Michael F. Williams, an attorney representing the government, said it was perhaps surprising that the government of American Samoans, as well as the majority of their citizens, objected to their residents having public rights. people by place of birth, especially by judicial decree.
In 1900, the chiefs of American Samoa agreed to become part of the United States by signing a deed, which included protections for fa’a Samoaa phrase meaning “the Samoan way” referring to the traditional culture of the archipelago.
“American Samoans are concerned that the wholesale incorporation of citizenship into American Samoan territory could have a detrimental impact on traditional Samoan culture,” Williams said. He added: “American Samoans believe that if they need to make this fundamental change, they must do it themselves, not let some judge in Salt Lake City, or in Denver, Colorado or Washington, DC, do it.”
However, the reasons why American Samoans did not have citizenship by birth were not originally related to any attempt to preserve Samoan culture. Instead, a series of lawsuits in the early 20th century, known as the “Islands Case,” established that U.S. territories were once part of and outside of the United States. The Supreme Court ruled in 1901 that the reason was that these territories “foreign in the domestic sense“”inhabited by alien races“and thus govern them”following Anglo-Saxon principles for a time might not have been possible.”
Those calling for a change in the law include Charles Ala’ilima, an attorney in American Samoa.
“There is only one class of citizens in the United States – except in American Samoa,” he said. “What we have now is basically imposing second-class status on people who are under government sovereignty. That is the definition of colonialism.”
Some legal scholars argue that American Samoa does not fully abide by the U.S. Constitution, which allows it to maintain certain features of life, including sa, a prayer curfew was in place in some villages and traditional land tenure. They argue that imposing citizenship by place of birth puts those traditions at legal risk.
But in the 1970s, a court in Washington, DC, found that residents of American Samoa have the right to a jury trial “as guaranteed by our Constitution” — even after a court in American Samoa said that introducing jury trials would be “an arbitrary, illegitimate foreign imposition logical and inappropriate.”
