Laura Meneses

Laura Meneses del Carpio (Arequipa, Peru, March 31, 1894 - Havana, Cuba, April 15, 1973) was the first Latin American in 1920 to be accepted into Radcliffe College, the women's educational institution affiliated with Harvard University. She earned a doctorate in natural sciences and became active in the movement for Puerto Rican independence from the United States.

Biography Laura Meneses del Carpio was born on March 31, 1894, in the city of Arequipa, Peru, the youngest daughter of Emilia del Carpio Tupayachi and Juan Rosa Meneses del Pino, who was a colonel in the Peruvian army.

Education Meneses studied natural sciences at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima, Peru, graduating with a bachelor's degree in biology in 1913.

In 1937, Albizu Campos and the other Puerto Rican Nationalist leaders were sentenced to the federal penitentiary in Atlanta; he was not released for almost eleven years. Because her husband spent decades in detention (he spent 25 years in U.S. prisons), the couple was able to spend only 13 years together out of their 43 years of marriage.

Mexican years Her husband was jailed again in 1950 after the defeat of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party Revolts.

Meneses attended the first Latin American Women's Congress in Santiago, Chile in 1959 and, according to the Chilean press, "she was the most applauded delegate." In 1960 she was allowed to attend the International Women's Federation and this invitation, in turn, gave her the opportunity to visit other international destinations, including Denmark, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and China.

Because of diplomatic pressure from the Cuban government, she was finally allowed to travel to Puerto Rico in 1965 to visit her ailing husband. He died shortly thereafter in San Juan.

Meneses returned to Havana and died on April 15, 1973. Her remains were buried in the city's old Colón Cemetery.