Puerto Rico is an island in the Caribbean region in which inhabitants were Spanish nationals from 1508 until the Spanish-American War in 1898, from which point they derived their nationality from United States law. Nationality is the legal means in which inhabitants acquire formal membership in a nation without regard to its governance type. In addition to being United States nationals, people born in Puerto Rico are both citizens of the United States and citizens of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Citizenship is the relationship between the government and the governed, the rights and obligations that each owes the other, once one has become a member of a nation. Though the Constitution of the United States recognizes both national and state citizenship as a means of accessing rights, Pue