Hierarchies of belonging: intersecting race, ethnicity, and territoriality in the construction of US citizenship

Abstract

What is the essence of American citizenship and nationhood? Traditionally scholars have divided into three camps: civic, ethnic, or a civic-ethnic hybrid. Each approach presumes there is but one kind of citizenship. This paper challenges that unitary assumption. A century ago American intellectuals and policy-makers wrangled over naturalizing their new colonial subjects in Puerto Rico. These deliberations in the Academy and Congress did not envision granting Puerto Ricans the same kind of citizenship found in the states, but a lower ordered citizenship that took into account race, ethnicity, and territorial status. The Puerto Rican case added another layer of complexity to the debate over, and the nature of, US citizenship. Contrary to assumptions of a unitary citizenship we argue that the American polity has developed, de facto, multi-tiered subtypes of citizenship signifying varying shades of national belonging.