Puerto Rican citizenship
In 1952, upon U.S. Congress approving the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, also reaffirmed that Puerto Rican citizenship continued in full force. This was further reaffirmed in 2006 while the U.S. Senate probed into the President's Task Force on Puerto Rico's status. In 1953, U.S Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., in a memorandum sent to the United Nations, recognized that "the people of Puerto Rico continue to be citizens of the United States as well as of Puerto Rico."
Puerto Rican women in the military
Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the United States in accordance with the agreement reached in the 1898 Treaty of Paris, which officially ended the Spanish–American War. On March 2, 1917, with the advent of World War I, U.S. citizenship was imposed upon Puerto Ricans as a result of the passage if the Jones–Shafroth Act (the Puerto Rican House of Delegates rejected US citizenship). Two months later, when Congress passed the Selective Service Act, conscription was extended to the island. Those who were eligible, with the exception of women, were expected to serve in the military. About 20,000 Puerto Rican men were drafted during World War I.