Context of Islands

American Samoa is the only permanently inhabited unorganized US territory, meaning it remains under the total control of the President and lacks an official organic act from Congress, despite attempts to pass one. We trace the islands’ history from their strategic value for Western vessels to the 1899 Tripartite Convention that divided the Samoan archipelago between Germany and […]

The United States Virgin Islands have a unique and challenging constitutional status as an unincorporated territory acquired from Denmark in 1917. While the territory has a self-sufficient governmental structure similar to a US state, it lacks its own constitution and is not fully protected by the US Constitution due to rulings in the Insular Cases. These historical Supreme Court decisions, based...

Guam is a United States territory with deep historical ties and an undeniable strategic significance for American military power projection in the Pacific. Its citizens are American, and its culture is heavily influenced by the military, yet they lack the full federal political rights afforded to citizens in the states. This creates a complex dynamic […]

Most people think of Puerto Rico as a single island—but it’s actually an archipelago made up of over 140 islands, including the often-overlooked Culebra and Vieques. In our first episode, we dive into the geography, history, and political importance of these smaller islands, exploring how their experiences with US military occupation, protest, and neglect mirror […]