Samoans Speak Out : Carson Park-Renaming Dispute Is Focus of a Long-Overlooked Minority’s Bid for Recognition

It’s late in the afternoon at Winfield Scott Park in Carson. Street-wise youths are sitting on park tables. Tennis courts are full, and about a dozen kids are practicing flag football on a field shared with a soccer team.

The biggest kids on the field are Samoan. Their size, like that of their elders, is considerable. To the Samoans, that stature is a source of pride. And it draws attention.

Yet, paradoxically, Samoans are among the South Bay’s most overlooked, misunderstood ethnic groups. Driven by poverty from their native islands and largely left out of local politics by a quirk of U.S. law, Samoans who have migrated to Carson and neighboring Compton and Long Beach are battling for an economic and political foothold in America.

This year, that struggle has been marked by an activism largely unseen since Samoans began arriving in significant numbers on the mainland 40 years ago.

First-generation Samoan-Americans have engaged in vitriolic exchanges with Carson officials during the past four months because the city has refused to rename Scott Park for Harry T. Foisia, a longtime city worker and Samoan-American community leader who was revered for his work with troubled youths.

And in Compton, the February shooting deaths of two Samoan brothers by a policeman led to several protests over the city’s failure to charge the officer with a crime. Compton officials in July rejected a $210-million claim by the family of the brothers.

The most visible of the Samoan activists were raised in the United States; they say their community is just beginning to forge an identity amid the myriad of social and cultural challenges of Southern California. Their activism is a marked departure from the low profile taken by their parents.

“Every immigrant community takes a generation or two to get involved in the political system,” said David Barrett Cohen, who is of Samoan and Jewish descent and is a former Republican candidate for the 27th Congressional District, which encompasses parts of the South Bay and Westside. “What you are seeing here is an awakening of the Samoan community.”

In the economic arena, mainland Samoans have had some success stories, the community’s leaders say. Their storied exploits on the gridiron at Carson High School and in college and professional football have earned Samoans national recognition. Currently, in the National Football League alone, 11 players of Samoan descent are listed on team rosters.

But the vast majority of Samoans are still at the bottom of the economic ladder, community leaders note.

Samoans in Southern California suffer disproportionately from poverty and inadequate health care, officials say. Their unemployment, school dropout and youth crime rates are higher than those of most other ethnic groups, said June Pouesi, regional director of Carson’s Office of Samoan Affairs, a private, nonprofit social service agency.

Twenty one percent of the mainland’s Samoan families live below the federal poverty level, according to the latest U.S. Census economic data. The census also reported the average annual family income among mainland Samoans is $14,200, and that only 61.2% have graduated from high school.

Few have medical insurance, said Kazue Shibata, chairwoman of an Asian Pacific Islander health care task force. And because of a lack of bilingual services, many Samoans do not receive adequate health care, she said.

During a countywide measles outbreak two years ago, in which 14 people died, at least seven were Samoan children, Pouesi said. She added, “We’re definitely not a ‘model minority.’ ”

California, more than 4,000 miles from the shores of American Samoa, is home to the largest concentration of Samoans outside of the group of islands that make up the U.S. territory.

Almost as many Samoans live in California (31,917) as in American Samoa (46,773), according to the 1990 Census. Over the last decade, the state’s Samoan population increased 59%.

More than half of the Samoans in Los Angeles County live in Carson, Compton and Long Beach. Most of them came to the United States from rural villages, with little education or technical skills. Additionally, the family-oriented, clannish nature of their culture frequently rubs against the value placed on individualism and material rewards in America. A Samoan millionaire is as hard to find as a Samoan homeless person, one saying among Samoans goes.

“In the islands, wealth is measured by how much you can give to others and how many people you can feed in your home,” said Dhyan Lal, the Fiji-born principal at Carson High School. “Here, it is how much you can gather for yourself and what kind of car you have.”

In addition to their low economic status, a political stumbling block for Samoans is their unusual status as U.S. nationals, rather than citizens.

American Samoans on the mainland are not allowed to vote, a situation that Rep. Eni F. H. Faleomavaega, the nonvoting congressman from American Samoa, called “irritating.”

To obtain the right to vote on the mainland, Samoans must apply for citizenship as if “we are aliens and then go through all the bureaucratic red tape,” Faleomavaega said. Samoans find that demeaning because they pay taxes and have a history of military service.

There are also cultural barriers against participation in the political arena.

“The Samoan community has always been taught to accept the way things are, not to question authority,” said Fuiavailili Alailima, founder of the Pacific Islander Student Union at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

The park renaming drive broke from that tradition.

And although the effort to honor Foisia has drawn broad support in Carson, it has also partially divided Samoans along generational lines. Some of those questioning the focus on the park issue say the energy expended on that effort could be better spent dealing with the Samoan community’s many economic and social problems.

Samoan elders criticize the Committee to Rename Scott Park for not having brought the issue to the matais , or chiefs, before taking the matter to the council. All-powerful back in the islands, the chiefs have a mostly symbolic role among Samoans living on the mainland. They are nonetheless influential.

“It’s very uncharacteristic of groups to not come through matais, “ said Chief Tua’au P. Faletogo, chairman of the Carson-based Samoan Council of Chiefs. The council, which represents the 36 local chiefs, led the protests in Compton over the shooting incident.

Although those protests had the sanction of the elders, the park renaming drive is something most older Samoans frown upon or know little about, said Mamoe Lauaki, co-owner of Farmer’s Market, a Polynesian food center in Carson.

“The younger Samoans are looking for an identity, and want their voice to be heard politically,” said Lauaki, a “lukewarm” supporter of the committee. “In some ways they are more American than Samoan; I think they are more politically aware of their rights. But the park thing--to a lot of older Samoans this is a militant stance.”

Alailima, the Dominguez Hills student, knows that he is bucking tradition when he marches in front of Carson City Hall. That was emphasized by the sign he penned for a recent rally: “Foisia Park: The Choice of a New Generation.”

“We can’t completely live Samoan here in the U.S.,” Alailima said. “And we can’t completely live like others in the U.S. because we will lose our identity, and we don’t want that.”

Faletogo, a strong supporter of the renaming drive, said the committee’s seeming protocol error has factionalized the community, with some prefering to name the park after someone besides Foisia.

“Now, look at what’s happened--there are a lot of Samoan groups opposed to this,” Faletogo said. “A lot of people are hurt that the committee didn’t go before the chiefs first.”

However, Liz Foisia, Harry Foisia’s sister-in-law, said the park renaming initially “was not a Samoan issue” and need not have been brought first to the chiefs.

The renaming committee has lobbied for its cause since June, when council members first denied the request and voted instead to name the city’s emergency operations center after Foisia.

“It was only after the council’s actions (in June) that it became a Samoan issue,” Foisia said. Viewing renaming the operations center an insult because it is in the City Hall basement, the group continued to push for the park tribute, an undertaking that then attracted the attention of Samoans throughout the region.

Foisia, a city code enforcement manager, had the title “high chief” bestowed on him in 1986. He helped found Samoan Athletes in Action, a group that brought famous football players to Scott Park to run football clinics for area youth. He offered teen-agers an alternative to gang involvement and cruised city streets trying to woo gang members away from their lifestyle.

The leaders of the renaming drive say their undertaking is about recognition--not only for the contributions of Foisia and other Samoans to the city, but also to draw attention to the seriousness of their community’s problems.

“Our kids are craving a positive identity,” said Myron Thompson, a Samoan-American business consultant and chairman of the renaming committee.

Lal, the Carson principal, often worked with Foisia, and he calls the renaming effort “a symbol of recognition and pride.”

Lal is hailed for his work in transforming Carnegie Junior High School, once rife with gang and attendance problems, into an academic success.

At Carson High School, as a means of instilling pride in the students’ Pacific Islander heritage, Lal dons sandals, a traditional lava lava --or skirt-like garment--and a flowered shirt.

“Hopefully, when we can get the kids proud, we can get back what we’ve lost,” said Lal, who also wears the comfortable island garb at his Palos Verdes Estates home.

Recognition for the community is “long overdue for us,” said Thompson, reached at a small village near the Samoan capital of Pago Pago, where he had traveled on business. “Carson has yet to realize how effective Samoan contributions are to our community.”

In addition to the political stirrings in Carson, the Samoan presence itself is becoming more evident.

A bevy of churches have predominantly Samoan congregations, several Polynesian food stores are jammed full on weekends, there is an annual four-day Samoan festival, and the community, along with Compton and Long Beach, continues to draw islanders.

Cohen, the former congressional candidate, in a recent speech to the Carson City Council, likened the city’s Samoan ties to the way “Vietnamese-Americans have a very special tie to Westminster and Chinese-Americans to the city of Monterey Park. . . . (Samoans) have put Carson on the map.”

The new activism in the Samoan community means the fight for a Foisia Park is not likely to go away.

In the past weeks, the renaming committee has focused its efforts on lobbying Councilwoman Kay Calas, who was absent when the council deadlocked, 2-2 two weeks ago on the park issue.

In June, Calas voted against renaming the park for Foisia. She could not be reached for comment last week on whether she might reverse her position.

Failing another council vote, the committee leaders say will launch a referendum to put the renaming issue on the city ballot.

Many Samoans acknowledge that getting the park renamed in the face of official opposition is a political long shot. Still, they remain optimistic about their long-range political prospects. Their influence can only grow, they say.

“What you’re seeing now is a coming out; people are now speaking up,” said Pouesi. “We are just beginning to see the emergence of our community.”

BACKGROUND

The Samoan community in Los Angeles County has its roots in a group of Samoan-born men who were enlistees in the U.S. Navy. When authority over the six islands that make up American Samoa was transferred from the Navy Department to the Interior Department in 1952, 300 men dubbed the Fita Fita--the Island’s native Navy contingent--were given the option of transferring to Hawaii. Almost all of the Fita Fita emigrated. Their dependents , about 1,000 women and children, were allowed to join them in Hawaii in a voyage that has gained some infamy among Samoans. The dependents traveled in steerage, crammed aboard an old Navy freighter. “It was the most inhumane way of transporting human passengers--it was like a dungeon in there,” said Congressman Eni F. H. Faleomavaega, the nonvoting representative from American Samoa, who as a small child was one of those aboard the ship. “Cots were set up in a cargo hold. I have never forgiven the Navy for the way they transported women and children.” Later, many of the Fita Fita were posted to the West Coast, and they brought their dependents with them to settle near Navy bases. By the time Carson incorporated in 1968, a large Samoan community had taken root there. Today, the leadership of the drive to rename Scott Park for a local Samoan-American is largely made up of descendants of the Fita Fita.

American Samoa Community

California is home to the largest concentration of Samoans on the mainland United States. Many of the new immigrants, largely driven from the U.S. territory by poverty, have settled in Carson, Compton and Long Beach. The transition has not been smooth, as Samoan community leaders are grappling to understand youth gang problems and local politics.

1990 SAMOAN % CHANGE AREA POPULATION FROM 1980 Carson 2,262 +24% Compton 1,198 +18% Long Beach 3,199 +153% Los Angeles County 11,934 +48% California 31,917 +59%

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Facts About American Samoa:

* The country consists of a group of islands, 2,600 miles southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii.

* It has an area of 76 square miles.

* Its current population is 46,773.

* The country became a U.S. territory by treaty with the United Kingdom and Germany in 1899.

* It is the most southerly of lands under U.S. ownership.

* Its chief exports include fish products, handicrafts, coconuts, pineapples and bananas.

* American Samoans are U.S. nationals, but do not have the right to vote in U.S. elections.

Source: The World Almanac .