US territories confront American identity amid 250th, Iran war

Kevin Méndez can still smell the scent of freshly baked bread wafting out of his local panadería.

He still hears the nighttime chirps of the coqui frog and pictures the skateboard-toting children crowding palm-tree-lined streets at the end of a school day.

When he closes his eyes, he dreams of his slice of America.

Méndez left his hometown, Fajardo, Puerto Rico, in 2020 to teach high school English in Maryland.But since the move, he said he’s felt more than ever like an outsider. 

“People view Puerto Rico as kind of an object," the 29-year-old said. "It has the tropical vibes that people can go visit, but at the end of the day, they see it as lesser than.” 

The lack of understanding makes him question his sense of belonging.  

“I know that I'm a part of America, but I feel even more Puerto Rican living in the U.S.,” he said. 

As the United States celebrates 250 years of independence, residents from the nation’s five inhabited territories told USA TODAY they feel perpetually conflicted about their identity as Americans, given their distinct cultures and lack of full legal rights.  

Some expressed a desire for greater sovereignty and said recent U.S. military operations in Venezuela and Iran have rekindled long-simmering concerns about their lack of political representation in the federal government. 

The U.S. territories consistently have the highest rates of military enlistment per capita anywhere in the United States. 

Signs of the country’s growing military presence abroad can be felt in Puerto Rico through the rumblings of military aircrafts overhead; in the Virgin Islands through the sight of Navy ships offshore; in Guam through the influx of troops stationed on its bases; in the Northern Marianas Islands through the construction of new military training infrastructure; and in American Samoa through murmurs of the deployment of loved ones.  

Those living on the islands say the increased military operations have brought fears about security, environmental degradation and economic trouble.  

“To the mainland, we might be seen as a strategic asset. We might be seen as the tip of the spear," said Dean Manglona, who lives on the island of Rhoda in the Northern Marianas. "But to us, this is home.”

The chain of 14 islands lies 6,000 miles west of Los Angeles and serves as a defense hub in the Pacific. The territory often feels an outsized impact from the “tremors” of “geopolitical pivots,” Manglona said. 

A unique American status

Sprinkled throughout the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean, the American territories are often advertised as vacation spots – tropical paradises surrounded by white sand beaches and turquoise blue waters, with five-star resorts dotting their coasts.  

Each has its own history and culture. The majority populations range from Afro-Caribbean and Latino to Asian, Pacific Islander and Indigenous.  

They each face unique challenges – the Northern Marianas’ fragile economy, American Samoa’s shrinking population, Puerto Rico’s housing crisis, the U.S. Virgin Islands’ frequent power outages and Guam’s infrastructure strain. 

Their relationships with the United States also vary. Residents of American Samoa, for instance, are considered U.S. nationals, not U.S. citizens, and lack rights given to other territories.  

Yet some see the problems these territories face as complications of the government structure under which they exist. The five territories are among 17 regions across the world, the United Nations says should be granted self-determination or independence. 

“We occupy a very interesting place in the American imagination, but also in the global imagination,” said Hadiyah Sewer, director of the Virgin Islands Caribbean Cultural Center. “Because the U.S. is viewed as a beacon of democracy ... it becomes difficult to fully grapple with the position of U.S. territories today.” 

Annexation of the territories in the late 19^th and early 20^th century followed a history of U.S. expansionism that began with Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Unlike other lands that eventually gained statehood, the islands were given no guarantee of eventual political equality.

They were added as “unincorporated territories,” a framework created by the Supreme Court through a series of early 20th-century decisions that limited the constitutional protections given to the predominantly Black, Asian and Indigenous islands. 

As part of its reasoning, the court argued the territories were “inhabited by alien races, differing from us in religion, customs, laws, methods of taxation, and modes of thought.” 

Legal scholars in recent years have suggested the legal framework used by the Supreme Court in the Insular Cases was racist and contrary to the Constitution. In 2022, Trump-appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch argued the decisions rested on “racial stereotypes,” and “deserve no place in our law.” That same year, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case asking it to overturn the Insular Cases.  

Sewer, who has been involved in discussions about the nation’s 250th anniversary, said the territories, with their distinctive legal status, serve as “spaces where we can understand the limits of democracy,” amid the year's celebrations.  

What does it mean to be American?

Anne Perez Hattori remembers studying U.S. history textbooks, putting together puzzle maps of the 50 states and learning about maple trees and squirrels in science classes in elementary school. 

The textbooks never mentioned her home, Guam. The puzzles didn’t stretch wide enough to show its location in the Pacific Ocean, closer to New Zealand than the mainland United States. And Hattori never saw deciduous trees or the puffy-tailed rodents outside her window.  

“From the time we're born, we learn we're American citizens and we go to school and we're using just standard U.S. textbooks, but you're not in any of the books,” Hattori said. “As you become an adult, you're just kind of used to this disconnection.” 

Hattori saw the United States' influence on the island and its culture, as shirts from Macy’s and K-Mart began replacing the handsewn clothes her mother hung in her closet, and the Chamorro people, indigenous to the land, increasingly relied on processed foods like Spam, amid military encroachment of farmlands.

Today, the U.S. military occupies roughly a third of the island's land, and its presence is growing. The military has, over the last decade, been constructing a new base to relocate 5,000 Marines from Japan to Guam. The number of active-duty troops in the territory is expected to grow from a 2024 level of 17,000 to nearly 24,000 by 2033. 

The military presence has shaped life on the island. Julie Noreene Bautista moved to Guam from the Philippines when she was 12, after her family received citizenship. In high school, she remembers almost all of her peers taking the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, an aptitude test for enlistment eligibility. Recruiters often chatted to her about joining the Air Force.  

“Because there aren't that many job opportunities on Guam, there's high rates of enlistment in the military straight out of high school,” Hattori said. “Pretty much every family I know has at least one person in the military. It's just standard, it's the norm.”  

The same is true for many of the territories. The military does not routinely publish enlistment numbers in the territories, but as of 2022, American Samoa had the highest rate of military enlistment of any state or territory, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. 

'Tip of the sphere'

Sabrina Suluai-Mahuka grew up in Pago Pago, the capital of American Samoa, on a mountain “covered in lush greenery” and naturally growing fruits and vegetables, like avocados and mangos.  

About half of her family has served in the military in some capacity, including her husband and two of her siblings. People join, she said, to show their pride in being American. 

“We know what it means to be loyal to our sovereign nation, and our commitment to the U.S. is taken very seriously,” Suluai-Mahuka said. “Any global conflict that happens, it might be done thousands of miles away, but for us it's not an abstract concept. It’s personal because so many of our loved ones are serving.” 

None of the five territories have seen specific threats as a result of the war in Iran. Although they’re far from the conflict, people living in the territories say they feel vulnerable, both in terms of security risks and economic impacts. 

“During times like these, we are especially mindful that some of our service members, both active duty and reservists, may be called upon to answer the nation's call once again,” American Samoa Gov. Pulaali’i Nikolao Pula said in a March 4 statement. 

Like the mainland United States, gas prices in the Pacific territories rose more than a $1 in some places, with residents of Guam paying close to $6 a gallon. Military bases on Guam and the Northern Marianas Islands increased their threat level after the initial attacks on Feb. 28.  

“We're considered the tip of the spear for American military influence,” said Galvin DeLeon Guerrero, president of Northern Marianas College. He was referring to comments Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth made during a trip to Guam last March in which he told troops they were at the “front of the formation” of the military.  

During a time of war, DeLeon Guerrero and others in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, or CNMI, said its hard not to feel like the territories are taken for granted. 

“There's a reason why we are a U.S. territory. We were basically a bargaining chip ... to serve as a form of national security,” said Victoria Simone Bellas, who works for the CNMI governor’s office. 

The CNMI, she said, has petitioned Congress for years to pass legislation improving travel access to the territory. Most flights to Saipan, the capital of the Northern Marianas, from the mainland United States require a layover in Japan.  

The issue has gained some traction among members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who have said it affects service members and contractors who resupply the military bases. But that has led people to question why the need for flights wasn't taken more seriously "when it was just for the people of the CNMI," Simone Bellas said.

“We are very supportive of the relationship. I think people are still trying to understand how that is reciprocated.” 

Divides over sovereignty and statehood

Conversations about local relations with the United States can be contentious in the territories.

“It's one of those issues you avoid at parties because people are going to get into arguments,” Hattori, from Guam, joked.  

Most people USA TODAY spoke with said their neighbors widely viewed their association with the United States positively. They talked about the benefits of having a U.S. passport, access to federal funding and opportunities to move throughout the country.  

“People look at the U.S. as really our economic lifeline,” Hattori said. “There's this strong feeling locally that if the U.S. wasn't here, we would just starve to death, we would just be completely without resources.” 

Those sentiments differ by generation, though, and come with caveats. Many people, Hattori said, resent the territories' lack of representation in Congress. Military decisions about the island, she said, are made without their consent.  

Calls for independence often come from younger generations, who believe the military instillations “endanger” the island’s residents. Meanwhile, the “older generation, they feel like, if the U.S. isn't here, then we could just get invaded any day,” Hattori said.  

Similar generational divides exist in Puerto Rico, where conversations about whether the territory should seek statehood or independence have been ongoing for decades. In a nonbinding 2020 referendum, Puerto Ricans voted in favor of statehood 52% to 47%.

More recently, popstar Bad Bunny alluded to ideas of Puerto Rican independence and sovereignty during his Super Bowl halftime show, which garnered more than 4 billion views. Even with the spotlight, Méndez said the debate feels futile.

“A lot of people want to be a state, a lot of people want to be independent,” he said. “We don't really get to decide.” 

Karissa Waddick covers America's 250th anniversary for USA TODAY. She an be reached at [email protected].