ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the US global empire use the doctrine of territorial incorporation to legitimate the creation of a corresponding subjectivity. The legal principles shaping the contours of the Puerto Rican subjectivity were developed. The United States had established the basic legal tenets that would shape the contours of the US global empire's subjectivity. The chapter discusses three interrelated arguments, namely the affirmation of the power of Congress to withhold the extension of constitutional provisions to Puerto Rico; and the reliance on two racial narratives of Anglo-American exceptionalism. The residents of Puerto Rico were afforded fundamental rights anchored not on the Constitution, but rather in a natural rights ideology reminiscent of the prevailing narrative of Anglo-American exceptionalism. Chief Justice Taft invoked two racial narratives of Anglo-American exceptionalism to construct a liminal definition of the Jones Act citizenship. More specifically, the Common wealth government has argued that Puerto Rico's unincorporated territorial statusis tantamount to borderland or 'intermediate border' for constitutional purposes.
