4. Isabel González v. United States
La Brega: Campeones
Futuro Media
4.8 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 24 February 2026
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1902, Isabel González arrived in Ellis Island, pregnant, alone and with only $11.00 in her pocket. She – like others before her – was detained for being an "alien" and at risk of becoming a "burden" on the state. But Isabel took her fight to the courts, defending her right to stay in the country that had invaded her homeland just four years earlier. She fought all the way to the Supreme Court where she argued for citizenship. In this episode we learn about Isabel’s ever-so-pertinent legacy, and how another recent challenger also fought for Puerto Rico at the US Supreme Court.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the English version in Spanish, |
| 0:03.3 | regreza al-Feed. |
| 0:05.0 | This is the English version of the episode. |
| 0:07.7 | And heads up, you can listen to the entire season of La Brega right now, |
| 0:12.2 | ad-free, plus exclusive episodes, by joining Futuro Plus. |
| 0:16.8 | And there's some explicit language in this episode. |
| 0:20.3 | You've been warned. |
| 0:21.6 | Now on to the show. |
| 0:26.6 | Isabel Gonzalez was doing what so many Puerto Ricans have done. |
| 0:34.9 | She was going to New York and asking her family to pick her up. |
| 0:39.8 | I think she thought it would be simple. Like, oh yeah, I'm going to show up and just integrate in. |
| 0:46.4 | But she was only 20 years old, eight and a half months pregnant, traveling alone, and it was 1902. |
| 0:53.5 | She was arriving by steamship. |
| 0:55.8 | I don't know if she was afraid. |
| 0:57.5 | I would be a little bit. |
| 0:59.3 | This is Belinda Torres-Marie. |
| 1:01.8 | And I am the great-granddaughter of Isabel Gonzalez. |
| 1:05.8 | Isabel was a widow. |
| 1:07.6 | Her husband had died earlier that year. |
| 1:10.1 | She was leaving her daughter in San Juan |
| 1:12.0 | and wanted to bring her to New York once she got settled. I see her as she's probably an |
| 1:18.0 | optimist because anytime you need to fight for something, you're never really a pessimist to do that. |
... |
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