"The story of the U.S. Territories is the story of a nation that really, truly believes itself to be exceptional but also can't make up its mind what, exactly, that means. More powerful or more just?" (207)
Doug Mack, author of The Not-Quite States of America: Dispatches from the Territories and other Far Flung Outposts of the USA, began his project to write this book when he realized how little he knew about the territories and how little has been written about them when he attempted to do some research.
Everyone knows that America is 50 states and ... some other stuff. Scattered shards in the Pacific and the Caribbean, the not-quite states -- American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands -- and their four million people are often forgotten, even by most Americans. But they are filled with American flags, U.S. post offices, Little League baseball games, and residents who serve in the U.S. military at high rates (Book jacket).
How and why did these lands come to be U.S. territories? What are they like and what rules govern their existences as territories? And why aren't they states? These are the questions to Doug Mack set out to answer when he decided to visit all five of the territories and to do some comparisons between the territories themselves back in the mid 2010s.
Starting with a visit to the largest island in the US Virgin Islands, St. Croix, Mack began his tour of the islands, crossing over to the Pacific before ending up back in the Caribbean in Puerto Rico as his last stop in the tour of territories.
Here are a few things I gleaned from the book:
- Guano first. Back in the late 1800s American farmers were anxious to locate fertilizers for their fields. Why not mine islands for their bird poop (guano)? So began the hunt for territories which could supply the noxious goop.
- Ultimately the nineteenth century expansionist push was to show the world that we were a real-deal power.
- Court cases, known as the Insular cases, set up the scene for "foreign in a domestic sense." Of the five territories, all are governed by different sets of rules from each other and from our constitution. It is so confusing I won't even try to explain (probably because I don't understand the differences myself.)
- After WWII and since we reached 50 states with the admission of Hawaii and Alaska the territories have faded from view --ignorance and silence has bred more ignorance and silence (250).
- The people in the territories haven't been able to make up their minds about their political status. Most people Mack spoke to felt that statehood would mean a more stable economic status but it would come at a loss of their culture and the life they enjoy. I got a sense of inertia, why change the status quo?
- When something does happen in one of the territories that makes the news, such as a hurricane in Puerto Rico, the reporting often makes it sound like what is happening is in a foreign country. In fact, a non-voting member of Congress from American Samoa was once introduced as the representative from "American Somalia." Even members of Congress speak about members of the territories as aliens.
- "In 1900 we talked about the territories because they had the potential to be states, but when the Insular Cases effectively shut that door, they continue to be not-quite states, and our attention has waned" (252).
I decided to read The Not-Quite States of America because I set myself a challenge to read a book from every states and territory last year and I was down to missing only one state (South Dakota) and four of the territories. Why not knock off four areas with one book? After reading this, however, I determined to go ahead and read a fiction selection set in the territories or a nonfiction memoir written by a person from the territory. I learned factual stuff from this book but I felt disconnected from the heart issues at hand. For example the poetry book I read, From Unincorporated Territory by Craig Santos Perez, I learned more about Guam and about what makes its people tick than I did from reading this book. However, I didn't understand the title of the poetry book until I read this one! See my challenge to read a book set in all 50 states and territories.
My rating 3.5 stars.
