Americanish 01:13:34

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Can you tell us who you are? Yes. Wait, let me, it's just, I can't do it without backing up on Pro Tools. It's like... Hey, Lulu Miller here. And Latif. This is Radiolab, and today we are talking to a host, reporter, producer, and former member of our Radiolab family. Hello.

Recording in two places. Now I can breathe. Julia Longoria. Hello. Okay. Where should we start this story? I feel like the story of you and this show goes back before the... The show. Before last week, obviously. It does. Yeah, you know, like... And we're talking to Julia because she's the new host of an old show that spun off of our show a while back, which is... Drumroll, please. Drumroll, please.

More Perfect. That's right. After a six year hiatus. More Perfect is back. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The show is now back with new cases and a new team and in some ways a new approach to reporting on the Supreme Court. But Julia's relationship to that show and honestly to covering the court and even to thinking about constitutional law goes way back.

You know, my parents are Cuban refugees and my family has a lot of opinions and a lot of trauma that they're working through and like a wide political spectrum. There's lots of arguments happening, you know, with a lot of wine and tequila and a lot of love, too. Which usually diffuses arguments, you know.

But I was just in this environment always where people were, you know, sharing their opinions and telling stories about why they left Cuba, why they're here, having arguments about U.S. politics. And when I went to high school, it was a pretty conservative environment. There were like some things that were off limits.

And then I heard about this team, this constitution team with this coach who was talking about things that we couldn't talk about. Like what? Like what? Abortion, for instance, you know, which was not something that was taught in theology class. And, you know, it was like this kind of team that got to talk and truly debate abortion.

in a way that we couldn't really fully in other classes. So I think for that reason, it was...

It was dangerous. It was exciting. And Julia carried that sense of excitement over foundational questions of U.S. law into her work as a journalist when she moved to New York City. I was working in the WNYC newsroom and someone asked me at WNYC, what's your pie in the sky idea? Like if you could make any radio show, what would you make? And I was like, I want to make a show that is

shows people how secretly sexy the Supreme Court is. Wow. And then this person was like, you got to talk to Susie Lechtenberg. Because the team at Radiolab had just spun off that exact show and it was called More Perfect. Yeah. And I was like, what? No. And then I listened to the first season with like...

Curiosity and anger and rage. Damn you, you already did it. And then, of course, Julia went on to work at that show. She told amazing stories about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, about the Dred Scott decision, all sorts of wonderful reporting. And

And then after the third season, the powers that be at WNYC decided they did not want to make any more More Perfect. Yep. Yep. All right. So anyway, now it is like six years later-ish and you have decided to reboot the show. And why and how and who and what all of the, you know, all of the questions. Yeah. So basically, like, since More Perfect was put on pause, I've just like not stopped making the show. Yeah.

I went to work at the New York Times for a bit and did a lot of like legal stories. I did a show called The Experiment with The Atlantic where we did a lot of legal stories. And finally, we thought, why not just bring it back, make it official? So, yeah, we are back. And at this moment when, you know, like the court, I think when More Perfect first started in 2016, it was like,

The, the question was kind of like, what's going on in there, huh? Like kind of out of curiosity and people weren't paying super close attention to the Supreme Court. Now it's a very different moment. Um, the Supreme Court has overturned some of its biggest cases. Um, it's more unpopular than ever, if you want to believe what polls say. Um, and there's a lot of attention on the Supreme Court, uh, from people who don't normally pay attention. Um,

Actually, that is something I wanted to ask you about because when More Perfect came out,

And I remember this is the way they even set it up in the beginning. It was like, this is the place where we really tussle it out and where both sides get heard. And it really feels like a difficult grappling. But now it feels like the court is just so political, so divided. I just like, I don't know. I personally don't know how to feel about that. Yeah, no, I think like...

There are plenty of reasons to just be angry and upset and, you know, just not even try to pay attention to any kind of earnest, supposedly earnest grappling happening. Yeah. But I do think, like, at the end of the day, coming from, I guess, a family that has opinions widely across the spectrum, like, at the end of the day, we live in a country with these people. Yeah.

Or we live, you know, like in my case, it's like my family. Like I have to find a way to talk to them or to see where they're coming from. And I think that trying at least to reach for the grapple could allow us to have like more meaningful conversations. Yeah. And reach people we don't agree with too. Yeah. What I, what guides me is trying to understand that.

where people are coming from, trying to find the grapple, highlight the people who are earnestly doing that, and also point out where it feels like there's not an earnest grapple happening. So our very first episode is an episode I've been wanting to make since high school, basically, about a man named Al Smith.

He is a Native American man who ingested peyote as part of a Native American church ceremony and was fired for taking illegal drugs at the time. And in classic, more perfect fashion, it's the story of an issue, but it's actually also the story of a person. And in this case, it's Peyote.

He's also an alcohol and drug counselor taking illegal drugs. So I was like, what's that about? And so Al Smith has passed away, but his wife and his daughter are around. And there's this professor who became obsessed with Al Smith's case and had interviewed him and had all these like tapes on minidiscs. Amazing.

They're not tapes. He had mini discs, which was the technology that lasted like two seconds. But you do get to hear Al Smith in his own words describing his story, his background, his struggle with alcoholism, his decision to take peyote when he became part of the Native American church. You remember my grandma used to pray in India? Every night, see? You didn't know what she was saying. No. It's a story about Al Smith, but it's also a story about how, you know...

behind the scenes of a lot of the big cases that we hear about, like, in the last few years, like Masterpiece Cake Shop, these religion cases where people are asking if they can sidestep anti-discrimination laws and deny their services to, like, same-sex couples. They actually are trying to overreact

overturn Al Smith's case. And that's just the first episode. They have a whole bunch of other stories. They've been going for about a month now, releasing episodes. Yeah, so go check out the sparkling, dazzling Newmore Perfect. You will find all kinds of great stuff there, episodes,

about Clarence Thomas. I was a bit of a radical, but that's what happened back then. You were Black, things were changing, and we were very, very upset. We've got stuff about the abortion cases and the question of viability, about voting rights, all of the urgent arguments that our country is currently facing right now, unpacked, played out, giving you the background and context you need to understand what is even going on.

We are so glad they are back on the beat at this moment in time. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts. More perfect.

And before you go do that, or perhaps to help inspire you to do that, we have a story that Julia worked on when they put the pause on More Perfect. She came in, worked with Radiolab for a while, made all kinds of beautiful stuff. And during that time, she made a story called Americanish. The way that started for me was like basically my research question was Puerto Rico, Mexico.

Like, yeah.

Like, why is it not a state? Yeah. Like, why is it not a state? They're always arguing. Like, how did it end up in this weird? It's not a state, but it's not not a state. Right. Yeah. It's the territory. What's the deal with territories? Right. Interestingly, I learned there's a group of people in the territories, you know, who who don't really want American citizenship and don't want the Constitution to apply to them in the same way that it does to the states themselves.

for kind of complicated reasons. So without giving any more away, we're going to play that story. Again, it is called Americanish, and you will hear Julia in conversation throughout the episode with, of course, Jad Abumrad. Wait, you're listening? Okay. All right. Okay. All right. You're listening to Radiolab. Radiolab. From WNYC. WNYC? Yeah.

Rewind. I'm Jad Ibumrod. I'm Robert Krolwich. This is Radiolab, and this is reporter Julia Longoria. Okay, great. She's going to start things off. Let's do it. So where do we start? You took a trip. So I took two trips. The first trip inspired another trip. Hi. Hello. But let's start in Denver, Colorado. You have such a beautiful room. Oh, thank you. Where I wanted to speak to this young man. Give me a drink, Harlow.

Giancarlo. Very young man. What's your name? I'm Giancarlo Mary. He's nine years old. What are you doing today? Well, I'm currently eating lunch. So currently, I'm going to give my grandmother a hug. So yeah. So currently that...

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. Do you feel like you're like a descendant of immigrants? Yeah, like sort of like not all the way like pure immigrant, but like partially immigrant.

Because people from Puerto Rico back then, like 1998, I think, maybe. It was actually 1898. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Close enough, yeah. 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 U.S. My great-grandmother, it's either great-great or great-grandmother. I don't remember each one. It was his great-great-grandmother, and her name was Isabel Gonzalez. Isabel Gonzalez, she was on a boat. She was on like...

Like, there used to be, like, boats going from here. She was traveling alone and pregnant from Puerto Rico to New York City. And when the boat arrived in Ellis Island... These white men would go out and, like, select, like, people, like, you can't go, not allowed, you can't go, where's your spouse, not allowed.

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. A little historical assist here from Christina Ponce-Kraus. I'm a professor of law at Columbia. She says when those guys tried to pull Isabel aside...

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. Christina says around this time, a lot of people, a lot of goods like fruit. There was a shipment of oranges. Among other things, started arriving in the U.S. from the newly acquired territories. And all of these new arrivals posed a sort of existential question to the U.S. Are these new colonies part of us or are they something else?

So a bunch of these cases, like Isabel Gonzalez's case, ended up in the Supreme Court. And they eventually became known collectively as the Insular Cases. The Insular Cases. What does insular mean in this context? Insular actually means relating to an island. It also means parochial or parochial.

At the time when the United States annexed Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam, it still had territories. It had Oklahoma. It had Arizona. But it 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. ♪

So the judges are dealing with the fact that these new islands are now part of the U.S., 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 Isabel Gonzalez, they ended up saying, we're not going to answer the question of whether Puerto Ricans are actually U.S. citizens.

We're just going to say they're not immigrants. And if that's not confusing enough, they went on to say that Puerto Rico... Puerto Rico is foreign to the United States in a domestic sense.

That sounds like nonsense. The dissenters in the case said it sounded like nonsense. Nobody understood exactly what that meant. It's like almost textbook doublethink, right? Like it's like foreign but domestic, domestic but foreign. It's kind of wild. Textbook having it both ways and therefore having it neither way. And do you feel like you're Puerto Rican? Sort of, I guess. Do you feel American? No.

Partially. Yeah? Just partially? Why? Because I'm also a little bit Irish, I think. Is it Irish? Well, yeah, on dad's side. A little bit of...

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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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 U.S. soil and people who are born here are not citizens.

So is that true? Yes. So it's the only place where the whole like my baby was born in the U.S. Therefore, that doesn't happen. Correct. They become. What are they then if they're not citizens? In their passport, they have a U.S. passport. But on the last page, it says this person is not a U.S. citizen. They're a U.S. national, a child born in American Samoa, Florida.

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. So it's... That's weird. Yeah. And it's not just weird. I mean, it's...

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 U.S. citizens after all these years.

So I decided to get on a plane. After a 25-hour trip, I landed in the middle of the night. Went through border security. I walked out of the...

of the airport, which is really small. Hi! Very nice to meet you. Pleasure to meet you, sweetie. And people I had emailed showed up to the airport to greet me. With leis, with like flowers and... Just me, yeah. Oh, okay. Where are you staying? And 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. Yeah!

And then more and more people who I had talked to showed up. Hi. Wait, David Herdrick? 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. Ocean view. And it was just incredibly gorgeous. I saw the pictures of that trip. What the f***?

No one told me it was going to be that beautiful. It was amazing. Huge, lush mountain. Bright green mountains. So many palm trees. Pastel-colored houses tucked into the side of these cliffs. American flag flying high. Just stunning.

How big is American Samoa, by the way? Well, it's a cluster of islands, but the main island, Tutuila, is about 50 square miles with about 50,000 people.

There's a two-lane road that seems to be like the main route. There's just one main road that you drive. So 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 who had different ideas of what the island was about, which was really interesting, seeing the same places again.

through different eyes. Interesting. Interesting. So... There it is, District Court. The first stop I made was to meet with a guy named... Charlie. Hi. How are you? Charles Alalima. Really smiley, silver hair, thin-rimmed glasses, wearing a floral shirt and flip-flops. Oh.

Almost everybody at the courthouse was wearing flip-flops. 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. Which is basically the rights of the chiefs to control this top of this mountain. Are these your clients then? These are my clients. But the reason I wanted to talk to Charles is that he has a case right now pending before the federal courts saying

That's basically Isabel Gonzalez in 2019. He's arguing that denying American Samoans birthright citizenship is unconstitutional. So I believe that when you were born an American Samoan, you're American. An unusual American, but you are still one. Now, in Charles' case, he's what some Samoans call Afakasi. My mother was born in Afakasi.

Auburn, New York. His mom is white and his dad is from Western Samoa, which is not part of the U.S. His parents actually met in the States. His dad was in grad school in D.C.,

And my father and mother could not get married in Virginia because of the anti-miscegenation laws. This was back in 19-0 racism. My mother kept trying to insist that Samoans are not black, they are something different. She says, no, he looks too dark. But they were actually able to get married in Washington, D.C., and they moved to American Samoa, where Charlie was born. And you'd think that Charlie would be an automatic U.S. citizen, right?

And this was a—I was born in a U.S. territory, but she had to—because they had to register at the closest embassy. But his mom, a U.S. citizen, actually had to register him in a foreign country. And the closest embassy was Auckland. All the way in New Zealand. You know, it doesn't make any sense, and it's—

And it's against the principles of the United States. So Charlie says the fact that American Samoans are not automatic citizens by birth. It's hiding a lot of injustices that are going on. Injustices that could be remedied if you didn't say, oh, well, you're a national, right? You can be treated differently. Do you think you'd be hiking boots? Should I be? Okay.

So I drove around with Charlie for a while. And this is where the tsunami really took its toll in this whole area. And everywhere I saw signs of threats of natural disaster. Yeah.

Tsunamis, typhoons, earthquakes. This was the main center of the government in the beginning. He showed me the town center, which is really just a cluster of pastel-colored buildings. These are all the old Navy buildings. They're remnants of the old Navy. And the original U.S. Naval base, which is really where this whole thing got started.

So the U.S. Navy showed up in American Samoa in the late 1800s. At a time when Samoa was extremely fractured. Germany and the U.K. were hanging out there too, and there were fights among chiefs across the islands about who owned what turf.

And the U.S. Navy offered the islands of American Samoa protection in exchange for the use of their harbor. The safest, the best, altogether the most superb harbor in the South Seas, possibly in all the Pacific. According to Charlie, at least some of the chiefs wanted that protection. American Samoans, they said, that's great. Thought it was a good deal. One of their high chiefs, his name was Monga.

was basically telling everybody, no, let's have the Americans come in. And in 1900, they made it official. Some Samoan chiefs signed what they called a deed of session to hand over sovereignty to the United States. And according to Charlie... At the time that they did this, they thought...

They had become U.S. citizens. Of course, thanks to the rulings in the Insular Cases, they actually hadn't. And then... Around 1929... Congress took up the question of whether American Samoans should be U.S. citizens, and they just said no. And really, some of the vile racist statements being made back there in 1929 against it. We don't want any of these savage racists who would never be able to understand...

our system. Fast forward 100 years and Charles is basically trying to overturn Isabel Gonzalez's case. His first attempt to do that was to represent this guy named Lene Tua'ua. I actually got in a rental car and went to visit him while I was on the island. Then continue on towards the mountains.

Okay. A side note, there are no addresses in American Samoa. All right, great. Thank you so much. Sorry, I got lost. Which makes it virtually impossible to find anyone. But I found him. One story, modest house, green trimmings, white bricks. Hello. How are you doing? Lenny's got white hair, purple floral shirt on, taking a drag from a cigarette. What's your name? Lenny Wotitwowo. I'm a retiree, retired.

Taking care of family matters here at home. I am not working anymore. Lene was actually a police officer in American Samoa. He moved to California and lived there for a while, and he wanted to be a police officer there too. But... As soon as they came across my status, they said, well, I'm sorry, you know, you're not a U.S. citizen. So therefore, you cannot become...

They told him he would have to become a citizen first, which involved paying hundreds of dollars and taking a test. And that's why birthright citizenship is so important. It helps.

solidifies that if you are born on U.S. soil, you are equal to everybody else. So in 2012, with the help of Charlie and a lawyer from Guam named Neil Weir, Lene sued the U.S. government, saying they violated the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment. That's how I ended up

in Washington, D.C., right on the footsteps of the U.S. Supreme Court. Lainez says he just wanted the court to give some kind of explanation for why American Samoans had been treated this way. Why? I mean, why give us the runaround? But...

When it got to the Supreme Court, they declined to hear the case. When was that, that it got to the Supreme Court? 2016. They just refused to make a decision on it. Why are they so afraid to come out, these nine of them? Today, Charlie and Neil have another case going with some American Samoans in Utah. And hopefully this second time around, the Supreme Court will grant our petition.

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 following is a public service announcement from the American Samoa Humanities Council and the Office of Political. Then I talked to this guy. Coming up right after the break, we meet the people who are fighting to not become U.S. citizens.

Hey, I'm Jad. I'm Robert. This is Radiolab. Today we're in American Samoa, a place that is considered U.S. soil but where the people are not considered U.S. citizens. And we just heard from some people making the case for citizenship. Now...

We're going to hear from someone who has a different opinion. His name is Tapa'au Anga, goes by Dan. He's on the radio reading from the American Samoan Constitution all the time, which is kind of weird. He's on the radio reading from the Constitution? Yeah, from the American Samoan Constitution. Wow. That's kind of cool, weirdly. The Constitution tells us about the branches of government, how our laws are made.

And actually, when he heard I was looking into the citizenship question, he got a hold of me. Okay, hold on one second. Okay, go ahead. So, you'll be coming west on the main road. So, I hopped in my car. So, I just, I made a left on a hill, Mary, but I think I made the wrong left. Got a little bit lost again. So, you can see it's the land where there's a...

But eventually I did find his house. Where should I park? Is here good? Oh, you want to come in? Yeah, let's go. And as soon as I arrived, he jumped in my rental car because he wanted to show me what they call fa'a samoa. I suggest...

Just go around. Okay, go around. So we drove down to the center of the village of Leone. It's one of the larger villages. It's about 2,000 people, and it's on the southwest coast of the island. Good. Let me talk to him before I come out. Okay, great. To meet the high chiefs of the village, or matais as they're known. I'll come out?

There we go. Hello. Hi. This is Chief Ropati. Hi, very nice to meet you. Can I get out? Yeah, if you want. Great. Chief Ropati Opa. Nice to meet you. Welcome. Thank you. My name is Ropati Opa. White hair, broad shoulders, kind smile. So now I am the mayor.

of the village. And... Hi, talking chief Mayava. He's got a buzz cut and a white v-neck. Oh, so what's bringing you down here to our ugly village? And I asked the chiefs, like, would you want to be citizens, straight up? Would you want to be... Are you a U.S. citizen? No. Do you want to be? I want to be a U.S. citizen.

And Chief Robati Opa was like, Yeah. Duh. Why? My kids all live in the States. I served in the U.S. military. Hmm.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Okay. Then Dan kind of like steps in and starts talking to him in Samoan for a minute. And I was like, what's going on? And then... Okay, now I understand. And...

And I wasn't really sure what to think about that. But then...

this bell started to ring. And Chief Mayava explained that they have a curfew in the village of Leone on Sundays at 6 p.m. For 15 minutes, everyone has to stop what they're doing and pray or meditate. Wait, that's the law? Yeah, I mean, it's not quite law, but it is the rule in this village and some others, and it is enforced. Huh.

And I was talking to the chief when 6 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. You want to go take a ride or you want to go by yourself? Yeah, let's go take a ride. And then he asked me if I wanted to come along with him. And I was like, yeah. And he was like, OK, great. Where's your car? We'll take your car. So we literally got into my car. Sorry about that.

And I'm holding the microphone for the chief as we're doing the ride-along. And we just went up and down the main street. It took like a little over 15 minutes. It's a very small village. And along the street, there are

Young men, they're called the Aomanga, the young men's club. So these guys just line the streets here? Yeah, they're just lined up in the street. Lined up and wearing white shirts and red lava lavas, which are like skirts. Okay. And what do they do? They just yell at people? They just stand there kind of watching. Turn it, turn it. Turn it.

And so there were some people who got caught. So they're just sitting there on the side of the road for 15 minutes until it's over. Do they have to pray?

They don't force them to pray, but they're just supposed to have quiet time. Just sit for a minute, for 15 minutes. What happens if you don't do that? If anybody crosses these laws and everything, in the old days, they very hard some penalties. Chief Mayava told me that back in the old days, like the 1800s, you would just immediately get kicked out of the village. We don't want to see them no more. Which meant you had no food, no protection. It's almost like...

And when I was talking to Chief Ropati Opa, he told me that these days a pretty common punishment would be like making the person feed the whole village.

50 case chicken, 50 case turkey tail, 50 case wahoo, and plus... But Chief Mayava 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. So, okay. So one of the arguments that is made is like, this would not pass muster under the U.S. Constitution. Yeah, it definitely wouldn't. 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...

But the fear is that if everyone born on the island were automatically granted citizenship, then a bunch of other U.S. laws might start getting applied here too. And they wouldn't be able to do things like these curfews. The reason why...

It's such an existential threat to American Samoans to become U.S. citizens. This is Dan again. By birth is because the 14th Amendment also guarantees equal protection under laws. 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. But that word equality, historically and even now, that's such a...

difficult, complicated word to get around because U.S. citizenship is not something that's applied in a pure way.

He's saying that historically... It's mixed with free market profiteering. The ideal of equality. It actually gets mixed in with other realities. Capitalism and the interests of people in power. And the artificial population of lands that were peopled by native peoples. And the result has been time and time again that indigenous people have ended up losing their land or cultural practices. In Samoans, we have a saying...

Careful that you're so eager for the fish that you end up losing your net, okay? Let's be careful that we don't go after U.S. 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. So are you a U.S. citizen?

Yes. Many people here are U.S. citizens. So are you saying, well, I'm sure you're saying, if you're a U.S. citizen, why shouldn't everyone else become a U.S. citizen? Well, yeah, I guess like what is the lot? Do you feel as a U.S. citizen, do you feel like you've lost something? I, as an individual, haven't lost something because I am part of an extended family that lives on family lands.

So could they not live on family lands as U.S. citizens? Yes, technically speaking, here I am a U.S. citizen. There are many of us who are U.S. citizens. We could live on family lands. We do live on family lands.

Right. So, so what I want to understand, like, what is it about granting U.S. citizenship, birthright U.S. citizenship to Samoans? I guess I have to paint the picture even more. And then he explained to me that there's a law in American Samoa that says you have to be 50% blood, Samoan blood, to own land. Like, even if a Samoan person wanted to sell me or like give me their land, they couldn't by law. Right.

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 the law says anyone born here is a U.S. citizen. So this person here from China builds a business, becomes a wealthy businessman from China. And one day he wants to buy land here.

And the laws say, well, no, we can't sell you these lands. But he says, no, I want to buy that land and I have the right to buy that land. That's what I'm talking about. That's the threat.

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 U.S. 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. 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, 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.

It's worth pointing out that American Samoa has one of the highest rates of military enlistment of any U.S. state or territory. They say the Pledge of Allegiance at school in the morning. They learn U.S. history, learn about the U.S. Constitution. But this is still our home, right? And we still have to protect it. Do you think what's happening here, the land, the curfews, this sort of thing, do you think it's unconstitutional?

I can give you literature that says it's repugnant to the U.S. Constitution. So you do think it's unconstitutional? No, 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. Coming up next,

That balancing act that he's doing, the sort of weighing of things, which, well, tough. Yeah. Well, that's going to get a lot more personal after the break. Hey, I'm Chad Ibumrod. I'm Robert Krolwich. Radio Lab. We are back with Julia Longoria's story about, well, the question before us is, should people born in American Samoa be

Be automatically citizens of the United States of America. That's the question. Just because they're born there. Exactly. And before the break, we heard about some land ownership laws that are... Constitutionally... Questionable. Yes. Yeah. And the more people I talk to, the more tangled the reality of blood laws for land ownership got.

Because you kind of run out of people to marry. So, okay, first, just like, say your name. Genevieve Bettina Gregg. I talked to this one woman, Genevieve Gregg, who runs a tour company there. And how long have you lived here?

my whole life, except for seven years I lived in California. And one of the first things she told me was... It's, I have a feeling that I'm like, this island's so small, who are you going to marry, right? So basically there has to be intermarriage. Yeah, there you go. The running joke here is like,

When I get two invitations for the same wedding, then we know, oh, there we go. That's a family member. I have a family member. And this is the best they say, don't they? No, I'm just kidding. Oh, man.

Now, Genevieve herself... Her mom is half Samoan.

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. She says she, like, realized she was white one time at a bar in California when someone was like... You're like the whitest girl in the bar. Like, okay, never mind. Whatever that means, let's go. And it's funny, at one point, we pick up her friend. What's up? Told you I look like crap. What the heck?

Okay, so this is Julia. Hi. Hi. Whose name is Tumai Snow, goes by Mai. We call her the white girl. We do. Mai is actually way darker skinned than Genevieve, but she grew up in California and talks like she's from the States. She barely speaks Samoan and she's white. She's so white. I do speak Samoan. What does that mean? Sorry.

That's the Samoan word for white person. Wait a second, I'm a little confused. What's... Who's Wu now? The point is, Mai is 100% blood Samoan. But she's not a white person.

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% Samoan blood, because we're not 50%, she can't technically own land in American Samoa. Her mom recently passed away and tried to bequeath land to her and her sisters. Even if it was written in

in a will that it was us we inherited it, we can't get it because we're not 50%. And this blood law affects Mai because of her son, Samuel. Samuel having a rough day. Who she brought along in the car. I've never seen him do that. He's just so cute. Mai took away his video game and he freaked out. What's going on? I'm in a full on meltdown over here. Oh my gosh. Yes, my son died

He's drama, so... As you can see. Anyway, it affects her son because his dad is American without one drop of Samoan blood. This kid is Afokasi right now. Afokasi is half-Cas. So Samuel's kids will only be able to own land if he has them with a half or full-blood Samoan. So, like, I made a joke the other night. I'm like, well, I guess he's gonna have to marry Samoan.

You have to marry someone. Just have some more kids. You can marry a white girl if you want. Like, Mom, I got my glasses pregnant. Is she still a woman? That's okay. 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. Yeah, it's my first marriage, so kind of cool. Yeah.

Are you planning on a second? I don't know. We'll see how good she is. But same-sex marriage is not legal in American Samoa. We couldn't be...

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 of years of really rocky relationship. And then, yeah,

So here you've got Genevieve and Mai, 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 Mai's son could have kids with whoever he wants to, and maybe Genevieve down the road could marry whoever she wants to. Do you wish you could get married here? Um, yes and no. I mean, see, I don't have the same views as other gay people, like...

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 I'm, like, trying to think about, like, growing up, I'm like, oh, being a U.S. 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. So... That doesn't matter here.

Our here is, we have a Matai system, so all that stuff is out the fucking door. It doesn't matter. We are freedom of speech until they say, shh, I'm speaking. Do not speak. Go get coffee for everybody. So that, yeah, that doesn't take place here, dude.

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. Are you a U.S. citizen or are you... National. National. Yay! I'm proud of it! Come on!

We have land that an American cannot get. 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 the Constitution would be enforced? The Matai's government couldn't deny you those things? Who would enforce it? People could sue in federal court. And enforce that? Yeah. Yeah.

Before Ma'i moved here, she was living in California. She married an American, bought a house. Nothing here. Nothing. What changed?

What changed? Yeah, like in you. Like, did you notice something change in you? 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 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 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 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 i was so blinded so blinded by what life truly should be is live life we live life every day here and i love it

I love it. And it, like a lot of that, is a lot of that like the fact that you do have land, like you own land? Yep, all of it. But at the same time, they did both agree that these land ownership laws about blood are kind of messed up.

And Charlie Ala-Elima, the lawyer on that citizenship case we mentioned, that's what he thinks too. I mean, they all know it's stupid. Genevieve actually asked him to help try to get her mom's land. That's this whole citizenship case again, you know.

that somehow you're special down here, that you're entitled and able to do a lot of these things that are patently unconstitutional. And even worse, in my mind, it's un-Samoan. 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.

So there was a case actually two years ago. And I tried to explain to Mai 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, quote, possessions inhabited by alien races, and said they were unfit for Anglo-Saxon legal traditions. He thought it was very racist and he wanted the U.S. government...

Go ahead. I'm sorry. Finish. Go ahead. Yeah, to explain that because he feels like Samoans are in a limbo a little bit legally. Well, let's go back to the 1900s and to figure out what the U.S. government has to say about this. Jesus Christ. Move on with your life. What is he doing? Is he at home right now? Let's go. Let's go. Cash count confessional. Another person to pick up. Is he working? Did we find him?

And honestly, leaving the car with those two, it did make me wonder how common is their perspective on the island?

So, my name's Julia Longoria. I spent a bunch of time wandering around over the next couple days, taking a very informal poll. Do you mind if I ask you a couple questions? Is that okay? If it were put to a vote, would you make American Samoans automatic citizens? Would you vote to become a U.S. citizen? No. And at first, it seemed like it was just a lot of

No. Because I always got to be mindful of what happened to Guam when the states took over Guam. We're truly blessed in the sense that we were able to keep our culture, our land. This one Samoan veteran... My name is Chief Pulu. ...with the Make America Great Again baseball cap... I support the president of the United States. ...told me... I don't want to be a U.S. citizen. I'd rather be a U.S. national. I don't want a Japanese or a Chinese. And I'm a...

And then, interestingly, at McDonald's...

I think that's a great idea because that's going to be fair. I got only yeses. I think that would be great because gay marriage... When vaffafine, as they're called, which are men at birth but end up dressing like women... Here we do have partners, we do live with them, but... Who are kind of accepted in society, but they're just not allowed to marry who they want to marry. It's not recognized by law.

But that's totally okay in the U.S. And in particular, when I talked to immigrants from Korea, China, the Philippines, Tonga, most of them wanted citizenship. Easier, better, you know, citizenship is automatically granted. Of course, why not? I wish, I wish, I wish. Maybe God help me.

For the non-American nationals, they probably think, oh, wow, that would be great if they become citizens. And this is something else that Charlie Alalima brought up with me. I guess you had kind of started to talk about injustices here that are kind of swept under the rug without citizenship. I think mostly it is how immigration will be handled. 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. 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 and if the U.S. Immigration Service comes down and actually imposes the laws and the requirements of foreigners coming to work here, right, then you would probably see change. Hmm.

I'm just curious, as you were doing these interviews, how are you processing all this? 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. Welcome. Thank you. I'm Candyman, Tisa's partner. Very nice to meet you. Her name is Tisa Famuli.

Hello, I'm the infamous Tisa woman from the famous Barefoot Bar in the South Pacific. She runs Tisa's Barefoot Bar. It's a series of fales, or grass-roof wooden structures on stilts. This structure, I built this. Me and the canning man built this. It's beautiful. Thank you. You like it? Yeah. It's pretty magical. 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 step out onto the sand in the morning. And every shell moved. It was bursting with life. Oh, is this where the pictures came? Yeah. Those pictures are crazy. Incredible. I spend most of the time here. No, I travel a little bit. I've been around. I've traveled.

She has flags from different countries and states hanging up in her bar.

And she has a unique perspective on American Samoa. I don't know. I just am so disappointed 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 a tendency to think Westerners.

Tisa told me she went to the U.S. mainland for the first time when she was 16 years old. So she went to live with her aunt in San Diego to go to high school there in the late 60s. I ended up...

following the Black Panthers. The Black Panthers had arrived in San Diego by that time. I was curious. I said, okay, what are these people? Because all I hear is bad stuff. Black Panther Party is simply the vanguard of the revolution. I went to their meetings often. Newspapers were passed out, posters posted where the Black people were gathering. And we planned to teach the people the necessary tools to liberate themselves. To 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, including Samoans like me,

to go to college, and I did. And she says she also sat in on meetings in the women's movement. The women's movement was full on. Equal rights, equal rights to have a job, to have respect, not be viewed as a piece of meat. My whole purpose of hanging around whenever these big rallies, I listen, I watch, just learn and make a note, learn and make a note.

And sitting there in the back of those meetings, inevitably... I keep thinking about home. I come from a little tiny island. She began to think... Men control their wives, their children, their daughters have no right to speak up. The way things work at home just isn't just...

There was so much injustice here for women. The fact that women were not chiefs. 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. But Tisa in her 20s decided she would come back. 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.

And she brought those lessons back home. When I came back, I was very vocal. I spoke out. I never backed out from any man. And so when I ran for governor... So she ran for office? 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. And the chiefs? My dad's cousins. He was a governor, and he brought all the clan, you know, big who's who, the big chiefs, the big boys. They came to dad and asked him, if you will please tell your daughter not to run for governor because that's what chiefs do.

And my father told him, well, she's her own person. She's going to do whatever she wants, and she can do that. She has those rights, and I'm not going to tell her no. I loved him forever for that. But he didn't like me because I was not the daughter that I was supposed to be. I was very vocal, with a very strong voice in the company, and they hear me. Did you win?

Oh, no. Are you serious? I would never win. But I was very vocal. I was just out there. I did not care. I won it because I learned from America you have the right to speak. And that was very big for me. And so she believes she's like the one reason why I'm proud to be an American is that we have rights. Because some part of the Constitution protects our rights.

So, again, here we have a person who you'd think would absolutely support Charlie's fight to get American Samoans U.S. citizenship. But... No, I hope not. It's not a good idea. At the end of the day, it's still the wrong thing to address. She said it's not worth it. Wow.

No way. So it's not worth it because... For one, she thinks, you know, American Samoans are already running off to the U.S. to find what they think is going to be a better life. And U.S. citizenship would probably make that drain on the island even worse. And then for life on the island... There are other parts of my culture I need to protect. And it outweighs my need to be a U.S. 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 a very system that's keeping us alive and together. I guess I'm wondering, like, what about the communal system do you think would definitely go away? You know, like, what is it about the communal system like that is completely incompatible with being a citizen?

The Western ways is individualism. It's about individuals' 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 going to disrupt that village. It's already doing that. Why? People who move in and cite their rights. I have the rights. I have my rights.

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 these people come in they look at us we lost our minds and there's conflict there it clashes everything foreign has clashed already with us 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

Well, a lot of them don't own any real land. They're just here. They pass through transits, a lot of transits. Yeah, but if the land was still preserved, you know what I mean? It's a joke. I've seen all the land that's been preserved. The government turn them over and sell and make profit. That's been proven. All right. You have some interesting things to put out there. She spent time with the Black Panthers, ran for office, and still feels that somehow the, uh...

existential threat to the island's culture overrules those rights? I don't know. 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. I spent two Sundays in American Samoa.

I went to church services. Not everybody goes to church, but the island is about 98% Christian. And many people told me it's the center of Fa 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 U.S. tends to come with its own set of rights and responsibilities. And it struck me 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 their survival.

So I went back to Charlie Alai Lima. So I actually talked to Dan Anga. What was his position? Yeah, so he, do you mind if I turn this off? And I told him what Tisa had told me and Dan Anga had told me. Dan Anga was like, basically like Hawaii is a cautionary tale. Hawaii is a cautionary tale. And it's interesting because, you know, what he means then is I don't trust America.

That's what that means. And he told me he doesn't think that this community would necessarily have to change. Cautionary tale of a history that happened 110 years ago. Okay, that was 110 years ago America was like that. Have they changed? Significantly. Is Jim Crow around anymore? Are the ideas, you know, you know...

But the real question is, do you trust the U.S. 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. He was like, we Samoans need to make a decision about who we are, if we want to be part of the U.S. or not. There shouldn't be this in-between. I have trust in the government.

I have trust, you know, ultimate trust in the, 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 going to say, I forget it. Do you think what would make you lose that faith? What would make me lose that faith?

I don't know. We'll see you in this election. We'll see you in the next few election cycles. Producer Julia Longoria.

This story was reported and produced by Julia. Also, special thanks to Sam Ehrman, whose book Almost Citizens tells the story of Isabel Gonzalez. Doug Mack, author of The Not Quite States of America, which helped inspire the story. And to Belinda Torres-Mary and John Torres and the Torres family for welcoming us to their home.

home. And thank you to Pongo Pongo Tours. Oh, I'd like to say thank you again to Pongo Pongo Tradewind Tours. Oh, yes. Thank you. I forgot the tradewind. And Fenena Ada and her family. And to Justin Manga. Professor Daniel Hall and David Herdrick. Neil Weir and Equally American, which is his organization. Yeah. And it's time to sail off, I think, right? It is. Okay. Okay. So we'll see you the next time. Yeah. I'm Jad Abumrad. I'm Robert Grillwich. Thanks for listening.

Radio Lab was created by Jad Abumrad and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasir are our co-hosts. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design.

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