Ecuador was the first Latin American state that gave women the right to enfranchise in 1929. Matilde was born in Ecuador in 1889, her father died and then her mom had work as a seamstress. Matilde was academically inclined, but soon had to stop going to school because senior school was only reserved for boys. Her older brother Antonio, was the head of the local secular school High School in which she asked her brother to attend and he said yes. Matilde studied at Colegio Bernaro Valdivieso where she had also graduated with honors. Locals were outraged that she was going to school, the church would make her stand outside of church and parents wouldn't allow their daughters to associate with her. However, She was the first girl to graduate from high school in the year of 1913, she then also wanted to study medicine and went to University of Cuenca and was the first women who qualified as a doctor in Ecuador. She had practiced medicine and added De Procel to her name when she had married a lawyer named Fernando Procel. Her proposal to vote was noted by the state council and Matilde fought that the constitution mentioned that to vote, you would have to know how to read and write and also be 21 years old, there was nothing in the constitution that stated that you had to be male. She encouraged the principal for women to vote, and that there'd be a new constitution and a government that would enfranchise women. Ecuador therefore, became the first Latin American country that granted women the right to vote in 1929. Matilde had became Ecuador's first female candidate and first elected public administrator for her home town Loja in 1941. A museum was also named after her.