ABSTRACT
In 1958, when Rosa was 18 years old and she was still living in an Andean rural community, the Peruvian State decided to acknowledge women as citizens by giving them identification cards. However, this action only applied to literate women. Since Rosa had attended one year of schooling she decided to go to her district's designated office in which her level of literacy would be evaluated. She remembers that when it was her turn to show her literacy abilities she was asked to go to the blackboard and to write the word ‘constitution’. Rosa recalls that she was able to write it correctly and, hence, was given an identification card with which she could vote in national elections from then on. However, she also remembers that at the time she did not know what the word constitution meant.
