Samoan Americans

Samoan Americans are Americans of Samoan origin, including those who emigrated from the Independent State of Samoa or American Samoa to the United States. Samoan Americans are Pacific Islanders in the United States Census, and are the second largest Pacific Islander group in the U.S., after Native Hawaiians.

American Samoa has been an unincorporated territory of the United States since 1900, and Samoa, formally known as the Independent State of Samoa and known as Western Samoa until 1997, is an independent nation that gained its independence from New Zealand in 1962. American Samoa (which is under the jurisdiction of the United States of America) and Samoa together make up the Samoan Islands, an archipelago that covers 1,170 sq mi (3,030 km2). Like Hawaiian Americans, the Samoans arrived in the mainland in the 19th century as fishermen and later worked as agricultural laborers and factory workers.

As per 2019 U.S. Census estimates, there are over 200,000 people of Samoan descent living in the United States, including those of partial ancestry, which is roughly the population of the Independent State of Samoa, as of 2019. Honolulu, Hawaii, has the largest Samoan population of 8,500 making up over 2% of the city's population, while Long Beach, California, has the largest population in the mainland United States: one percent of the city's population, or 4,513 people, as of 2010. There are also Samoan communities throughout the state of California. Other states with cities and towns with significant communities are Alaska, Nevada, Texas, Utah, and Washington.

History

Migration from Samoan Islands to the United States began in the 19th century. A small group of Samoans were part of the first Mormon Polynesian colony in the U.S., which was founded in Utah in 1889 and consisted of Samoans, Hawaiian natives, Tahitians, and Maori people. Page 116.

American Samoa officially became a U.S. territory in 1900 with the Treaty of Cession of Tutuila and in 1904 with the Treaty of Cession of Manu'a.

In the 1920s a small group of Mormons from American Samoa emigrated to the modern United States. They were brought by American Mormons to
Laie, Hawaii to assist in building the Mormon Temple of this place.. Page 22. Chapter: ''Pacific Islander and Pacific Islander Americans, 1940-present'', written by Matthew Kester. Page 1177. The community grew over the decade and in 1929 there were already 125 American Samoans living in Laie, but the Samoan migration to Hawaii fell in the following years. It was probably due to the crash of 29, the loss of an important rice field for the community, and the Second World War. In the second half of the 1940s about 300 mostly military families of American Samoans emigrated to the United States specifically to Hawaii. From work ''Samoan Saints: the Samoans in the mormon village of Laie, Hawaii''.

In 1951, nearly 1,000 American Samoans linked with the army (i.e. military personnel and their relatives. Chapter 7. ''From Village to City: Samoan migration to California'', written by Graig R. James. Pages 120-121.) migrated to the Honolulu's American bases by accepting an invitation from the US Navy (which had left its bases in the Pago Pago city, as American Samoa began to be administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior) so that the Marines could continue working for the Navy. However, many of them later migrated to California (in 1952).

In 1952 the natives of American Samoa become U.S. nationals, although not American citizens, through the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952.