Puerto Rico, an island located in the Caribbean, became a United States territory in
December of 1898, when Spain ceded the island to the U.S. as part of the Treaty of Paris.
On March 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Jones-Shafroth Act,
granting U.S. citizenship to the inhabitants of Puerto Rico. Yet, a 2017 poll by Morning Consult found that almost half of Americans did not know that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.
This month’s Affinity newsletter provides readers with a new perspective on the resilience of the people of Puerto Rico and some historical facts not commonly known about their fellow citizens.