How American are American Samoans? :: History Samoans Samoan Essays

How American ar American Samoans? Since the nineteenth century, historians have defined three major waves of American immigration in particular from countries in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. In the case of American Samoans, the native existence of the United States Territory of American Samoa, emigration from these islands began in the 1950s. However, unlike some other ethnic groups, like the Mexicans and Chinese, who were also arriving in the U.S. around the same period, American Samoa was already part of the union for nearly 50 years, yet, the natives desire to transmigrate to Hawaii and the mainland seemed to surface slowly. Although explanations for this delay in the movement of American Samoans atomic number 18 complex, historians have argued that besides the growth in curiosity and adventure of the impertinent world, American Samoans were forced to leave their homes because they simply had no other secondary to choose from. With the involvement of the United Stat es, especially that of the U.S. Navy, the Samoans grew dependent on the resources, protection, and scotch prosperity that the American foreigners introduced and continued to provide from the time of the cession of the islands in 1900. When the U.S. naval base, which was established in Pago Pago, the current capital city, was relocated to Hawaii in the early 1950s, work in American Samoa was limited and the natives were non willing nor prepared to return to farm and agricultural work. As migration to the mainland became much appealing to the islanders, their American Samoan status as U.S. Nationals was, (and continues to be to this day), enigmatic and somewhat contradictory to the policies of American citizenship. As American Samoans have discovered, U.S. Nationals are granted privileges such as entrance to the United States. However, American citizenship is non part of the package, which greatly limits the political voice of these natives. To understand the disrupted social, po litical, and economical state in which the American government left American Samoa with the shutdown of its naval base, a brief historical overview of the Samoan archipelago is necessary, which will debate the appeal of the islands and its location to foreign powers, U.S. diplomacy, and the push and pull for migration to the U.S. mainland. Samoan hoi polloi are known for their rich culture and heritage, but the history of their islands is nigh unknown. From 1870 to 1914, countries like Germany, France, the U.