Isabel González

Isabel González was a Puerto Rican activist who helped pave the way for Puerto Ricans to be given United States citizenship. As a young unwed pregnant woman, González had her plans to find and marry the father of her unborn child derailed by the United States Treasury Department when she was excluded as an alien "likely to become a public charge" upon her arrival in New York City. González challenged the Government of the United States in the groundbreaking case Gonzales v. Williams. Officially the case was known as Isabella Gonzales, Appellant, v. William Williams, United States Commissioner of Immigration at the Port of New York No. 225, argued December 4, 7, 1903, and decided January 4, 1904. Her case was an appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York, filed February 27, 1903, after also having her writ of habeas corpus dismissed. Her Supreme Court case is the first time that the Court confronted the citizenship status of inhabitants of territories acquired by the United States. González actively pursued the cause of U.S. citizenship for all Puerto Ricans by writing letters published in The New York Times.

2 May 1882

Born on the same birth day (2 May): Catherine the Great • Charles I, Duke of Münsterberg-Oels • Clyde Fitch • Dwayne Johnson • Friedrich Christoph Oetinger • James Dyson • Jeff Gutt • John Frederick Coots • Ki Hajar Dewantara • María Teresa Torró Flor • Nigel Patrick • Robert Buckley • Régis Labeaume • William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne

Born in the same month (May 1882): Babe Adams • Georges Braque • Henry J. Kaiser • Marie Doro • Sylvia Pankhurst • Willem Elsschot • William Halpenny • Wyndham Halswelle