Abstract This paper examines public clashes over the indexical meanings of the register of governors in a non‐sovereign context. It demonstrates how the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico's naming of the first non‐elected female governor elicited people's stances on the appropriate and effective semiotic entailment of “gobernadora” (feminine governor) within a sedimented androcentric and androcolonial order. The public's misrecognition of this new subjectivity prompted the production of a new shibboleth, “primera gobernadora constitucional” (first feminine governor, constitutionally recognized), making this naming ritual felicitous. I argue that people's investment in making meaningful the indexes of the state sustains the Commonwealth's political legitimacy.
Carmín Quijano (Fri,) studied this question.