Juan Mari Brás

Juan Mari Brás (1927-2010) was a Puerto Rican lawyer, political leader, and lifelong advocate for independence. He founded the Movimiento Pro-Independencia (MPI) in 1959, which later became the Partido Socialista Puertorriqueño (PSP) in 1971.

Mari Brás was the first person to formally renounce his U.S. citizenship while remaining a resident of Puerto Rico, in a legal challenge to the colonial relationship. In 1994, he renounced his citizenship at the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela. In 1997, the U.S. State Department confirmed his loss of citizenship, and in 2006, a Puerto Rico court ruled that he retained his Puerto Rican citizenship — establishing the legal concept of a Puerto Rican citizenship separate from U.S. citizenship.

His son, Santiago Mari Pesquera, was assassinated in 1976 in what is widely believed to have been a political killing. The case remains officially unsolved. Despite this personal tragedy and decades of government surveillance, Mari Brás continued his advocacy for independence until his death at age 82.