Another PR Independence Leader Dies

Associated Press reporting:  “Juan Mari Bras, an elder statesman of Puerto Rico’s independence movement who gave up U.S. citizenship in an act that inspired hundreds of other activists, died Friday. He was 82.”   Mari Bras’s rejection of US citizenship yielded a political victory, when, as the AP reports, “[a}s the result of legal challenges stemming from that case, the island government in 2007 issued its first certificate of Puerto Rican citizenship to Mari Bras. Some other islanders have also requested the document, which is valid as an ID on the island but not recognized as a travel document outside the island given that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.”  For Spanish coverage, check out El Nuevo Dia.  This past summer, Dolores (“Lolita”) Lebrón Sotomayor, who became the leader of a group of nationalists, who proceeded to attack the United States House of Representatives in 1954, died from complications of a cardio respiratory affection.