Tamara Shamir

Alien Nations: Should American Samoans Be Granted U.S. Citizenship?

2018 Lawrence Lader Prize in Expository Writing

On March 27th, 2018, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of American Samoans in Utah seeking U.S. citizenship under the 14th Amendment. The complaint argues that its plaintiffs—American Samoans living in Utah, paying U.S. taxes and following U.S. law—deserve citizenship under the 14th Amendment, which confers citizenship to those born on U.S. territory like the American Samoa and promises equality for all (Fitisemanu v. United States 2). American Samoa is the only U.S. territory without automatic claim to citizenship; its residents are considered “non-citizen nationals,” devoid of the right to vote, run for office, sponsor family members for immigration to the U.S., or serve on a jury (“American Samoans in Utah Suing”). According to their statements, the plaintiffs also face economic discrimination and damages to their dignity (Fitisemanu v. United States 4, 18). The complaint focuses on the plaintiffs’ integration into U.S. cultural and economic systems as evidence of their “worthiness” of U.S. citizenship (Fitisemanu v. United States 13-18). Legal and scholarly supporters of American Samoan U.S. citizenship concur, pointing to American Samoans’ U.S.-based educational system, their high rates of U.S. military enlistment, and the U.S.’s political control over the territory (“American Samoans Seek Full Citizenship”; Beeli). On the other hand, many experts and lawmakers remain unconvinced of American Samoans’ assimilation into U.S. culture, citing their separate political and cultural systems and claiming that U.S. citizenship would be incompatible with the American Samoan way of life (Teichert; "American Samoa and the Citizenship Clause”). The legal precedence of Fitisemanu reinforces this position: in 2015 a similar complaint was filed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which ruled that the 14th Amendment does not automatically extend to the American Samoa since the territory is politically and culturally distinct from the U.S. (Tuaua v. U.S.). The ruling established that U.S. citizenship should be reserved for those fully loyal to the U.S., rather than for those with complex or layered cultural alliances (Tuaua v. U.S.). 

However, there has been insufficient reflection on the harmful consequences of centering the American Samoan U.S. citizenship debate around conformity. Understanding the current case and its precedent in the context of the U.S.’s history of excluding certain groups from citizenship on the grounds of their different social, political, or cultural identity shows that the discourse around this case belongs to a larger history of assigning different rights and treatments to different groups, known as “tiered citizenship” or “tiered personhood” (Chambers 209). The concept of “tiered citizenship,” which was used to justify the marginalization of both Black Americans and Native Americans (Chambers), is reflected in the language used to argue against American Samoan citizenship today. Therefore, without a significant shift in the mindset surrounding citizenship, historical inertia will continue to push the U.S. to exclude minorities who threaten its cultural homogeneity. Overcoming this momentum is no easy task, but it is one that several politicians—and, in subtler ways, the lawyers and plaintiffs of the case currently under review—have already embarked on. Even though much of the plaintiffs’ claim is devoted to proving their assimilation into U.S. culture, their argument, by also devoting attention to cultural, social, and economic exchange and contribution (Fitisemanu v. United States 5-6, 14), begins to shift the premise of citizenship away from an all-or-nothing cultural allegiance to a symbiotic and inclusive relationship. The push for more nuance and agency in defining American Samoan U.S. citizenship is further supported by a new bill sponsored by Aumua Amata, the American Samoan Delegate for the U.S. House of Representatives, which allows American Samoans to choose whether or not to obtain U.S. citizenship as their individual circumstances dictate. Amata’s bill provides a much-needed challenge to the “one-size-fits-all” (or rather, the “one-size-fits-a-certain-group”) citizenship approach used in the American Samoan U.S. citizenship debate and throughout the history of excluding certain groups from U.S. citizenship. By emphasizing individual need and circumstance, Amata’s bill advocates for a new form of discourse which departs productively from the harmful focus on homogeneity used in the conversation about American Samoan citizenship. The paper begins by analyzing the parallels between the scholarly and legal language used to oppose American Samoan citizenship and the discourses surrounding the exclusion of Black Americans and Native Americans, then traces how this discriminatory language has continued to reappear in arguments both opposing and supporting American Samoan citizenship, including in the current lawsuit. It shows how some of the lawsuit’s claims—and those made by Amata and similar-minded scholars—disrupt this rhetoric, counteracting its harmful emphasis on “all-or-nothing” cultural and political alliance. 

The current lawsuit’s most relevant precedent—Columbia District’s rejection of the case for American Samoan citizenship in 2015, known as Tuaua v. the United States—suggests that citizenship should be reserved for the people for and by whom the nation was originally established, echoing the legal framework used to exclude Black Americans from citizenship. In this ruling, Judge Janice Rogers Brown claims that citizenship requires a citizen’s “complete,” “direct,” and “immediate” alliance. Citizens, she argues, cannot be “semi-independent,” or offer “obedience” to any separate cultural or political authority (Tuaua v. United States, IIB). Thus, she establishes a political and cultural basis for citizenship, implying that a dual or layered identity is antithetical to U.S. citizenship. Discussing the meaning of “fundamental” rights in the context of the American territories, Brown claims the rights of citizens are “idiosyncratic to the American social compact or to the Anglo-American tradition of jurisprudence” (Tuaua v. United States, IIIA).Her vision of citizenship hardly seems broader than the definition of a “citizen” used to deny Black Americans citizenship in Dred Scott v. Sandford: “members of the sovereign people for whom the Republic was founded and by whom the republic was run” (Chambers 211). This definition of citizenship is, of course, intrinsically racialized and gendered: the “founders” of the U.S. were white men. In this way, even though she dissolves the gender partitions of the Dred Scott definition of citizen, Brown blatantly upholds its racial boundaries. Just like the judge of Dred Scott, she argues that U.S. citizenship belongs to Anglo-Americans, to those who established the country and its legislation and would thus be able to understand, benefit from, and uphold it. By perpetuating different treatments and rights for different racial groups, Judge Brown reinforces what law professor Henry Chambers, in a review of Dred Scott, called “multiple tiers of citizenship” and “personhood” (209): the assumption that citizenship is innately “tiered” or uneven privileges certain racial classes and spurning others.

In its assertion that any social or political “difference” constitutes an unsuitability for the rights and duties of citizenship, Tuaua v. United Statesalso relies on the same conformity-based definition of citizenship once used to exclude Native Americans from U.S. citizenship. In her ruling of Tuaua, Brown is unafraid to align her own arguments directly with those historically used to exclude Native Americans, recycling phrases and ideas from Elk v. Wilkins, a case famously used to deny Native Americans’ U.S. citizenship (Tuaua v. United States,IIB). Brown quotes Elk v. Wilkins’ assertion that “Indian tribes, being within the territorial limits of the United States, were...alien nations, distinct political communities” and could not be vested with the “rights” and “responsibilities” of citizenship (Tuaua v. United States IIB), borrowing key phrases and ideas directly from Elk’s ruling (McGovney, 327). Indeed, Fitisemanu, Tuaua, and Elks all revolve around a similar theme: an individual being denied citizenship on the basis of his alleged belonging to another incompatible group or identity. Elk v. Wilkins concerned an individual who sued for citizenship under the 14th Amendment, and was rejected on the grounds of his “belonging” to a tribe he had since left in favor of settling with white citizens (McGovney 326). Furthering the parallel with Tuaua, Elk’s decision ultimately hinged on a particular interpretation of the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” which the court in Elkbelieved was intended to provide an explicit exclusion of “Indian” tribes (McGovney 327). 

Brown’s reproduction of Elk’s ruling raises a critical question: why is Elk’s rhetoric reappearing despite its elimination by the Indian Citizenship Act, which granted citizenship for all Native Americans born in the U.S.? The answer may lie in an examination of the underlying logic of the Act, which some argue represented the “logical…culmination of the assimilation policy” (“Native American Citizenship” 7) accelerated by Native American participation in the army. In other words, “white society declared that the Indians had successfully passed the assimilation test during wartime, and thus they deserved the rewards of citizenship” (“Native American Citizenship” 7). Therefore, even though the laws around Native American U.S. citizenship[1]changed, the logic behind them did not: Native Americans were granted citizenship because they had “proved” their assimilation, not because of any newfound interest in inclusion and diversity. Thus, the basic understanding of citizenship as conformity remained unchallenged. As the resurrection of Elk’s rhetorical skeleton through Tuaua proves, a true departure from the institutionalized exclusion of minorities would require a significant theoretical shift in the framing of who “deserves the rewards of citizenship,” a shift which failed to occur in the 131 years stretching between Elk and Tuaua.

The idea that cultural duality precludes citizenship is upheld by lawyers and scholars who self-identity as supporters and protectors of indigenous cultures and their interests. Lawyer Jeffrey B. Teichert, who worked on the High Court of American Samoa, argues that sudden Westernization has disrupted and harmed American Samoan culture, pointing to the problem of using systems made from and for Western ways of living and understandings existence. He claims that imposing what he calls an “Anglo-Saxon Constitution” on dissimilar cultures leads to disorder, to the chaotic clash of incompatible social and ethical systems (Teichert II). Ultimately, he argues that U.S. expansionism in the early 20th century was intended to protect indigenous cultures and their freedom, and that this project is being upheld now, eschewing any acknowledgement of the colonial agendas that drove the U.S. into the territories of the cultures they purportedly protected (Teichert IIIA). A Harvard Law review of the Insular Cases framework, recognizing the racist legacy of the vision of “citizenship” used in Tuaua v. United States, argues that this rhetoric has been “repurposed...to protect indigenous cultures” (“Insular Cases Revisionism” 3). Yet the suggestion that this language has been adapted for indigenous cultures seems to ignore the fact that it is being used to deny a request made by American Samoans themselves. Indeed, the underlying power structure allowing white North Americans to dictate and interpret the political positions of other cultures is distinctly colonial, suggesting that the historical role of the rhetoric of “cultural difference” has not changed in anything other than costume: instead of openly supporting colonialism, it now serves to conserve and conceal its residues. 

Even more concerning is the adoption of the vocabulary of assimilation and homogeneity by supporters of American Samoan citizenship. In his conservative support of U.S. citizenship for American Samoans, economist Michael Beeli reproduces the same narrow and discriminatory definition of citizenship used by those who oppose these rights. In an opinion piece, Beeli questions whether “something...can be done for American Samoans who are willing to sacrifice their cultural attachment,” concluding that “it’s only fair that we should allow them...to become naturalized citizens if they give up their cultural customs that are at odds with citizenship… America is the only country they’ve ever known.” Thus, Beeli paints a picture of citizenship as something which is “deserved” by the act of “giv[ing] up...cultural customs,” creating an all-or-nothing definition of citizenship which reflects Brown’s understanding of citizenship as antithetical to cultural plurality. Indeed, like Brown, Beeli suggests that conformity and homogeneity is the very basis of citizenship, claiming that U.S. citizens must only “know” the U.S. to be citizens, and cannot also “know” another country or culture. In this way, Beeli’s vision of citizenship leaves as little room for cultural plurality and nuance as Brown’s. 

In a similarly all-or-nothing understanding of citizenship, an article by The Independent View emphasizes American Samoans’ loyalty and patriotism in advocating for their citizenship, expressing surprise and admiration for American Samoan’s readiness “to die for a country that is not fully theirs and for a nation that doesn’t fully accept them as citizens” and quoting an American Samoan veteran who says he is “proud of the United States.” The article backs the case for American Samoan citizenship by citing their extreme loyalty to the U.S.—their willingness to give their very life to prove their loyalty. Thus, like Brown’s ruling, this article demands a complete alliance with the U.S. and its values as a prerequisite for citizenship. 

As the statements of the current lawsuit demonstrate, even American Samoans advocate for their own citizenship through the language of loyalty to and compliance with the U.S. and its culture, seeming to gloss over the colonial undercurrents of this “loyalty.” For example, their statement mentions the public education system in American Samoa, whose curriculum adheres to U.S. standards and is taught in English, without recognizing that schooling was a crucial part of the U.S. colonial project in the Insularterritories (Fitisemanu v. United States 14; Kirsch). Likewise, the complaint mentions the unusually high enlistment rate of American Samoans in the U.S. Army, with a casualty rate in Iraq and Afghanistan seven times the national average (Fitisemanu v. United States 15). Yet in the news report about American Samoan enlistment that the case cites, journalist Kirsten Scharnberg does not focus her explanation on loyalty. Instead, she argues that economic desperation drives young American Samoans to seek out economic opportunity for themselves through the army despite their awareness of the huge risk involved, even citing quotations from a young American Samoan whose sister has been killed in service and who still plans to enlist. American Samoa, unlike other U.S. territories, has barely received support from the U.S. for education and infrastructure, leaving the system created by U.S. colonialism to stagnate (Scharnberg). With no other way to break out of poverty, young American Samoans turn to the U.S. military, the only venue for economic opportunity, as a source of employment and a pension (Scharnberg). Measuring fitness for citizenship through the capacity to adopt a U.S. system, Fitisemanu’s complaint statement seems to ignore the colonialist underpinnings inherent in this standard. 

Although at first glance the plaintiffs appear to acquiesce to a one-dimensional model of U.S. citizenship, a closer look at their complaint reveals their effort to infuse the dialogue with nuance and flexibility through their emphasis on social and cultural contribution, collaboration, and symbiosis. Their statement mentions “cultural, economic,” and “political” exchanges, noting American Samoan politicians, artists, and athletes who have succeeded in and made contributions to the United States (Fitisemanu v. United States 14). Likewise, proving the “American-ness” of the plaintiffs themselves, the complaint lists their professional, economic, and social contributions: “they are healthcare professionals, commercial recycling and trash collectors, and retail employees. They pay their federal, state, and local taxes…they are vital and engaged members of their communities, churches, and neighborhood associations” (Fitisemanu v. United States 2). This definition of citizenship is not framed through negatives—e.g. “no other cultural tie”—but through a positive concept of engagingin the community, of contributinglabor and funds. This idea is reflected in the complaint’s description of one of the plaintiffs, the Southern Utah Pacific Islander Coalition, which works toward providing health and education to Pacific Islanders in Southern Utah (Fitisemanu v. United States 6). Among its work improving health and education accessibility, the Coalition also promotes cultural activities (Fitisemanu v. United States6). The description of the Coalition, in fact, suggests that cultural plurality can in itself lead to social contribution: the Coalition, according to the complaint, “enriches the lives of people in its community through public and cultural performances and other activities that contribute to Utah’s diversity” (Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief 18). The inclusion of “diversity” in the dialogue about citizenship moves the focus of the argument away from the language of exclusive knowledge of or allegiance to one culture and toward a reciprocal, dynamic understanding of the citizen-state relationship

The most effective rhetorical basis for American Samoan citizenship stems from a dialogue of contribution and exchange, allowing for solutions which leave space for cultural plurality and complexity. An article in The New York Daily News, for example, proposes a simple argument: if American Samoans were born in U.S. territory and pay U.S. taxes, they should be able to vote, run for office, and serve on a jury; they should not face employment discrimination or struggle to sponsor family members for immigration for the U.S. or struggle through the “lengthy, costly, and burdensome” process of pursuing naturalized citizenship (“American Samoans in Utah Suing”). The news report pulls the argument away from an all-or-nothing cultural identity and toward an understanding of the various pieces and necessities of each individual life—employment, family, etc. It shifts the central question of the debate away from which cultural groups deserve citizenship toward which personsneed it and why. This news report is not alone in trying to create dialogue sensitive to the complex individuals and their diverse needs in a political or cultural group: David North, who worked at the Department of Interior's Office of Insular Affairs, makes a conservative yet persuasive argument for American Samoan citizenship. North argues that a politically powerful minority—the tribal chiefs of American Samoa—are opposing American Samoan U.S. Citizenship in order to preserve their own power. Therefore, as North implies, it is irresponsible to try and label the needs or interests of the culture of American Samoa as a single unit. By calling for an understanding of the different and opposing facets of society, North demands a greater recognition of the concurrent and sometimes clashing needs within a culture.      

In keeping with this emphasis on cultural nuance, Aumua Amata, the American Samoan Delegate for the U.S. House of Representatives, has created the most sensitive and compelling solution to the problematic rhetoric of all-or-nothing political and cultural conformity. In an opinion piece published by The Hill,Amata emphasizes the varying circumstances that cause different individuals to have different needs. For example, she points out that the plaintiffs of the current lawsuit are residents of Utah, not American Samoa, and that their circumstances should not be conflated with those of American Samoans residing in their birthplace. She roundly rejects any sort of blanket solution—whether it be citizenship or lack thereof—proposing instead the creation of a streamlined, cost-effective process for U.S. nationals seeking citizenship. Amata has introduced a bill to the House “to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to waive certain requirements for naturalization for American Samoan United States nationals to become United States citizens, and for other purposes” (United States Cong.). This bill would alleviate the financial and bureaucratic barriers to citizenship—most notably, residents in American Samoa would not have to move off the island to become citizens (United States Cong.). They would not be forced to take the citizenship test and would be eligible for a hardship waiver of the application fee (United States Cong.). Amata has intelligently re-centered the debate around what individual people need and deserve, taking a firm step away from the dangerous rhetoric of cultural conformity and divergence. 

The debate on American Samoan citizenship comes at a time when scholars and politicians alike wonder if the U.S. is intrinsically an exclusionary state, one in which visions like Amata’s simply cannot take root. In her discussions of the intersections between citizenship and racism, Harvard Professor Lorgia Garcia Peña suggests that “the business of nations is the business of exclusion,” arguing that a nation and its citizens are not only defined by exclusion, but profit from it in an immediate, material way: “people who stay out are economic assets,” she explains. Her words pierce to the core of issues of citizenship like the current American Samoan lawsuit, unveiling the fundamental questions the case exposes: do countries necessarily have a racialized identity or self-narration? Is the colonial legacy of a nation an intractable part of their infrastructure? Will citizenship always be fundamentally defined through the boundaries drawn by Dred Scott:“members of the sovereign people for whom the Republic was founded and by whom the republic was run”? (Chambers 211). In his famous exploration of boundaries and nations, political scientist Benedict Anderson defines nations not through what (or whom) they exclude, but what keeps them together: a nation is “an imagined political community−and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign” built upon “a deep, horizontal comradeship” (Anderson 6-7). Anderson acknowledges that national boundaries are exclusive (“inherently bounded”) by their nature, yet he also emphasizes their fictiveness, implying their capacity to be reimagined and re-created. The invented boundaries of nation, he argues, extend as far as the “comradeship” of its citizens, which is “horizontal,” meaning equal or, to borrow from Chambers, un-tiered. Anderson’s emphasis on comradeship evokes a positive and significant relationship with a nation without necessitating complete conformity to certain political or cultural identities. By focusing on the ideas and sentiments that keep people together, Anderson shifts the focus away from the identities that drive them apart, allowing room for diversity and plurality even within a coherent and “bounded” system. Anderson’s understanding of an “imagined community” seems harmonious with Amata’s (and others’) emphasis on giving space for individual will and agency to determine citizenship. In fact, ideas from Anderson’s and Chambers’ work are echoed in Amata’s modest yet powerful proposal that those whose ambitions and circumstances lead them to a comradeship with the U.S. should be included horizontally as citizens—rather than in tiers: the imagined boundaries of a nation, she implies, should not be built on an uneven ground. Amata’s vision thus asks us to critically reimagine our “imagined community,” letting our principles, rather than the harmful inertia created by our history, define citizenship and its bounds. Yet as long as we recycle harmful and discriminatory rhetoric and delineations by continuing to center the citizenship debate around assimilation and conformity, Amata’s call for respect toward individual will and circumstance will remain out of reach. 

Works Cited

Anderson, Benedict R. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Verso, 2016.

Amata, Aumua. “Preserve Choice but Simplify Citizenship for U.S.Nationals.” The Hill, 13 Apr. 2018.

“American Samoans in Utah Suing U.S. to Gain Citizenship.” NY Daily News, 27 Mar. 2018. 

“American Samoans Seek Full Citizenship in Supreme Court Appeal.” The Independent View, 13 June 2016.

Beeli, Michael. "Lawsuit Raises Questions regarding American Samoan Citizenship." The Highlander [UC Riverside],17 Apr, 2018. 

Chambers, Henry. “Dred Scott: Tiered Citizenship and Tiered Personhood. “Symposium: 150th Anniversary of the Dred Scott Decisions.” pp. 209-232. Chicago-Kent Law Review

Fitisemanu v. United States. Court District of Utah Central Division, 2018. 

Kirsch, Scott. "Insular Territories: U.S. Colonial Science, Geopolitics, and the (re)mapping of the Philippines." The Geographical Journal, 2014.

“Native American Citizenship: 1924 Indian Citizenship Act.” National Parks Service Research Center, date unknown.

North, David. “American Samoa's Government: Don't Let Our People Be U.S.Citizens.” Center for Immigration Studies,16 Feb. 2015.

Scharnberg, Kirsten. “Where the U.S.Military Is the Family Business: Young Samoans Have Few Choices but to Serve despite Risks in Iraq.” Chicago Tribune(Chicago, IL), 11 Mar. 2007. 

Teichert, Jeffrey. “Resisting Temptation in the Garden of Paradise: Preserving the Role of Samoan Culture in the Law of American Samoan.” Gonzaga Journal of International Law, 1999-2000. 

United States. Cong. Senate. H.R.5026  To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to waive certain requirements for naturalization for American Samoan United States nationals to become United States citizens, and for other purposes.115th Cong. Congress.Gov. Washington: GPO, 2018. 

Tuana v. United States. United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit, 2015. Westlaw.

"American Samoa and the Citizenship Clause: A Study in Insular Cases Revisionism."Harvard Law Review, 2017.

[1]Which I want to recognize is in and of itself a problematic phrase.