This congress significantly contributed to my academic growth, deepening my understanding of transnational literary studies and shaping my thesis. Engaging with experts like Dr. Branche was particularly valuable in refining my work. 

Attending CONALA & CILLID was one of the most intellectually stimulating experiences I have had. I am deeply grateful to Dr. Naiara Sales Araújo for organizing such an exceptional event that fostered rich academic exchange. I also appreciate the funding that enabled me to participate and share my research on an international stage. 

Contributed by Charles R. Venator Santiago

This academic year El Instituto will hold a graduate conference that explores New Perspectives in Latin American and Latine studies. Our understanding of new perspectives extends beyond contemporary regional matters; their grounding connects to its longstanding historical, political and economic challenges rooted thoroughly in Latin America and the Caribbean.  We welcome proposals for presentations from across disciplines in the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, visual and plastic arts and sociocultural linguistics as well as from the fields of law, business, public policy, social work, public health, and education, among others in any media or format.

The conference welcomes proposals outside the specific theme, including those related to U.S. Latino/a/e communities. Papers and panel presentations may be in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.  We welcome complete panels, individual proposals, creative workshops, round tables, book discussions and accept individual and teamwork presentations. You can find more information in Eventbrite. For further questions about the conference, email elinstituto@uconn.edu.

Contributed by Charles R. Venator Santiago

UConn’s El Instituto (Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies) awarded small seed grants to support faculty-led workshops, reading groups, or other research on any theme of relevance to Latine, Latin American, or Caribbean studies in the academic year 2023-2024. Please join us this fall semester in this 4 part series of events to hear about their research accomplishments.

Our first lecture, “Narrativas de Cambio: Latino Stories for Climate and Environmental Justice,” by Dr. Mayra I. Rodríguez Gonzalez, Assistant Extension Educator in Urban and Community Forestry at UConn, presented her research on October 15, 2024. In this presentation, Dr. Rodriguez explored three case studies from Latino communities in Connecticut (Hartford, Bridgeport, and Willimantic), highlighting diverse storytelling and community knowledge exchange processes that are being utilized to advance environmental and climate justice.

Most lectures will be held at the Dodd Center for Human Rights, Conference Room 162. For more information, please visit our events page at https://events.uconn.edu/el-instituto/month.

Contributed by Charles R. Venator Santiago

We are saddened to note that Wilfredo “Willie” Matos passed away on October 14, 2024, during a panel presentation at Albertus Magnus College in New Haven, Connecticut. Willie was sharing his thoughts and experiences in a panel addressing the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act. Connecticut lost an important advocate for civil and human rights.

As he was known by friends and the communities he served, Willie was the founder and president of the Young Lords in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He led a whole life and was an indefatigable fighter for the civil rights of Puerto Ricans and others in Connecticut. I am honored to have met him and spent the last moments of his life with him.