Apr 19, 2019
Transcript
MOLLY WEBSTER: Hey, Radiolab. It is Molly Webster. Before we start the show, I want to say two things: one of which, thank you. A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to donate to support the show and you did, and we are so, so grateful. Which brings me to the second thing: we still need more of you. This is a stat that I was handed today: most people listen to Radiolab for about two and a half years before they become a member.
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[RADIOLAB INTRO]
JAD ABUMRAD: I'm Jad Abumrad.
ROBERT KRULWICH: I'm Robert Krulwich.
JAD: This is Radiolab. And this is reporter Julia Longoria.
JULIA LONGORIA: Okay, great.
JAD: She's gonna start things off.
JULIA: Let's do it.
JAD: So where do we start? You took a trip.
JULIA: So I took two trips. The first trip inspired another trip.
WOMAN: Hi.
JULIA: Hello.
WOMAN: Hello.
JULIA: But let's start in Denver, Colorado.
JULIA: You have such a beautiful home.
WOMAN: Oh, thank you.
JULIA: Where I wanted to speak to this young man.
WOMAN: Come here, Giancarlo. Giancarlo?
JULIA: Very young man.
WOMAN: My youngest.
JULIA: What's your name?
GIANCARLO MARY: Giancarlo Mary.
JULIA: He's nine years old.
JULIA: What are you doing today?
GIANCARLO MARY: Well, I'm kind of eating lunch, so currently I thought I'd just give my grandmother a hug. So, yeah, so, currently that's ...
JULIA: And I wanted to talk to him because there's this particular chapter in his family history that presented this thorny question to the United States of America.
JULIA: Do you feel like you're, like, a descendant of immigrants?
GIANCARLO MARY: Yeah. Like, sort of. Like, not all the way, like, pure immigrant. But, like, partial immigrant, because people from Puerto Rico back then, like, 1998, I think, maybe ...
JULIA: It was actually 1898.
GIANCARLO MARY: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
JULIA: Close enough, yeah.
JULIA: And what happened in 1898 was that the United States had gotten sort of grabby. We grabbed the Philippines, we grabbed Guam and we grabbed Puerto Rico, which is where Giancarlo's family was from. And just a few years after Puerto Rico became part of the US ...
GIANCARLO MARY: My great grandmother—it's either great great or great grandmother, I don't remember which one.
JULIA: It was his great great grandmother. And her name was Isabelle Gonzalez.
GIANCARLO MARY: Isa—Isabelle Gonzalez, she was on a boat. She was on, like—like, there used to be, like, boats from—going from here.
JULIA: She was traveling alone and pregnant from Puerto Rico to New York City. And when the boat arrived in Ellis Island ...
GIANCARLO MARY: These white men would go out and, like, select, like, people. Like, "You can't go, you're not allowed. You can't go. Where's your spouse? Not allowed."
CHRISTINA PONSA-KRAUS: She was stopped at Ellis Island because all women arriving at Ellis Island who were pregnant were stopped and examined, and some of them were turned away.
JULIA: A little historical assist here from Christina Ponsa-Kraus.
CHRISTINA PONSA-KRAUS: I'm a professor of law at Columbia.
JULIA: She says when those guys tried to pull Isabelle aside ...
CHRISTINA PONSA-KRAUS: She said, "You can't even stop me, much less question me or get in my way at all. I am coming from Puerto Rico, which is part of the United States. I'm an American citizen, and citizens cannot be stopped at the border."
JULIA: Christina says around this time, a lot of people, a lot of goods, like fruit ...
CHRISTINA PONSA-KRAUS: There was a shipment of oranges.
JULIA: ... among other things, started arriving in the US from the newly acquired territories. And all of these new arrivals posed a sort of existential question to the US.
CHRISTINA PONSA-KRAUS: Are these new colonies part of us, or are they something else?
JULIA: So a bunch of these cases like Isabelle Gonzalez's case ended up in the Supreme Court. And they eventually become known collectively as the Insular Cases.
JAD: The Insular Cases. What does "insular" mean in this context?
JULIA: Insular actually means "relating to an island." It also means parochial or close-minded.
CHRISTINA PONSA-KRAUS: At the time when the United States annexed Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam, it still had territories. It had Oklahoma, it had Arizona, that had not yet become states. So territories were not new. However, these territories seemed very different to the American public. They had different cultures, different races. They didn't seem American enough.
JULIA: So the judges are dealing with the fact that these new islands are now part of the US, but they also have this public opinion in their heads, and they don't want to let these people all the way in. So in the case of Isabelle Gonzalez, they ended up saying ...
CHRISTINA PONSA-KRAUS: "We're not gonna answer the question of whether Puerto Ricans are actually US citizens. We're just gonna say they're not immigrants." And so ...
JULIA: And if that's not confusing enough, they went on to say that Puerto Rico ...
CHRISTINA PONSA-KRAUS: "Puerto Rico is foreign to the United States in a domestic sense."
JULIA: [laughs]
CHRISTINA PONSA-KRAUS: That sounds like nonsense. The dissenters in the case said it sounded like nonsense.
JULIA: [laughs]
CHRISTINA PONSA-KRAUS: Nobody understood exactly what that meant.
JULIA: It's, like, almost textbook doublethink, right? Like, it's like foreign but domestic, domestic but foreign.
CHRISTINA PONSA-KRAUS: Absolutely.
JULIA: It's kind of wild.
CHRISTINA PONSA-KRAUS: Textbook having it both ways.
JULIA: Yeah.
CHRISTINA PONSA-KRAUS: And therefore having it neither way.
JULIA: And do you feel like you're Puerto Rican?
GIANCARLO MARY: Um, sort of, I guess.
JULIA: Do you feel American?
GIANCARLO MARY: Um, partially.
JULIA: Yeah? Just partially? Why?
GIANCARLO MARY: Because I'm also a little bit Irish, I think. Is it Irish?
WOMAN: Well, yeah. On dad's side, you know, you're ...
WOMAN: They're French.
WOMAN: Your dad's from France, right?
GIANCARLO MARY: I'm a little bit of French.
ROBERT: Just back up.
JAD: Go ahead.
ROBERT: And say, so today on Radiolab, we're continuing our thought that we had in the last episode we did about citizenship.
JAD: Yeah, about what it means to belong to a place or a country. In the last episode we spent some time in Switzerland thinking about cowbells.
ROBERT: But this time we've got a story that—that hits a little bit closer to home.
JULIA: Yeah. And this next part is really what blew me away and actually inspired my second trip. Because shortly after the Insular Cases, Congress stepped in and they passed a law to make it so that anybody born in Puerto Rico is an automatic US citizen. Congress did the same thing for the other major territories. I mean, they can't vote for president, they don't have a vote in Congress, but at least the people born in those territories are automatically US citizens, except for one place: a cluster of tiny little islands in that great blue expanse of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and New Zealand called American Samoa. This is the only place in the world that is US soil, and people who are born here are not citizens. So ...
JAD: Is that true?
JULIA: Yes.
JAD: So it's the only—oh, that's interesting. So it's the only place where the whole, like, "My baby is born in the US, therefore—" that doesn't happen?
JULIA: Correct. They become ...
JAD: So what are they then if they're not citizens?
JULIA: In their passport—they have a US passport, but on the last page it says, "This person is not a US citizen. They're a US national." A child born in American Samoa will not become an automatic citizen. They have to go take the test. They have to pay close to $800, and you can't even—like, there's no immigration office in American Samoa. So you have to go to some other part of the States, stay there for a few months and apply in order to qualify.
JAD: Wow.
JULIA: So, it's—it's ...
JAD: That's weird.
JULIA: Yeah. And it's not just weird. I mean, it—when I first looked into it, it seemed like this holdover from this really racist time in our history. But then I started making calls to American Samoans living in American Samoa, and I realized there might be a more complicated reason why American Samoans still are not US citizens after all these years.
FLIGHT ATTENDANT: Ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to welcome you to American Samoa.
JULIA: So I decided to get on a plane.
FLIGHT ATTENDANT: The time is 9:50.
JULIA: After a 25-hour trip, I landed in the middle of the night.
SECURITY: Longoria? Yeah, hi. What's the purpose of your trip?
JULIA: I'm here ...
JULIA: Went through border security.
SECURITY: Longoria, is it?
JULIA: Yep.
SECURITY: Julia?
JULIA: Yes.
JULIA: I walked out of the—of the airport, which is really small.
JULIA: Hi!
ANNIE: I'm Annie.
JULIA: Very nice to meet you.
ANNIE: Yes, pleasure to meet you too, sweetie.
JULIA: And people I had emailed showed up to the airport to greet me.
JAD: Oh, wow.
JULIA: With leis, with, like, flowers and ...
JULIA: No. it's just me, yeah. [laughs]
ANNIE: Oh, okay. Where are you staying?
JULIA: And I—at first, I thought it was just, like, the hotel picking me up, but it was, like, this woman who I hadn't even talked to on the phone, but she knew I was coming from far away. And then more and more people who I had talked to showed up.
DAVID HERDRICK: Hi, Julia.
JULIA: Hi.
DAVID HERDRICK: I'm David.
JULIA: Wait, David Herdrick?
DAVID HERDRICK: Herdrick, yes.
JULIA: So instantly, it felt so welcoming. Anyway, I got to my hotel that night, and then the next morning I stepped out of my hotel.
JULIA: Ocean view.
JULIA: And it was just incredibly gorgeous.
JAD: I saw the pictures of that trip. What the [bleep]? No one told me it was gonna be that beautiful.
JULIA: It was amazing.
JULIA: Huge, lush mountain.
JULIA: Bright green mountains.
JULIA: So many palm trees.
JULIA: Pastel-colored houses tucked into the side of these cliffs.
JULIA: American flag flying high.
JULIA: Just stunning.
JAD: How big—how big is American Samoa, by the way?
JULIA: Well, it's a cluster of islands, but the main island, Tutuila, is about 50 square miles with about 50,000 people.
JULIA: There's a two-lane road that seems to be, like, the main route.
JULIA: There's just one main road that you drive. So if you—if the ocean's on your right, you're probably going east. If the ocean's on your left, you're probably going west. And just—I spent 12 days there and it was just kind of, like, riding back and forth and back and forth with different people.
JAD: Hmm.
JULIA: With—who had different ideas of what the island was about, which was really interesting.
JAD: Huh.
JULIA: Seeing the same places through different eyes.
JAD: Interesting, interesting.
JULIA: So ...
JULIA: There it is: District Court.
JULIA: ... the first stop I made was to meet with a guy named ...
JULIA: Charlie, hi!
CHARLES ALAILIMA: Hi, you're Julia?
JULIA: Yes.
CHARLES ALAILIMA: How are you?
JULIA: Charles Alailima.
CHARLES ALAILIMA: [laughs]
JULIA: Really smiley, silver hair, thin-rimmed glasses, wearing a floral shirt and flip-flops. Almost everybody at the courthouse was wearing flip flops.
CHARLES ALAILIMA: Julia, this is the chief.
JULIA: Very nice to meet you.
JULIA: And when I caught up with him, he was actually meeting with a couple of Samoan men who were in the middle of a land dispute.
CHARLES ALAILIMA: Which is basically the rights of the chiefs to control this top of this mountain. [laughs]
JULIA: Is that—are these your clients, then?
CHARLES ALAILIMA: And these are my clients.
JULIA: Okay, got it.
JULIA: But the reason I wanted to talk to Charles is that he has a case right now pending before the federal courts that's basically Isabelle Gonzalez in 2019. He's arguing that denying American Samoans birthright citizenship is unconstitutional.
CHARLES ALAILIMA: So I believe that when you're born in American Samoa, you're American. An unusual American, but you are still one.
JULIA: Now in Charles' case, he's what some Samoans call afakasi.
CHARLES ALAILIMA: My mother was born in Auburn, New York.
JULIA: His mom is white and his dad is from Western Samoa, which is not part of the US. His parents actually met in the States. His dad was in grad school in DC.
CHARLES ALAILIMA: And my father and mother could not get married in Virginia, because of the anti-miscegenation laws.
JULIA: This was back in 190-racism.
CHARLES ALAILIMA: My mother kept trying to insist that Samoans are not Black, they are something different. And she says, "No, he looks too dark." [laughs]
JULIA: But they were actually able to get married in Washington, DC, and they moved to American Samoa, where Charlie was born. And you'd think that Charlie would be an automatic US citizen.
CHARLES ALAILIMA: And this is a US—I was born in a US territory, but she had to—because they had to register at the closest embassy. [laughs]
JULIA: But his mom, a US citizen, actually had to register him in a foreign country.
CHARLES ALAILIMA: And the closest embassy was Auckland.
JULIA: All the way in New Zealand.
CHARLES ALAILIMA: You know, it doesn't make any sense. And it's—and it's against the principles of the United States.
JULIA: So Charlie says the fact that American Samoans are not automatic citizens by birth ...
CHARLES ALAILIMA: It's hiding a lot of injustices that are going on, injustices that could be remedied if you didn't say, "Oh, we'll we're—you're a national," right?
JULIA: Mm-hmm.
CHARLES ALAILIMA: "You can be treated differently."
JULIA: Mm-hmm.
CHARLES ALAILIMA: Oh, gee. You should be in hiking boots ...
JULIA: [laughs] Should I be?
CHARLES ALAILIMA: Okay, well ...
JULIA: So I drove around with Charlie for a while, and ...
CHARLES ALAILIMA: This is where the tsunami really took its toll, in this whole area.
JULIA: And everywhere I saw signs of threats of natural disaster: tsunamis, typhoons, earthquakes.
CHARLES ALAILIMA: So this is the—this was the main center of the government in the beginning.
JULIA: He showed me the town center, which is really just a cluster of pastel-colored buildings.
CHARLES ALAILIMA: So these are—these are all the old Navy buildings that—remnants of the old Navy buildings.
JULIA: And the original US naval base, which is really where this whole thing got started. So the US Navy showed up in American Samoa in the late 1800s.
CHARLES ALAILIMA: At a time when Samoa was extremely fractured.
JULIA: Germany and the UK were hanging out there, too. And there were fights among chiefs across the islands about who owned what turf. And the US Navy offered the islands of American Samoa protection in exchange for ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Beautiful Pago Pago Bay.]
JULIA: ... the use of their harbor.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: The safest, the best, altogether the most superb harbor in the South Seas, possibly in all the Pacific.]
JULIA: According to Charlie, at least some of the chiefs wanted that protection.
CHARLES ALAILIMA: American Samoans, they said, "That's great!"
JULIA: Thought it was a good deal.
CHARLES ALAILIMA: One of their high chiefs, his name was Mauga, was basically telling everybody, "No. Let's—let's have the Americans come in."
JULIA: And in 1900, they made it official. Some Samoan chiefs signed what they called a deed of cession to hand over sovereignty to the United States. And according to Charlie ...
CHARLES ALAILIMA: At the time that they did this they thought they had become US citizens.
JULIA: Of course, thanks to the rulings in the Insular Cases, they actually hadn't. And then ...
CHARLES ALAILIMA: In 1929 ...
JULIA: ... Congress took up the question of whether American Samoans should be US citizens, and they just said, "No."
CHARLES ALAILIMA: And really some vile, racist statements being made back then in 1929 against it. "We don't want any of these—these savage races who would never be able to understand our system."
JULIA: Fast-forward 100 years, and Charles is basically trying to overturn Isabelle Gonzalez's case. His first attempt to do that ...
LENE TUAUA: Julia?
JULIA: Hi, I'm here at the hostel.
JULIA: ... was to represent this guy named Lene Tuaua. I actually got in a rental car and went to visit him while I was on the island.
LENE TUAUA: Then continue on towards the mountains.
JULIA: Okay.
LENE TUAUA: Don't make any turns.
JULIA: A side note: there are no addresses in American Samoa.
JULIA: All right, great. Thank you so much. I'm sorry. I got lost.
LENE TUAUA: Okay.
JULIA: Which makes it virtually impossible to find anyone. But I found him.
JULIA: One-story modest house. Green trimmings, white bricks. Hello!
LENE TUAUA: Hi, Julia.
JULIA: How are you doing?
LENE TUAUA: All right.
JULIA: Lene's got white hair, purple floral shirt on, taking a drag from a cigarette.
JULIA: What's your name?
LENE TUAUA: Leneuoti Tuaua. I'm a retiree, taking care of family matters here at home. I am not working anymore.
JULIA: Lene was actually a police officer in American Samoa. He moved to California and lived there for awhile and he wanted to be a police officer there too, but ...
LENE TUAUA: As soon as they—they came across my status, they said, "Well, I'm sorry. You know, you're not a US citizen, so therefore you cannot become a California Highway Patrolman."
JULIA: They told him he would have to become a citizen first, which involved paying hundreds of dollars and taking a test.
LENE TUAUA: I simply responded, "Hell, no. I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna spend a penny. I'm an American. Period."
CHARLES ALAILIMA: And that's why birthright citizenship is so important. It solidifies that if you are born on US soil, you are equal to everybody else.
JULIA: So in 2012, with the help of Charlie and a lawyer from Guam named Neil Weare, Lene sued the US government, saying they violated the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment.
LENE TUAUA: That's how I ended up in Washington, DC, right on the footsteps of the US Supreme Court.
JULIA: Lene says he just wanted the court to give some kind of explanation for why American Samoans had been treated this way.
LENE TUAUA: Why—I mean, why give us the runaround?
JULIA: But when it got to the Supreme Court, they declined to hear the case. And he was ...
JAD: When was that that it got to the Supreme Court?
JULIA: 2016. They just refused to make a decision on it.
LENE TUAUA: Why are they so afraid to come out? There's nine of them.
JULIA: Today, Charlie and Neil have another case going with some American Samoans in Utah.
LENE TUAUA: And hopefully this second time around, the Supreme Court will—will grant our position. Or at least consider ...
JULIA: And so at this point in my trip, I was curious how other American Samoans—even ones who aren't in the States trying to get a job—how they felt about this case and about citizenship. I assumed that they would be behind it, because who wants to live in this, like, foreign but domestic but foreign limbo space? But ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Tapaau Aga: The following is a public service announcement from the American Samoa Humanities Council, and the Office of Political ...]
JULIA: ... then I talked to this guy.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Tapaau Aga: Have you ever read the Constitution of American Samoa?]
JULIA: His name is Tapaau Aga. Goes by Dan. He's on the radio reading from the American Samoan Constitution all the time, which is kind of weird.
JAD: He's on the radio reading from the Constitution?
JULIA: Yeah, from the American Samoan Constitution.
JAD: Wow!
JULIA: Yeah. [laughs]
JAD: That's kind of cool, weirdly.
JULIA: Yeah.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Tapaau Aga: The Constitution tells us about the branches of government, how are laws made. To help answer these questions ...]
JULIA: And actually, when he heard I was looking into the citizenship question, he got a hold of me.
JULIA: Okay, hold on one second. Okay, go ahead.
TAPAAU AGA: So you'll be coming west on the main road.
JULIA: So I hopped in my car.
JULIA: So I just—I made a—I made a left because—on a Hail Mary. But I think I made the wrong left, so ...
JULIA: Got a little bit lost again.
TAPAAU AGA: So you can see it's the land where there's a little familiarity where they don't need street signs. You just gotta know where your coconut trees are and you'll be all right.
JULIA: But eventually I did find his house.
JULIA: Where should I park? Is here good? Oh, you want to come in?
TAPAAU AGA: Yeah. Are we going?
JULIA: Yeah. Yeah, let's go.
TAPAAU AGA: Okay.
JULIA: And as soon as I arrived, he jumped in my rental car because he wanted to show me what they call Fa'a Samoa.
TAPAAU AGA: I'd suggest just going around. Make it easy.
JULIA: Okay, go around?
JULIA: So we drove down to the center of the Village of Leone.
TAPAAU AGA: It's one of the larger villages.
JULIA: It's about 2,000 people, and it's on the southwest coast of the island.
TAPAAU AGA: Let me talk to them before ...
JULIA: Okay.
TAPAAU AGA: ... before you come out.
JULIA: Okay, great. Yeah.
JULIA: To meet the high chiefs of the village, or matais, as they're known.
JULIA: I'll come out? There we go. Hello!
TAPAAU AGA: This is Chief Rapati Opa.
JULIA: Hi. Very nice to meet you. Can I get out? Is that ...
TAPAAU AGA: Yeah, if you want. Yeah.
JULIA: Great.
JULIA: Chief Rapati Opa.
JULIA: It's nice to meet you.
RAPATI OPA: Hi. Welcome.
JULIA: Thank you.
RAPATI OPA: My name is Rapati Opa.
JULIA: White hair, broad shoulders, kind smile.
RAPATI OPA: So now I am the mayor of the village.
JULIA: And high talking Chief Mayaba. He's got a buzz cut and a white V-neck.
RAPATI OPA: So what brings you out here to our ugly village?
JULIA: [laughs]
JULIA: And I asked the chiefs, like, "Would you want to be citizens, straight up?"
JULIA: Would you—would you want to be—are you a US citizen?
RAPATI OPA: No.
JULIA: Do you want to be?
RAPATI OPA: I want to be a US citizen myself.
JULIA: Yeah.
RAPATI OPA: I want it.
JULIA: And Chief Rapati Opa was like ...
RAPATI OPA: My answer is ...
JULIA: ... "Yeah."
RAPATI OPA: ... yes.
JULIA: Duh.
JULIA: Why?
RAPATI OPA: Because this is the part of America. So I want to be a real American. [laughs]
JULIA: Like, "My kids all live in the States. I served in the US military."
JULIA: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
RAPATI OPA: Okay. So now you're gonna ask him ...
JULIA: Then Dan kind of like steps in and starts talking to him in Samoan for a minute.
TAPAAU AGA: [speaking Samoan]
JULIA: And I was like, "What's going on?" And then ...
RAPATI OPA: Okay, now I understand. And I don't want to answer that question until I prepare myself to explain to you before you go. [laughs] I want a ...
JULIA: You want a minute to think about it, and then ...
RAPATI OPA: Yeah.
JULIA: Yeah, okay.
JULIA: And I wasn't really sure what to think about that, but then this bell started to ring. And Chief Mayaba explained that they have a curfew in the village of Leone on Sundays at 6:00 p.m. For 15 minutes, everyone has to stop what they're doing and pray or meditate.
JAD: Wait. That's the law? This is ...
JULIA: Yeah. I mean, it's—it's not quite law, but it is the rule in this village and some others, and it is enforced.
JAD: Huh.
JULIA: And I was talking to the chief when 6:00 p.m. rolled around and the bell rang, and I was like, "Oh, what happens now?" And he's like, "Well, I just drive around and make sure that everybody's following the curfew."
RAPATI OPA: Do you want to go take a ride, or do you want to go by yourself?
JULIA: Yeah, let's go take a ride. Yeah.
RAPATI OPA: Okay.
JULIA: And then he asked me if I wanted to come along with him, and I was like, "Yeah." And he was like, "Okay, great."
RAPATI OPA: Where's your car?
JULIA: "We'll take your car." So we literally got into my car, and I'm holding the microphone for the chief as we're doing the ride along.
JULIA: All right, so you tell me where to go.
RAPATI OPA: Okay. We can go—start from that side.
JULIA: And we just went up and down the main street. It took, like, a little over 15 minutes. It's a very small village.
JULIA: Oops, sorry. I didn't realize that was there.
JULIA: And along the street there are young men, they're called the aumaga, the young men's club.
JULIA: So they—these guys just line the streets here?
RAPATI OPA: Yeah, they just line the street.
JULIA: Lined up and wearing white shirts and red lava lavas, which are, like, skirts.
JAD: Okay. And they just—what do they do? They just yell at people?
JULIA: They just stand there kind of watching.
RAPATI OPA: [speaking Samoan]
JULIA: And so there were some people who got caught.
RAPATI OPA: These guys' stuck here.
JULIA: Oh, they're stuck?
RAPATI OPA: Yeah.
JULIA: Oh, they just have to stop.
JULIA: So they're just sitting there on the side of the road for 15 minutes until it's over.
JAD: Do they have to pray?
JULIA: They don't force them to pray, but they're just supposed to have quiet time, just sit for a minute. For 15 minutes.
JAD: What happens if you don't do that?
RAPATI OPA: If anybody cross this board and everything, in the old days, they would have some penalties.
JULIA: Chief Mayaba told me that back in the old days, like the 1800s, you would just immediately get kicked out of the village.
CHIEF MAYABA: Yeah, we don't want to see them no more.
JULIA: Which meant you had no food, no protection.
CHIEF MAYABA: It's almost like a—like a death penalty those days. You know, but, you know, nowadays, we don't do that. We would do the light ones.
JULIA: And when I was talking to Chief Rapati Opa, he told me that these days, a pretty common punishment would be, like, making the person feed the whole village.
RAPATI OPA: Feed the village. So that means we cook a lot of food. 50 case chicken, 50 case turkey tail, 50 case of wahoo.
JULIA: But Chief Mayaba told me, you know, if you keep breaking the curfew over and over again, you can still get kicked out of the village, which he's seen happen a few times in his life.
JAD: So—so—okay. That's interesting.
JULIA: So—so one of the arguments that is made is, like, this would not pass muster under the US Constitution.
JAD: Yeah, it definitely wouldn't.
JULIA: Yeah. But the thing is, like, these guys aren't really the government. If you look at it one way, it's kind of like a gated community or a country club. You opt into living there, and you opt into, you know, living under these rules. But the fear is that if everyone born on the island were automatically granted citizenship, then a bunch of other US laws might start getting applied here, too. And they wouldn't be able to do things like these curfews.
TAPAAU AGA: The reason why it's such an existential threat to American Samoans to become US citizens ...
JULIA: This is Dan again.
TAPAAU AGA: ... by birth is because the 14th Amendment also guarantees equal protection under laws.
JULIA: He thinks if all American Samoans become birthright citizens, it's not long before everyone born on this island is given that equality under the law.
TAPAAU AGA: But that word "equality," historically and even now, it—that's such a difficult, complicated word to get around because US citizenship is not something that's applied in a pure way.
JULIA: He's saying that historically ...
TAPAAU AGA: It's mixed with free market profiteering...
JULIA: ... the ideal of equality, it actually gets mixed in with other realities: capitalism and the interests of people in power.
TAPAAU AGA: And the artificial population of lands that were peopled by native peoples.
JULIA: And the result has been time and time again that indigenous people have ended up losing their land or cultural practices.
TAPAAU AGA: And Samoans, we have a saying, [speaking Samoan], "Careful that you're so eager for the fish that you end up losing your net." Okay? Let's be careful that—that we don't go after US citizenship and forget that we have so much to lose. Our net being our land and our natural resources and our culture and our language, things that have been lost by so many other native peoples.
JULIA: And so are you a US citizen?
TAPAAU AGA: Yes.
JULIA: Yeah?
TAPAAU AGA: Many people here are US citizens. They're—they're—so are you saying—well, I'm sure you're saying if you're a US citizen, why shouldn't everyone else become a US citizen?
JULIA: Well, yeah. I guess—I guess, like, what is the law? Do you feel—as a US citizen, do you feel like you've lost something?
TAPAAU AGA: I as an individual haven't lost something, because I am part of an extended family that lives on family lands.
JULIA: So—so could they not live on family lands as US citizens?
TAPAAU AGA: Yes, technically speaking. Here I am, a US citizen. There are many of us who are US citizens. We could live on family lands. We do live on family lands.
JULIA: Right. So—so what—I want to understand, like, what is it about granting US citizenship, birthright US citizenship to ...
TAPAAU AGA: Okay, let me—I guess I have to paint the picture a little more.
JULIA: Yeah.
TAPAAU AGA: So ...
JULIA: And then he explained to me that there's a law in American Samoa that says you have to be 50 percent blood, Samoan blood, to own land.
JAD: Oh.
JULIA: Like, even if a Samoan person wanted to sell me or, like, give me their land, they couldn't by law.
TAPAAU AGA: So someone from some country, say—I mean, everyone picks on China these days, so maybe—someone from China moves here, and the law has changed and it—the law says anyone born here is a US citizen, okay? So this person here from China, you know, builds a business, becomes a wealthy businessman from China. And one day he wants to buy land, and the laws say, "Well, no. We can't sell you these lands," okay? But he says, "No, I want to buy that land and I have the right to buy that land," okay? That's what I'm talking about. That's the threat.
JULIA: Finally, he was like, "Think about it. Like, if everyone born here is a birthright citizen and everyone has equal rights here, it's not long before a Chinese person is born here that's a US citizen. They have equal rights to the land as Samoans do." And Dan thinks they could sue to make that blood Samoan law illegal. So maybe not in one generation, but in a couple generations, blood Samoans would lose their land.
TAPAAU AGA: That's the threat. I guess you have to imagine what would Hawaii be like if they didn't lose all their lands the way that they had. See, we—to us, Hawaii is what we never want to become. You know, you land at the airport in Hawaii, who do you see? Where are the Hawaiians? You know, for us to look at Hawaii is to look at a sad story. You know, so—but everything I say, you have to also remember we're a loyal and patriotic people.
JULIA: It's worth pointing out that American Samoa has one of the highest rates of military enlistment of any US state or territory. They say the Pledge of Allegiance at school in the morning, they learn US history, learn about the US Constitution.
TAPAAU AGA: But this is still our home, right? And we still have to protect it.
JULIA: Do you think what's happening here, the land, the curfews, this sort of thing, do you think it's unconstitutional?
TAPAAU AGA: I can give you literature that says it's repugnant to the US Constitution.
JULIA: So you do think—you do think it's unconstitutional. You think it's unconstitutional, where people say it's ...
TAPAAU AGA: No, I—I'm not saying it's unconstitutional, but we do understand that there is a view that it is considered racist and unconstitutional. But it's also—it gives us a chance to survive.
JAD: Coming up, that balancing act that he's doing, that sort of weighing of things, which ...
ROBERT: They're pretty ...
JAD: Tough.
ROBERT: ... pretty tense, yeah.
JAD: Yeah. Well, it's gonna get a lot more personal after the break.
[LISTENER: Hi, this is Megan, and I'm calling from a cloudy Ithaca, New York. Radiolab is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about Sloan at www.sloan.org.]
JAD: Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad.
ROBERT: I'm Robert Krulwich.
JAD: This is Radiolab.
ROBERT: We are back with Julia Longoria's story about—well, the question before us is: should people born in American Samoa be automatically citizens of the United States of America? That's the question.
JAD: Yes.
ROBERT: Just because they're born there.
JAD: Exactly. And before the break we heard about some land ownership laws that are ...
ROBERT: Hmm, constitutionally ...
JAD: Questionable.
ROBERT: Yes.
JULIA: Yeah. And the more people I talked to, the more tangled the reality of blood laws for land ownership got.
JULIA: Hi, how's it going?
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: Good. And you?
JULIA: Can I get in, or ...
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: Get in!
JULIA: All right! [laughs]
JULIA: Because you kind of run out of people to marry.
JULIA: So, okay, first just, like, say your name.
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: Genevieve Batina-Gregg.
JULIA: I talked to this one woman, Genevieve Gregg, who runs a tour company there.
JULIA: And how long have you lived here?
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: My whole life, except for seven years I lived in California.
JULIA: And one of the first things she told me was ...
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: It's—I have a feeling that I'm, like, this island is so small, who are you gonna marry, right?
JULIA: So basically there has to be intermarriage?
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: Yeah. There you go. Well, the running joke here is, like, when a fam—when I get two invitations for the same wedding, then we go, "Oh, there we go. That's a family member and a family member." Yeah, incest is the best they say, don't they? I'm just kidding. [laughs]
JULIA: Oh, man.
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: Okay. This is like that show Cash Cab Confessional.
JULIA: [laughs]
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: I'll tell you what we're doing right now.
JULIA: Now Genevieve herself ...
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: I'm only 25 percent.
JULIA: Percent Samoan?
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: Yes.
JULIA: Her mom is half-Samoan.
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: And my dad is Canadian. But when I was younger, I never knew I was white. Nobody—like, I never knew I was white until I went to California after high school.
JULIA: She says she, like, realized she was white one time at a bar in California when someone was like ...
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: "You're like the whitest girl in the bar." Like, okay, never mind. Whatever that means. Let's go. [laughs]
JULIA: And it's funny. At one point, we pick up her friend ...
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: What's up?
TUMA'I SNOW: I told you I look like crap (laughs)!
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: Okay, so this is Julia.
TUMA'I SNOW: Hi.
JULIA: Hi.
JULIA: Whose name is Tuma'i Snow. Goes by Ma'i.
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: We call her the white girl. We do.
JULIA: Ma'i is actually way darker-skinned than Genevieve, but she grew up in California and talks like she's from the States.
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: She barely speaks Samoan and she's white. She's so white.
TUMA'I SNOW: I do speak Samoan. [speaking Samoan].
JULIA: What does that mean?
TUMA'I SNOW: [laughs]
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: Thank you very much.
TUMA'I SNOW: Thank you very much. [laughs]
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: We laugh because she's so—like, she's—you're the darkest Palagi.
JULIA: That's the Samoan word for white person.
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: And I'm the whitest Samoan.
JAD: Wait a second. I'm a little confused. What's—who's who now?
JULIA: [laughs] The point is, Ma'i is 100 percent blood Samoan, but she's not that culturally Samoan. She doesn't speak the language very well. She's only spent a few years there. Whereas Genevieve is very culturally Samoan—has spent most of her life there, speaks perfect Samoan, but because she and her sisters are only 25 percent Samoan blood ...
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: Because we're not 50 percent ...
JULIA: She can't technically own land in American Samoa. Her mom recently passed away, and tried to bequeath land to her and her sisters.
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: Even if I was written in a will that it was us inherited—we inherited it, we can't get it, because we're not 50 percent.
JULIA: And this blood law affects Ma'i because of her son, Samuel.
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: Samuel, are you having a rough day?
JULIA: Who she brought along in the car. Ma'i took away his video game, and he freaked out.
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: What's going on? Having a full on meltdown over here.
TUMA'I SNOW: Oh, my gosh. Yes, my son, he's drama. [laughs] As you can see.
JULIA: Anyway, it affects her son because his dad is American, without one drop of Samoan blood.
TUMA'I SNOW: This is kid afakasi right now.
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: Afakasi is half caste.
TUMA'I SNOW: Half.
JULIA: So Samuel's kids will only be able to own land if he has them with a half or a full-blood Samoan.
TUMA'I SNOW: So, like, I made a joke the other night. I'm like, "Well, I guess he's gonna have to marry a Samoan." I'm like, "Just have Samoan kids. You can marry a white girl if you want." [laughs]
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: Like, "Mom, I got my classmate pregnant." "Is she Samoan?"
TUMA'I SNOW: [laughs]
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: That's okay! [laughs]
JULIA: And then another thing that came up is that Genevieve, interestingly is—she's a lesbian. And she has a partner who she wants to marry.
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: Yeah, it's my first marriage, so kind of cool.
TUMA'I SNOW: Are you planning on a second?
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: I don't know. We'll see how good she is. [laughs]
JULIA: But same-sex marriage is not legal in American Samoa.
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: We couldn't be public affectionate with each other, or be a couple. My mom still was like, "Whatever you do, you need to do it inside the bedroom." Like, we couldn't even be in the house and, like, give each other a hug or something. So it was really tough. We went through a couple years of really rocky relationship. And then what else?
JULIA: So here you've got Genevieve and Ma'i, two people who, if the Constitution applied here the way it does in the States, it seems like their problems would be solved: Genevieve would get her land and Ma'i's son could have kids with whoever he wants to. And maybe Genevieve down the road could marry whoever she wants to.
JULIA: Do you wish you could get married here?
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: Yes and no. I mean, see, I don't have the same views as other gay people. Like, I'm a Republican, and people always ask me, "How can you be gay and a Republican and a female," right? I have certain views. Like, I'd rather have financial stability at the end of the day than be able to get married to someone. You know, I'd rather be rich and with someone than poor and married, because in the end we're gonna divorce either way, right?
JULIA: Like, this is my first time in American Samoa and I don't know—like, I don't know anything. What do I know? But—but I'm, like, trying to think about, like—growing up, I'm like, "Oh, being a US citizen, like, matters, and it's—like, it comes with all of these rights, like freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of, like, equality under the law and stuff like that."
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: Right.
JULIA: So ...
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: That doesn't matter here. Out here it's—we have a matai system. So all that stuff is out the door. It doesn't matter. There's freedom of speech until they say, "Shh."
TUMA'I SNOW: Yeah.
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: I'm speaking. [laughs] Do not speak. Go get coffee for everybody. [laughs] So that—yeah, that doesn't take place here, dude.
JULIA: Now even though birthright citizenship wouldn't necessarily change all that, I still expected them to want birthright citizenship for American Samoans, but they both told me no.
JULIA: So are you a US citizen or are you ...
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: National.
JULIA: National?
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: Yay. And proud of it. [laughs]
TUMA'I SNOW: We have land that an American cannot get.
JULIA: What if—so what if the lands were to be preserved, and then things like same-sex marriage, things like free speech, fundamental rights that you have in Constitution would be enforced? The matais and government couldn't deny you those things.
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: Who would enforce it?
JULIA: People could sue in federal court.
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: And enforce that?
JULIA: Yeah.
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: I don't think that really matters here. That's, like, US problems. [laughs]
TUMA'I SNOW: See, that's the thing. Like, our—so granted ...
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: I don't think people would care about that shit here, dude.
JULIA: Before Ma'i moved here, she was living in California. She married an American, bought a house.
TUMA'I SNOW: All those things that I once thought were so important when I was living in—in the States is nothing here. Nothing.
JULIA: What changed? Like ...
TUMA'I SNOW: What changed?
JULIA: Yeah. Like, in you. Like, did you notice something changing in you?
TUMA'I SNOW: Oh, yeah. I love this place. I will never move back to the States. What changed? My kids. My kids being raised out here changed. I get to spend more time with my kids. I think that—and we get to spend more time as a family, you know, owning our own—our own business. We would never be able to do that in the States. You know, people who buy a house in the States, like, "Oh, man, you—you know, you made it." Or whatever. "You bought a house, you're a homeowner." Fuck that. I'm like, no way. That—we've learned that that was such bullshit. We don't use credit anymore, we don't use none of that fucking shit that they have out there. We don't. We don't. We are not in debt. We are content with what we have here. We're happy.
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: Yeah.
JULIA: Great.
TUMA'I SNOW: I was so blinded. So blinded by what life truly should be. Just live life. We live life every day here and I love it. I love it.
JULIA: And it—like, a lot of that—is a lot of that, like, the fact that you do have land, like, you own land?
TUMA'I SNOW: Mm-hmm. Yup. All of it.
JULIA: But at the same time, they did both agree that these land ownership laws about blood are kind of messed up. And Charlie Alailima, the lawyer on that citizenship case we mentioned, that's what he thinks, too.
CHARLES ALAILIMA: And they all know it's stupid. I mean, I had one case ...
JULIA: Genevieve actually asked him to help try to get her mom's land.
CHARLES ALAILIMA: That's this whole citizenship case again, you know? That somehow you're special down here, that you're entitled and you're able to do a lot of these things that are patently unconstitutional, and—and even worse in my mind, it's un-Samoan. That's not ...
JULIA: He actually does want to preserve Samoan ownership of lands, but just to do it in some other way, because he thinks the blood rules are just illegal and that they're basically a kind of Jim Crow law.
JULIA: So there was a case actually two—two years ago.
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: Mm-hmm.
JULIA: This guy ...
JULIA: And I tried to explain to Ma'i and Genevieve that you could see the fight for citizenship as a fight against the Insular Cases, in which the Supreme Court justices called territories like American Samoa, "Possessions inhabited by alien races," and said they were unfit for Anglo-Saxon legal traditions.
JULIA: He thought it was very racist, and he wanted the US government ...
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: Get over it. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Finish. Go ahead.
JULIA: Yeah, to—to explain, like, what that—because he feels like Samoans are in a limbo a little bit, legally.
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: Well, let's go back to the 1900s!
TUMA'I SNOW: [laughs] I'll tell you about the government, dude. They're sleeping.
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: And figure out what the US government has to say about this. Jesus Christ!
TUMA'I SNOW: Move on with your life. What is he doing? Is he at home right now?
GENEVIEVE BATINA-GREGG: Yeah, let's go. Let's go. Cash Cab Confessional. Another person to pick up.
TUMA'I SNOW: Is he working?
JULIA: And honestly, leaving the car with those two, it did make me wonder how common is their perspective on the island. So ...
JULIA: My name's Julia Longoria. What's your name?
JULIA: I spent a bunch of time wandering around over the next couple days, taking a very informal poll.
JULIA: Do you mind if I ask you a couple questions? Is that okay?
MAN: Oh, yeah. Go ahead.
JULIA: If it were put to a vote, would you make American Samoans automatic citizens?
JULIA: Would you vote to become a US citizen?
WOMAN: No.
MAN: No.
JULIA: And at first, it seemed like it was just a lot of no.
MAN: No, because I always gotta be mindful of what happened to Guam when the States took over Guam. Which we're really blessed in a sense that we were able to keep our culture, our land.
JULIA: This one Samoan veteran ...
CHIEF PAULO: My name is Chief Paulo.
JULIA: ... with a Make America Great Again baseball cap ...
CHIEF PAULO: I support the President of the United States.
JULIA: ... told me ...
CHIEF PAULO: I don't—I don't want to be a US citizen. I'd rather be a U.S. national. I don't want a Japanese or Chinese or—it's the same, you know, US. I'd rather be a Samoan, you know?
JULIA: What did you order here?
WOMAN: A fish filet.
JULIA: And then interestingly at McDonald's ...
JULIA: Like, at birth, you know, like, to automatically become citizens? What do you think of that idea?
MAN: I think that's a great idea, because that's going to be fair.
JULIA: ... I got only yeses.
WOMAN: I think that'd be great, because gay marriage ...
JULIA: One fa'afafine as they're called, which are men at birth, but end up dressing like women ...
WOMAN: Here we do have partners, we do live with them, but ...
JULIA: ... who are kind of accepted in society, but they're just not allowed to marry who they want to marry.
WOMAN: It's not recognized by law, so—but that's totally okay in the US.
JULIA: And in particular, when I talked to immigrants ...
MAN: I'm Korean, you know?
JULIA: ... from Korea, China, the Philippines, Tonga, most of them wanted citizenship.
MAN: It's easier, better when the citizenship is automatically granted.
WOMAN: Yeah, yeah.
WOMAN: Of course. Why not?
WOMAN: I wish, I wish, I wish. Maybe God help me. [laughs]
CHARLES ALAILIMA: For the non-American nationals that are—you know, they probably think, "Oh, wow. That would be great if—if we—" if they become citizens.
JULIA: And this is something else that Charlie Alailima brought up with me.
JULIA: I guess you had kind of started to talk about injustices here that are kind of swept under the rug without citizenship.
CHARLES ALAILIMA: I think mostly it is how immigration will be handled.
JULIA: In American Samoa, he told me, you have immigrants coming to the island for work. And because American Samoa controls its own borders and because he says there's lax enforcement of immigration laws, some people talked about corruption, you have situations where immigrants end up here on questionable visas, stripped of their rights to wages and fair working conditions.
CHARLES ALAILIMA: And in some cases it hasn't been very good, you know, for some of the foreigners. There's a lot of abuse in that, but if you do become a citizen, then—and if the US immigration service comes and actually enforces the laws and the requirements of foreigners coming to work here, right? Then you would probably see change.
JAD: Hmm. I'm just curious, as you were doing these interviews, how were you processing all this?
JULIA: You know, I was kind of making my way across the island, and there were some people for whom this was a really personal thing. Other people had these high ideals of rights, others, you know, high ideals of Samoan culture. But I did meet one person who kind of held all of these ideas in her mind at once.
CANDYMANN: Welcome.
JULIA: Thank you.
CANDYMANN: I'm CandyMann, Tisa's partner.
JULIA: Very nice to meet you.
JULIA: Her name is Tisa Faamuli.
TISA FAAMULI: Hello. I'm the infamous Tisa woman from the famous Barefoot Bar in the South Pacific.
JULIA: She runs Tisa's Barefoot Bar. It's a series of fales, or grass roof wooden structures on stilts.
TISA FAAMULI: This structure, I built this, me and CandyMann built this.
JULIA: It's beautiful.
TISA FAAMULI: Thank you. Do you like it?
JULIA: Yeah. It's pretty magical. [laughs]
JULIA: And they are right on the water of this beach, Alega Beach, which is a marine reserve. And I actually stayed in one of the fales overnight, and you'd step out onto the sand in the morning, and every shell moved. It was bursting with life. She has ...
JAD: Oh, is this where the pictures came?
JULIA: Yeah.
JAD: Those pictures are crazy!
JULIA: Incredible.
JULIA: Do you spend most of your time here, just ...
TISA FAAMULI: No, I travel a little bit. I've been around.
JULIA: Yeah.
TISA FAAMULI: I've tested out many trails to see how far I get. [laughs]
JULIA: Oh, yeah?
TISA FAAMULI: Trails of life. [laughs]
JULIA: Yeah. Where—where have the trails of life taken you?
TISA FAAMULI: Oh, they've taken me to foreign land, you know, on the West Coast.
JULIA: She has flags from different countries and states hanging up in her bar. And she has a unique perspective on American Samoa.
TISA FAAMULI: I don't know. I just am so disappointed that—that we ended up this way. We're very content with what little we get. And there's no waves being done about it. People don't know what their rights are. People don't know. They don't speak up. I appreciate these guys speaking up about the citizenship, because at least that's a bold move, showing that maybe somebody's thinking. I have tendencies to think questions, as you can hear in my voice, in my tone.
JULIA: Tisa told me she went to the US mainland for the first time when she was 16 years old.
TISA FAAMULI: I wasn't necessarily looking for anything better. I was just curious about what the other—what the world really looks like coming from this tiny little dot.
JULIA: So she went to live with her aunt in San Diego, to go to high school there in the late '60s.
TISA FAAMULI: I ended up following the Black Panthers.
JULIA: The Black Panthers had arrived in San Diego by that time.
TISA FAAMULI: I was curious. I said, "Okay, what are these people—" because all I hear is bad stuff.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Huey P. Newton: Black Panther Party is simply the vanguard of the revolution.]
TISA FAAMULI: I went to the meetings often. Newspapers were passed out, posters posted where the Black people were gathering.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Huey P. Newton: And we plan to teach the people the necessary tools to liberate themselves.]
TISA FAAMULI: You tell them about what they can do to improve their lives, and they were actually sitting down, encouraging all the kids—Black kids, blue kids, whatever color kids to go—including Samoans like me—to go to college. And I did.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, protesters: Sisterhood is powerful. Join us now!]
JULIA: And she says she also sat in on meetings in the Women's Movement.
TISA FAAMULI: The Women's Movement was full on.
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Equal rights. Equal rights to have a job, to have respect and not be viewed as a piece of meat.]
TISA FAAMULI: My whole purpose of hanging around whenever these big rallies—I listened, I watched. Just learn and make a note, learn and make a note.
JULIA: And sitting there in the back of those meetings, inevitably ...
TISA FAAMULI: I keep thinking about home. I come from a little tiny island.
JULIA: ... she began to think ...
TISA FAAMULI: Men control their wives, their children, their daughters. They have no right to speak up.
JULIA: ... the way things work at home just isn't just.
TISA FAAMULI: So there was so much injustice here for women.
JULIA: The fact that women were not chiefs.
TISA FAAMULI: Women were abused, and young girls, domestic abuse out of frustrations. And this is why a lot of Samoans go away and they never want to come back here.
JULIA: But Tisa in her 20s decided she would come back.
TISA FAAMULI: I never felt that California was my home. I was just a student of California. And I learned a lot. I learned a lot about my rights as a woman, and I learned my right to speak up.
JULIA: And she brought those lessons back home.
TISA FAAMULI: When I came back, I was very vocal. I spoke out, I never backed down from any man. And so when I ran for governor ...
JULIA: So she ran for office.
TISA FAAMULI: We have our campaigning for political office the Samoan way. You don't speak out against anybody, and we still don't. But I went against all that, and I spoke up. I spoke about rights. You have these rights that you can advocate for. But no one would do it, because people were afraid.
JULIA: And the chiefs ...
TISA FAAMULI: My dad's cousins, they—he was a governor and he brought all the clan in, a big who's who. The big chief, the big boys, you know? They came to dad and asked his—asked him if he will please tell your daughter not to run for governor, because that's what chiefs do. And my father told them, "Well, she's her own person. She's gonna do whatever she wants and she can do that. She has those rights, and I'm not gonna tell her no." I loved him forever for that. But he didn't like me because I was—because I was not the daughter that I was supposed to be. I was very vocal. A very strong voice in—and they hear me.
JULIA: Right. Did you win?
TISA FAAMULI: Oh, no. Are you serious? I would never win, but I was very vocal. I was just out there. I did not care. I wanted—because I learned from America you have the right to speak, and that was very big for me.
JULIA: And so she believed. She's like, "The one reason why I'm proud to be an American is that we have rights."
TISA FAAMULI: Because some part of the Constitution protects our rights.
JULIA: So again, here we have a person who you'd think would absolutely support Charlie's fight to get American Samoans US citizenship, but ...
TISA FAAMULI: No, I hope not. It's not a good idea. At the end of the day, it's still the wrong thing to address.
JULIA: She said it's not worth it.
JAD: Wow! No way. So ...
JULIA: Yeah.
JAD: So it's not worth it because ...?
JULIA: For one, she thinks, you know, American Samoans are already running off to the US to find, like, what they think is gonna be a better life. And US citizenship would probably make that drain on the island even worse. And then for life on the island ...
TISA FAAMULI: There are other parts of my culture I need to protect, and it outweighs my need to be a US citizen. It's not about me at all. It's about my island. It's about my people. It's about my family. It's about my village. It's about this wonderful community. So I will never go up and try to change anything if they're not with me. I've learned that the hard way. I've learned that and I'm humbled by it, because our communal system, our chief system, it's the very system that's keeping us alive and together.
JULIA: I guess I'm wondering, like, what—what about the communal system do you think would—would definitely go away? You know, like, what—what is it about the communal system, like, that is completely incompatible with being a citizen?
TISA FAAMULI: The Western ways is individual, it's about individual's rights: mine, my real estate, my land. But for us, it's about protecting all of us, our communal rights. So it's complete opposite of the American system. If you bring in a whole bunch of immigrants, it's gonna disrupt that village. It's already doing that. Why? People who move in and—and cite their rights, "I have the right. I have my freedom to do this." But that's—that's not what it's about. In the evening, we have a bell for everybody to enter their home and do their meditation. When these people come in, they look at us like we lost our minds. And there's conflict there. It clashes. Everything foreign has clashed already with us.
JULIA: But—but I mean, like, the people who are coming, like, they're already coming, right? And they're already having kids here who are becoming nationals, right? Like, maybe that ship has sailed?
TISA FAAMULI: Well, a lot of them come home and they realize what is here. They pass through. Transients, a lot of transients.
JULIA: Yeah. But if the land was still preserved, you know what I mean?
TISA FAAMULI: It's a joke. I've seen all the land that's been preserved. The government turn them over and sell it and make profit. [laughs] That's been proven.
JULIA: All right.
TISA FAAMULI: You have some interesting things to put out there.
JULIA: Yeah, yeah.
JAD: Wow. She spent time with the Black Panthers, ran for office, and still feels that somehow the existential threat to the island's culture overrules those—those rights?
JULIA: I don't know. It's—I mean, it's a calculation in her head, but I remember sitting there on the beach and just not being able to wrap my head around it.
JULIA: I spent two Sundays in American Samoa. I went to church services. Not everybody goes to church, but the island is about 98 percent Christian. And many people told me it's the center of Fa'a Samoa. And sitting in those pews, watching people of all ages sing and interact with each other, they all know each other, they're looking out for each other, it's a feeling of belonging. And citizenship is about belonging, but belonging to the US tends to come with its own set of rights and responsibilities. And it struck me that—that these set of ideals, which I hold so dear, so many of us hold so dear, that people here would see them as a threat to—to their survival. So I went back to Charlie Alailima.
JULIA: So I actually talked to Dan. Dan Aga.
CHARLES ALAILIMA: Yeah, what was his position?
JULIA: Yeah. Yeah, so he—do you mind if I turn this off?
CHARLES ALAILIMA: Yeah.
JULIA: And I told him what Tisa had told me and Dan Aga had told me.
JULIA: Dan Aga was like—basically like, "Hawaii is a cautionary tale." Like ...
CHARLES ALAILIMA: [laughs] Hawaii is a cautionary tale. Yeah, that's interesting, because, you know, that—what he means then is, "I don't trust America." That's—that's what that means, you know?
JULIA: And he told me he doesn't think that this community would necessarily have to change.
CHARLES ALAILIMA: Cautionary tale of a history that happened 100 years, 110 years ago. Okay, that was 110 years ago America was like that. Have they changed? Significantly. [laughs] You know, is Jim Crow around anymore? Are the ideas, you know—you know—but the real question is: do you trust the US government to do the right thing? Do you trust the federal courts to do the right thing? And for me, I personally believe that, well, if you don't trust the government that you belong to, then get out of that government. [laughs]
JULIA: He was like, "We Samoans need to make a decision about who we are, if we want to be part of the US or not. There shouldn't be this in between."
CHARLES ALAILIMA: I have trust in the government. I have trust in, you know, ultimate trust in—you know, that the Constitution is a document that is something that we should all, you know, aspire to. We may not reach that, but we all aspire towards it, and that's why we still believe in it. You know, I still have faith that you can go to the courts and get any problems rectified, but if I lose that faith then I'm just gonna say, "Oh, forget it." [laughs]
JULIA: You think—what would make you lose that faith?
CHARLES ALAILIMA: What would make me lose that faith? I don't know. We'll see with this election. [laughs] We'll see over the next few elections.
JAD: Producer Julia Longoria. This story was reported and produced by Julia.
ROBERT: Also, special thanks to Sam Erman, whose book Almost Citizens tells the story of Isabelle Gonzalez.
JAD: Doug Mack, author of The Not-Quite States of America, which helped inspire this story.
ROBERT: And to Belinda Torres Mary and John Torres and the Torres family for welcoming us to their home.
JAD: And thank you to Pago Pago Tours.
ROBERT: Well, I'd like to say thank you again to Pago Pago Tradewind Tours.
JAD: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I forgot the Tradewind.
ROBERT: Yeah.
JAD: And Fanena Aida and her family.
ROBERT: And to Justin Mauga.
JAD: Professor Daniel Holland, David Herdrick.
ROBERT: Neil Weare and Equally American, which is his organization.
JAD: Yeah.
ROBERT: And it's—it's time to sail off, I think, right?
JAD: It is.
ROBERT: Okay.
JAD: Okay.
ROBERT: So we'll see you the next time.
JAD: Yeah. I'm Jad Abumrad.
ROBERT: I'm Robert Krulwich.
JAD: Thanks for listening.
[LISTENER: My name is Tim, and I'm calling from Cleveland, Ohio. Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and is produced by Soren Wheeler. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Suzie Lechtenberg is our executive producer. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Becca Bressler, Rachael Cusick, David Gebel, Bethel Habte, Tracie Hunte, Nora Keller, Matt Kielty, Robert Krulwich, Julia Longoria, Annie McEwen, Latif Nasser, Malissa O'Donnell, Sarah Qari, Arianne Wack, Pat Walters and Molly Webster. With help from Shima Oliaee, Audrey Quinn and Neil Danisha. Our fact-checker is Michelle Harris.
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