Growing up in
American Samoa, Filipo Ilaoa’s neighbors were his cousins on a plot of land full of banana and breadfruit trees shared by his extended family and overseen by a chief elected by his relatives.
“Basically, what it comes down to is freedom — the freedom to own communal land,” said Ilaoa, 66, a retired Marine Corps sergeant major who works at the American Samoa government’s office in Hawaii.
In December, U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups sided with three people from American Samoa who live in
Utah and sued to be recognized as citizens.