Manglona named to USA Today’s ‘Women of the Century’

U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona is one of 19 women from the U.S. territories, including West Side Story star Rita Moreno from Puerto Rico, who were recognized by the USA Today Network as its “Women of the Century” for making significant contributions to their communities.

The Women of the Century article, written by USA Today’s Coral Murphy-Marcos and Lindsay Schnell, commemorate this month’s 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, when women were granted the right to vote in the United States.

USA Today’s list features women from the “five permanently inhabited territories”—Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa.

“These are women whose work and contributions were felt directly by their territory community,” USA Today said.

The article stated that women in Puerto Rico obtained the legal right to vote in 1935, while women in the CNMI had to wait until 1978.

USA Today said that, in 1950, President Truman signed the Guam Organic Act, which established a government in Guam and declared those born there to be United States citizens; the act also granted women the right to vote.

Ramona V. Manglona

With respect to Manglona, USA Today noted that Manglona became the first person from the CNMI to be appointed to a federal court in 2011. Prior to her appointment, Manglona was a Superior Court judge. In 2002 Manglona became the first female attorney general for the CNMI.

Manglona graduated with honors from the University of New Mexico School of Law in 1996, and from the University of California-Berkeley in 1990.

In a Facebook post, Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) congratulated Manglona for over the weekend for the USA Today recognition. “It was certainly a highlight of my time in office to assist in the nomination and confirmation of the first person of Northern Marianas descent to serve in the federal judiciary,” Sablan said.

Rosa Dolores Alverio, more popularly known as Rita Moreno, is the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award winning artist from Puerto Rico. Playing the role of Anita in West Side Story made Moreno the first Latina to receive an Oscar.

Three women from Guam are on the Women of the Century list: human rights activist Beatrice Flores Emsley, politician Cecilia Cruz Bamba, and educator and civil rights activist Agueda Iglesias Johnston.

Others on the list are poet Julia de Burgos Garcia of Puerto Rico, feminist author Barbara Christian from the U.S. Virgin Islands, humanitarian Isolina Ferre Aguayo from Puerto Rico, politician Tulsi Gabbard from American Samoa, nurse and midwife Myrah Keating-Smith from the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa Medicaid director Sandra King-Young, Puerto Rico Olympic tennis gold medalist Monica Puig Marchan, former U.S. surgeon general from Puerto Rico Anonia Novello, reggaeton artist Ivy Queen from Puerto Rico, lawyer and politician Ana Irma Rivera Lassen from Puerto Rico, Sen. Ruby Rouss from the U.S. Virgin Islands, executive director of the Center for Investigative Journalism Carla Minet Santos Santiago from Puerto Rico, professor Carolina Sinavaiana Gabbard from American Samoa, and Nilita Vientos Gaston, the first female lawyer to work for the Puerto Rico Department of Justice.