Ángela Acuña Braun

This name uses Spanish naming customs: the first or paternal family name is Acuña and the second or maternal family name is Braun.
Ángela Acuña Braun
Born Ángela Acuña Braun
(1888-10-02)2 October 1888
Cartago, Costa Rica
Died 10 October 1983(1983-10-10) (aged 95)
San José, Costa Rica
Nationality Costa Rican
Other names Ángela Acuña de Chacón
Occupation lawyer, writer, diplomat
Years active 1917–1954

Ángela Acuña Braun (2 October 1888 – 10 October 1983) was a Costan Rican attorney who was the first female attorney in Central America. She was also a feminist and a suffragette who worked for many years to secure enfranchisement for women and revise civil codes to protect children. She was the Costa Rican delegate to the Inter-American Commission of Women for thirteen years, founded the Liga Feminista Costarricense and the Costa Rican chapter of the Unión de Mujeres Americanas. Her legal specialty was on International human rights law and protection of women and children. She made numerous studies about the law and its implications for women and juveniles. She was a delegate on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for twelve years. Most of her writings were on legal issues, but she worked for two decades on an encyclopedia of Costa Rican women.

Biography

Ángela Acuña Braun was born on 2 October 1888 in Cartago, Costa Rica.[1] Her grammar school was Girls' School Nº 2, now called Escuela Julia Lang, and she went to secondary school at the Superior School for Girls between 1901 and 1905. In 1906, Acuña studied in France and England and was exposed to the suffrage movement of Europe.[2] She returned to Costa Rica in 1912 to further her education but was not allowed to enter university. She enrolled in the Liceo de Costa Rica as the only female student[2] with the goal of obtaining a bachelor's degree in humanities. She began publishing articles in magazines and newspapers, sometimes using a pseudonym, agitating for women's equality.[3] After a year of study, she was allowed to enter the school of law[2] and three years later, she graduated with a bachelor of Laws.[3] In 1915 she founded the magazine Figaro inviting writers from throughout the Americas to participate and then in 1916, she presented the Costa Rican Congress a reform proposal for the civil code.[4]

In 1919, Acuña became the first woman to work for the Ministry of Education.[4] She continued writing and she led a demonstration against the administration of President Federico Tinoco Granados for labor law violations. Some of the teachers who joined in the strike would later join in the suffrage movement and included: Matilde Carranza, Ana Rosa Chacón, Lilia González, Carmen Lyra, Victoria Madrigal, Vitalia Madrigal, Esther De Mezerville, María Ortiz, Teodora Ortiz, Ester Silva and Andrea Venegas. In 1923, Mexican feminist Elena Arizmendi Mejia who was living in New York and publishing a magazine Feminismo Internacional (International Feminism) invited women all over the world to create subsidiaries of the International League of Iberian and Latin American Women on 12 October of that year. As a result, Acuña and others founded the Liga Feminista Costarricense (LFC), first feminist organization in Costa Rica.[3] In 1924 she mounted a campaign for teachers to receive equal pay, regardless of their sex and she was involved in the issue of paternity investigation. In 1925, Acuña became the first female lawyer in Central America after submitting her thesis entitled Los Derechos del Niño dentro de la Ley Modernas (The Rights of the Child under Modern Law)[4] and asking for the Organic Law of Notariado to be reformed to allow women to enter the profession.[5]

Acuña went to Europe in 1926 to continue her education. In Brussels she studied for three years and earned a diploma in aviculture. Returning to Costa Rica in 1929, she presented the first proposal to the Costa Rican Congress for women's right to vote[4] and submitted a request for equal pay for school janitors. She founded and drafted the charter for the Association of University Women of Costa Rica and in 1932, she founded the Costa Rican affiliate of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.[6] She continued her agitation for the vote writing articles in newspapers like Diario de Costa Rica, La Hora, La Nación and La República and in magazines both local and abroad.[2] In 1934, the LFC called together a commission to meet with legislative delegates. The commission was made up of educated professional women from law, sociology, education, fine arts and health professionals who made presentations to convince the legislators that their concerns were legitimate. Though the delegates expressed that the concerns were well founded and that they generally agreed with the principals presented, no action was taken.[7] Between 1938 and 1939, she represented Costa Rica at the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM), replacing Lidia Fernández, and heped organize the First Central American Women's Congress of Education.[8]

In 1940, she founded the Costa Rican branch of the Pan American Round Table and in 1941 was appointed Costa Rica's delegate to the CIM,[4] a post which she held for the next thirteen years.[1] She sought and won further changes to Costa Rican laws obtaining amendments allowing women to be judges and magistrates. She studied juvenile justice systems throughout the US, attending hearings and trials in Dallas, Denver, New York, Salt Lake City, and Washington, DC. She also visited juvenile detention and correction centers and vocational rehabilitation centers for children with behavioral problems.[4] Her area of study depicted her concerns for the fight for Human Rights and the defense of women and children and her recognition that these were international problems needing international attention and solutions.[2] In 1943 Acuña attended a meeting of the Panamanian Ministers of Education at their request to suggest educational reforms.[4] She returned to Costa Rica for one final push for women's votes. Between 1943 and 1947, the women met with every Congress demanding the right to vote. Finally after conclusion of the Costa Rican Civil War the new constitution which was drafted, enfranchised women in 1948.[9]

In 1950, she began collaborating with Dr. Blanche Christine Olschak, who had created the only encyclopedia of women in the world.[10] Acuña wanted to complete a historical social study of Costa Rican Women Through Four Centuries for inclusion in Dr. Oschak's Universal Encyclopedia of Women.[4] Acuña's work on Costa Rican women would be published in two volumes between 1969 and 1970 after two decades of work.[2]

The latter part of Acuña's career was spent internationally in diplomatic posts representing Costa Rica. She made a comparative study of the laws on women for the Pan American Union in 1953, which was presented at the Caracas Conference of the Inter-American Commission of Women. Between 1955 and 1956, she organized and wrote the governing documents for the Costa Rican chapter of the Unión de Mujeres Americanas. In 1957, Acuña was appointed as Costa Rica's ambassador to the Organization of American States and was named "Woman of America".[4] Between 1960 and 1972, she was Costa Rica's delegate on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).[11] On 28 September 1982, she was awarded "Benemérita de la Patria" (an award for meritorious service to the motherland) from Costa Rica.[2]

Acuña died on 10 October 1983 in San José, Costa Rica.[1]

Selected works

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Ángela Acuña Braun (1888–1983)". Organización de Estados Iberoamericanos (in Spanish). Organización de Estados Iberoamericanos. 2005. Retrieved 1 August 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Ángela Acuña Braun" (PDF). Comunidad Educativa de Centroamérica y República Dominicana (in Spanish). San José, Costa Rica: Ministerio de Educación Pública. Retrieved 2 August 2015.
  3. 1 2 3 Solano Arias, Marta E. (January–June 2014). "A 90 años de la fundación de la Liga Feminista Costarricense: los derechos políticos" (PDF). Revista Derecho Electoral (in Spanish). San José, Costa Rica: Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones República de Costa Rica (17): 357–375. ISSN 1659-2069. Retrieved 2 August 2015.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Santana, Robert (8 December 2014). "Beneméritos de la Patria: Ángela Acuña Brawn". Asamblea Legislativa de a República de Costa Rica (in Spanish). San José, Costa Rica: Asamblea Legislativa de a República de Costa Rica. Retrieved 1 August 2015.
  5. ↑ "Historia del Colegio". El Colegio de Abogados y Abogadas de Costa Rica (in Spanish). San José, Costa Rica: El Colegio de Abogados y Abogadas de Costa Rica. Retrieved 2 August 2015.
  6. ↑ "Acuña Braun, Ángela". Sinabi (in Spanish). San José, Costa Rica: Sistema Nacional de Bibliotecas Costa Rica. Retrieved 3 August 2015.
  7. ↑ Riera, Macarena Barahona (1994). Las sufragistas de Costa Rica (in Spanish) (1 ed.). San José, C.R.: Ed. de la Univ. de Costa Rica. pp. 115–118. ISBN 978-9977-67-257-1.
  8. ↑ "Stevens, Doris, 1888–1963. Papers of Doris Stevens, 1884–1983 (inclusive), 1920–1960". Harvard University Library. Harvard University Library. Retrieved 16 August 2015.
  9. ↑ Barahona, Macarena (27 July 2014). "La batalla de las sufragistas ticas". La Naion (in Spanish). San José, Costa Rica. Retrieved 3 August 2015.
  10. ↑ Grant, Jane; Hellman, Geoffrey T. (11 February 1956). "Oly's Opus". The New Yorker. New York City. Retrieved 2 August 2015.
  11. ↑ "Former IACHR Commissioners". OAS. Organization of American States. Retrieved 3 August 2015.
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