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this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2024
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What do the people of Samoa want? As an American I want to know what they want, this is the first in my almost 50 year of life I've even heard the idea. (and about the 10th time total I've heard of them at all - they are not often in the news or discussions)
By contrast Puerto Rico I hear of a lot, but so far as I can tell the people the there are divided and so I guess status quo is just as good/bad as everything else - but this is only because they don't agree on what they want, if they did I'd support it.
Last I heard Puerto Ricans largely supported statehood, not independence.
Lat I heard the independence supporters (claimed!) that the votes were not fair and so they stayed home. I'm not really in position to look into it. I'm all in favor of statehood if they want it.
Long story short, Puerto Rico doesn't want to leave the USA. All of the choices the people tend to sincerely consider (regardless of reason) are some sort of deep relationship with the US mainland, whether statehood, status quo, or Free Association.
That's the long-standing baseline of the past 70 years
Samoa and American Samoa are two different places. Samoa is an internationally recognized nation whereas American Samoa is a US territory. So in this case asking what Samoa wants is equivalent to asking what China wants to happen to Taiwan.
Puerto Ricans are considered US citizens, whereas people from American Samoa not born on a US military base are NOT US citizens. Because the territory is messy, and the politics are complex, because the history is messy and complex. You can thank Germany and the US for that between Samoa and American Samoa.
They are still debating, they were generally ok with the status quo because they were US nationals and thus were not subject to the full constatution, but I haven't checked on Samoa since citizenship was thrust on them, doubt they'd be happy