John Fitisemanu distinctly remembers the first time he read the U.S. Supreme Court rulings that deemed him unworthy of U.S. citizenship merely because of where he was born — the territory of American Samoa.
“How (can someone) leave a statement stating that you’re a savage and you’re uneducated and you’re not qualified to be a U.S. citizen?” he says, standing outside the courthouse in Salt Lake City where he launched a battle to overturn those rulings and compel the government to extend birthright citizenship to all American Samoans.
It’s a battle he lost. Now the 59-year-old grandfather, who has lived in the U.S. for over four decades, still cannot vote. His nephew, Jake Fitisemanu, is running to be the first Samoan in the Utah House of Representatives, yet John can’t seek office, serve on a jury, or sponsor family members for immigration.
“You’ve got to work, pay your taxes, and be quiet,” he says.
Nearly 4 million people live in the five inhabited U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. But their ability to participate in American democracy has always been limited, a constraint scholars, civil rights advocates and others describe as unethical and unconstitutional.
Each territory elects one representative to the U.S. House, and while those representatives can serve on committees, they cannot vote on legislation — even bills they propose. Residents of territories also cannot vote in presidential general elections.
“The U.S. has millions of people living in the territories who are totally subject to federal power but have no meaningful way to shape the federal policy and policymaking apparatus that influences their day-to-day lives,” says Alejandro Ortiz, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s racial justice program.
For years now, the ACLU and others have urged the Supreme Court to reconsider the rulings — known as the Insular Cases — that determined the U.S. Constitution only partially applies to territories. The Department of Justice recently criticized the “racist rhetoric and reasoning” of these cases, yet they remain on the books.
While those born in other territories are automatically U.S. citizens, American Samoans are not — instead holding what the ACLU calls “an obscure and discriminatory status” as noncitizen nationals.
And so even those living in the United States, like Fitisemanu, do so without the rights granted to every other American at birth.
“There shouldn’t be such a thing as a second-class citizen,” Fitisemanu says. “We fly the flag on our own island, but yet we’re not fully fledged citizens of the U.S.”
Aumua Amata — American Samoa’s delegate to the U.S. House — and government officials on the islands oppose birthright citizenship because of potential impacts on the culture. But in an apparent compromise, Amata recently introduced a bill to streamline the naturalization process for people like Fitisemanu.
“Instead of applying blanket citizenship to the locals and undercutting their indigenous rights, my bill attempts to … make it possible for individual Samoans to accept full citizenship before relocating to a state and without being subjected to the same bureaucratic hoops as foreigners,” she said in a news release.
The bill has languished in committee since last October. Even if it were to reach the House floor, Amata would not be allowed to vote on the measure.
Unlike the other territories, American Samoa was never conquered or purchased by the United States. Instead, a group of matais, or chiefs, entered into Deeds of Cession with the federal government in 1900 and 1904, on the condition that the U.S. respect their Faʻa Sāmoa, or way of life.
Today, American Samoans remain divided over whether their classification as U.S. nationals is a special privilege that lets them preserve their land and culture or a punishment that deprives them of fundamental human rights.
So, when Fitisemanu pursued a court case that argued American Samoans have birthright citizenship and asked for the Insular Cases to be overturned, controversy ensued. His own siblings questioned his actions.
“They said, ‘Hey, nobody wants anything like that. They just want to be left alone.’”
Others in the Samoan community in Utah feel the same. Tusi Poleki never wanted to leave American Samoa, but his children wanted to experience life on the mainland. His wife, Taliilagi, chose the Salt Lake City area due to the large Samoan Christian community.
Poleki, church secretary at New Beginnings Samoan Assemblies of God, says he prefers to remain a U.S. national, even if it prevents him from voting.
“Here’s the problem: If I become a U.S. citizen, I don’t have rights to my land back home,” says Poleki, who plans to retire in American Samoa.
Fitisemanu has heard this concern from others, but he says land rights and citizenship are two separate issues. Experts agree. In the Yale Law Journal, Christina Ponsa-Kraus argues that citizenship would not threaten American Samoa’s land system, noting the Northern Mariana Islands have similar land rights that have survived court challenges.
Fitisemanu’s nephew, Jake, was born in New Zealand but was automatically an American citizen thanks to his Honolulu-born mother. He was in the courtroom during his uncle’s case to offer support, but he said he does not take a stance on citizenship because it’s up to the people of American Samoa to decide.
In his own way, Jake has spent decades fighting the effects of colonization on Samoans. As co-founder of the Utah Pacific Islanders Health Coalition, he’s worked to combat high rates of obesity and diabetes in his community.
“Our culture, our history, is one of progress and evolution and development,” he says, referencing Polynesians’ long history of navigating uncharted waters. “Stepping into spaces that may be new to us here, like politics … it’s just a continuation of that voyage.”
In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Fitisemanu’s case. His lawyer, Neil Weare, plans to continue fighting for a repeal of the Insular Cases. He is optimistic that the Justice Department’s condemnation of the rulings could lead to action.
“Why aren’t people marching in the streets?” says Weare, co-founder of Right to Democracy, a nonprofit devoted to dismantling the rulings and allowing territorial residents to participate in the democratic process.
“To be denied basic things like voting rights or citizenship or self-determination, these are core, not just U.S. democratic and constitutional principles, but human rights.”
While he may have lost in the courts, Fitisemanu does not see the experience as a failure. “I will stand my ground and continue to protest and see where it goes,” he says.
While Fitisemanu still believes he should already be an American citizen, he is now considering applying for naturalization.
“It would be nice to see my U.S. citizenship before I die.”
This report is part of “Fractured,” an examination of the state of American democracy produced by Carnegie-Knight News21. For more stories, visit fractured.news21.com.
