The importance of a pair of commas in the lives of Territorial Filipinos.

[MrG]

"All persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

How many types of citizens are there in the sentence above. One or two? Why do you say so?

I ask this question because it has been of great import to the WWII veterans and how the US of A treated them and the other Territorial Filipinos.

The youngest of the Territorial Filipinos is still going to turn 65 next month, July 4, 2011.  Therefore, this painful and discriminatory act of a colonizer can still be appreciated by still very lucid senior citizens.

If you need to know more about the plight of Territorial Filipinos and why the pair of commas in the sentence above is crucial to them; simply do a search for "Territorial Filipinos".

MrG was born in January 1, 1941

[Joe Carillo]

I don’t wish to take sides in what’s evidently a very emotional issue to you and to other Filipinos denied U.S. citizenship under the circumstances you describe, but I’m willing to give you my personal opinion of the American statute below from a grammar and semantic standpoint:

“All persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

Your question, MrG, is how many types of U.S. citizens there are in the purview of that statute. My answer is that there’s only one type—all persons born in the United States who have remained subject to its jurisdiction. The semantic effect of the pair of commas that sets off the qualifying phrase “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” is not to denote another type of citizen but to exclude those born in the United States who are no longer subject to its jurisdiction (by, say, renouncing their U.S. citizenship to become the citizen of another country). If the intention of the framers of that provision was to include persons born outside of the United States but in other territories subject to its jurisdiction, that intention could have been made unequivocal and unmistakable by phrasing that statute as follows:

“All persons born in the United States and those born in territories subject to its jurisdiction are citizens of the United States and of the State or Territory wherein they reside.”

Note that the phrasing above dropped the pair of commas for clarity’s sake. Indeed, MrG, it was precisely the superfluous use of that pair of commas that appears to have given some people the idea that two types of U.S. citizens were contemplated by that provision. From a language standpoint, however, I feel pretty sure that those commas were inserted by the framers of that provision simply to provide breathing pauses for what would have been a rather long noun phrase—all of 13 words—as subject of the sentence, followed without pause by another 13 words as its predicate. Alas, those U.S. legislators obviously had no inkling whatsoever of the trouble that pair of commas would cause the Territorial Filipinos from then and far into the future!

I think the moral of this most unfortunate situation is clear: Never use commas in vain. To steer clear of trouble, use them only when absolutely needed.