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> The local American Samoan government has before taken a nuanced view over the issue, given concern about how aspects of Samoan life and culture “would be jeop
by spraak 9y ago
> The local American Samoan government has before taken a nuanced view over the issue, given concern about how aspects of Samoan life and culture “would be jeopardized if subjected to scrutiny under the 14th Amendment,” according to court documents filed in 2014 by lawyers representing the government
I wonder why the government wouldn't want that, and what ways they think it would jeopardize the culture.
- norikki 9y ago> Land Ownership > About 90 percent of the land is communally owned by aiga. The existing tenure law on communal lands prohibits alienation of any real property except freehold land to any person whose blood is less that one-half Samoan. Unless the Governor approves the transfer in writing, it is unlawful for any matai of a Samoan family to alienate any family lands to any person or lease it for any term more than 55 years. ASG estimates that 1.5625 square miles of American Samoa's total area of 76.1 square miles are freehold land. https://www.doi.gov/oia/islands/american-samoa https://www.doi.gov/oia/islands/american-samoa You probably don't realize it, but projecting European values and customs onto other peoples is a form of white supremacy. There is nothing universal about the way European countries and their former colonies govern themselves. It is quite reasonable that many non-European people would want to be governed by principles incompatible with ours as Americans.
- throw_away 9y agoI was curious as well and I think I figured it out: https://books.google.com/books?id=e_tKDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA87&lpg=PA87&dq=fa%27asamoa+14th+amendment&source=bl&ots=MiAI5AUD_D&sig=_89O3HcHT4jICb6am-0AM-DAYbU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwialJ7-vo_aAhVO6mMKHcrPCw8Q6AEIfTAH#v=onepage&q=fa'asamoa%2014th%20amendment&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=e_tKDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA87&lpg=P... American Samoa has laws that say that only American Samoans can own land or be a member of their local government. What the 14th Amendment may give them in terms of US citizenship, the 14th Amendment takes away with regard to these exclusionary laws.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> What the 14th Amendment may give them in terms of US citizenship, the 14th Amendment takes away with regard to these exclusionary laws. Except it doesn't. Even if the term “United States” in the first clause might be argued to include the whole territory of the nation called the “United States” and not just specifically the constituent states (which is the crux of the citizenship argument), that doesn't imply that the word “State” in the remainder of the Amendment means something other than the individual states of the Union. And all the restrictions are of the form “No State shall...”
- roywiggins 9y agoI know that Constitutional protections don't apply in their entirety in Puerto Rico, so I imagine there's ways in which it has been construed similarly in American Samoa. If it's not an incorporated territory (just an island the US happens to own), they are treated differently.
- jcranmer 9y agoPuerto Rico is, like American Samoa, an unincorporated territory. Well, the government doesn't consider it incorporated, although some legal scholars suggest that Congress did end up incorporating it at some point via accumulation of various acts (the argument has not, to my knowledge, been tried in court).
- kolpa 9y agoCongress might still "subject AS to scrutiny" and pass laws to bring AS in line with States' obligations.
- dragonwriter 9y agoCongress can do almost whatever it wants with any territory (subject to much less limits than apply to Congres action against states), but the 14th Amendment doesn't really have anything to do with that.
- 9y ago