Almanac

American Samoa


Del. Eni F.H. Faleomavaega (D)

American Samoa, the only American territory south of the Equator, has been relatively little influenced by Western settlers and remains almost as Polynesian today as it was when the United States took possession in 1900 at the request of tribal chiefs. These seven islands with a hot and rainy climate are 2,300 miles southwest of Hawaii, 1,600 miles northeast of New Zealand. American Samoa has 57,000 people, 90% of them on the island of Tutuila, 89% of them Polynesian, mostly Christian (50% Congregationalist, 20% Catholic); they are U.S. nationals but not U.S. citizens; they can serve in the U.S. military, but not as officers. An estimated 50,000 Samoans live on the U.S. mainland and 20,000 in Hawaii, including Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann. American Samoa’s population has doubled in the last 20 years, and fear that outsiders will change the culture has prompted some demands for stricter immigration standards. American Samoa is an unincorporated territory administered by the Interior Department since 1951; minimum wages have been set for industries by the U.S. Department of Labor. American Samoa elects a governor and a two-house legislature known as the Fono. It is a bilingual society and government: Government is mostly conducted in English, Fono proceedings are in Samoan, and court sessions are conducted in English with each sentence then translated into Samoan.

The market economy has not made much progress here: American Samoa lives off the federal government, which contributed 60% of its government revenues in fiscal year 2004, plus varying amounts for construction (the Army in 2002 pitched in $1 million for a 55-year lease of six acres at Pago Pago Airport for a Reserve County), and two big StarKist and Chicken of the Sea tuna canneries, which employ 5,150 workers and provide one-third of all U.S. canned tuna. Another 4,000 work for the American Samoan government, most at $7.99 an hour. Residents are eligible for U.S. food stamps and welfare; local agriculture is minimal and sheltered (the territorial government in 2000 wanted to quadruple tariffs on bananas and taro). The bedrock of the local economy is the territorial government. Congressional Democrats excluded American Samoa from their 2007 minimum wage increase, although Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands were included; this was done at the request of American Samoa’s Delegate Eni Faleomavaega, who cited much lower-wage competition from Thailand. House Republicans attacked the Democrats as hypocritical and noted that StarKist is headquartered in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s district, though there was nothing to suggest that Pelosi was doing the company any favors.

Tourism has been minimal: Governor Togiola Tulafono says he hopes to develop “controlled tourism in a way that won’t affect our fragile environment.” The first McDonalds opened in 2000, followed by a Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Quality Inn. A second McDonalds was proposed in 2005 on Utelei Beach, with a playground and a traditional Samoan fala (house), but was opposed by the Senate which sued to force Tulafono to seek legislative approval.

One cause celebre is the renaming of nearby Samoa, formerly British Samoa and Western Samoa. The single name suggests to many in American Samoa that they are regarded as not full Samoans, and the legislature threatened not to recognize Samoan passports—a problem, since 85% of the cannery work force is from Samoa. Similarly, residents of American Samoa must have visas to visit Samoa. Tulafono would like to have controls over immigration. As he said in 2005, “The problem we have is everyone wants to come to American Samoa and we don’t have much land and can be overcrowded very easily. But our people that go from here to Samoa, even people with Samoan ties, they’re very slow in camping out over there and not coming back, so we inherit the problem and they don’t.”

But if American Samoans are proud Samoans, they are also proud Americans: On April 17, 2000, they celebrated the 100th anniversary of the American takeover, with a 60-foot American flag raised on Sogelau Hill, where the American flag was first raised; there was traditional singing and dancing at Veterans Stadium and a long boat race in Pago Pago Harbor, and a commemorative stamp was unveiled showing a Samoan alia (two-hull canoe) sailing in easterly winds near Suniatu Mountain in the Manu’a island group. And Samoans have become devoted to one staple of American life: football. The island has six high school football teams and a 5,000-seat stadium where just about everyone comes to cheer. The style of play is aggressive, with lots of body contact. Of 900 boys who graduated from high school in 2002 and 2003, 97 left the island to play at four- or two-year colleges in the mainland; 41 players of Samoan descent were listed on NFL rosters in 2007. In contrast, American Samoa is not much given to soccer; FIFA ranked it the very last team in the runup to the 2006 World Cup.

American Samoa does not cast electoral votes for president, but does send delegates to the parties’ national conventions. In February 2000, George W. Bush won four delegates in a caucus. In March 2000, Al Gore beat Bill Bradley by 21–4—those are not percentages, but the actual number of votes; Bradley got one convention vote split between four delegates. On March 8, 2004, John Kerry got 2.5 convention votes divided between 5 delegates and Dennis Kucinich got the remaining half-vote from the sixth delegate. The week before, Bush won all 6 Republican delegates.

Governor Profile

Togiola T.A. Tulafono was sworn in as American Samoa’s governor on April, 7, 2003, after the sudden death of Governor Tauese Sunia March 26. Togiola grew up in American Samoa and after high school graduated from Honolulu Police Academy and worked as a policeman for a year. He graduated from Chadron State College in Nebraska, worked in the American Samoan attorney general’s office and graduated from the Washburn University law school in Topeka, Kansas, and National Judicial College in Reno, Nevada.  He returned to American Samoa, where he practiced law for 20 years and served as a judge and a senator and in a variety of executive posts: administrative assistant to the Secretary of Samoan Affairs, Samoan Assistant to the Attorney General, the first chairman of the American Samoa Power Authority, and the first chairman of the Board of High Education. Togiola was elected lieutenant governor in 1996 and served under Tauese until his 2003 death. In April 2003, one of his first acts as governor was to appoint Treasurer Aitofele Toese Sunia, Tauese’s brother, as lieutenant governor.

As governor, Togiola took action on a number of issues. In December 2003 he issued an order prohibiting shark finning, importing shark fins, prized by many Asians, without the entire shark carcass. In March 2004 he sponsored a statute criminalizing human trafficking, to complement the federal statute under which a Korean garment factory operator was prosecuted in 2001. In April 2004 he said he would appoint a commission to review American Samoa’s relationship to the United States. In July 2004 he expressed concern that all the 200 Army reservists in American Samoa would be called to active duty at the same time. He wrote the Army “asking that they modify that policy to allow for partial deployments.” In December 2004 56 were deployed, including his daughter Olita Tulafono. In the November 2 election, Togiola won 48% of the vote to 39% for Afoa Moega Lutu and 12% for Senator Teo Fuavai. Togiola won the November 16 runoff with 56% of the vote.

In October 2005 Togiola called for controls on immigration from Samoa. “The problem we have is everyone wants to come to American Samoa and we don’t have much land and can be overcrowded very easily. But our people that go from here to Samoa, even people with Samoan ties, they’re very slow in camping out over there and not coming back, so we inherit the problem and they don’t.” He has also drawn notice for his attempt to get a new airline to serve American Samoa. Only Hawaiian Airlines serves American Samoa, with four flights weekly between Pago Pago and Honolulu. Togiola has charged that the airline charges too much and frequently reschedules flights at great inconvenience; he has called for a cut off in air service from Hawaiian Airlines, which receives a federal subsidy under the Essential Air Services program for serving American Samoa. The airline said that the cost of providing service to the territory was high and after Togiola issued an executive order ending service it petitioned the Department of Transportation for declaratory relief.