The unique situation of American Samoans has caused confusion across several U.S. states, including Oregon, where officials inadvertently registered nearly 200 American Samoan residents to vote when they obtained driver’s licenses under the state’s motor-voter law.

Of those, 10 cast ballots in an election, according to the Oregon Secretary of State’s office. Officials there determined the residents had not intended to break the law and no crime was committed.

“We pay taxes, we do exactly the same as everybody else that are U.S. citizens,” said Tupe Smith, an American Samoan charged in a similar case in Alaska. “It would be nice for us to have the same rights as everybody here in the states.”

The situation in Oregon reflects broader national confusion stemming from the legal classification of American Samoans as U.S. nationals rather than U.S. citizens — the only U.S. territory whose people are not granted birthright citizenship.

American Samoans are entitled to U.S. passports and can serve in the military. Men must register for the Selective Service. They can vote in local elections in American Samoa but cannot hold public office in the U.S. or participate in most U.S. elections.

The legal and cultural questions around this status also resonate within Oregon’s American Samoan community.

Siniva Bennett, board chair of the Samoa Pacific Development Corporation, a Portland-based nonprofit, explained why many in the territory have grown wary of birthright citizenship.

“We’ve been able to maintain our culture, and we haven’t been divested from our land like a lot of other indigenous people in the U.S.,” Bennett said, referring to the potential threat to communal land ownership laws if citizenship were imposed.

Trump administration challenges Oregon over voter rolls in lawsuit

Although supporters of automatic citizenship say it would benefit the estimated 150,000 to 160,000 American Samoan nationals living in states such as California, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Utah and Alaska, others worry about unintended consequences. The debate reflects a broader tension between equal rights and cultural preservation.

In Alaska, confusion leads to criminal charges

The legal ambiguity continues to surface in unexpected places, like Whittier, Alaska, a cruise-ship stop squeezed between glacier-packed mountains and Prince William Sound. It’s so small that nearly all of its 260 residents live in the same 14-story condo building — yet it became the unlikely setting of an unprecedented noncitizen voter fraud case.

Alaska prosecutors are pursuing felony charges against 11 residents of Whittier, most of them related to one another, saying they falsely claimed U.S. citizenship when registering or trying to vote. The defendants, all born in American Samoa, say they believed they were eligible.

“To me, I’m an American. I was born an American on U.S. soil,” said firefighter Michael Pese, one of those charged in Whittier. “American Samoa has been U.S. soil, U.S. jurisdiction, for 125 years. According to the supreme law of the land, that’s my birthright.”

The case began in 2023 when Pese’s wife, Tupe Smith, ran unopposed for a local school board seat. After winning with about 95% of the vote, she was arrested and charged.

Oregon elections officials refer cases of possible noncitizen voting to state DOJ

She explained to officers that she knew she wasn’t allowed to vote in U.S. presidential elections, but thought she could vote in local or state races. She said she checked a box affirming that she was a U.S. citizen at the instruction of elections workers because there was no option to identify herself as a U.S. national, court records say.

“When they put me in cuffs, my son started crying,” Smith told The Associated Press. ”He told their dad that he don’t want the cops to take me or to lock me up.”

Later, Pese and eight relatives — along with one man from their village in American Samoa — were also charged. Advocates say they were targeted despite a lack of criminal intent.

“There is no question that Ms. Smith lacked an intent to mislead or deceive a public official in order to vote unlawfully when she checked ‘U.S. citizen’ on voter registration materials,” Neil Weare, one of Smith’s attorneys and co-founder of the Washington-based Right to Democracy Project, wrote in a brief to the Alaska Court of Appeals last week, after a lower court judge declined to dismiss the charges.

Critics argue the prosecutions are politically motivated amid false claims from President Donald Trump and others that noncitizen voter fraud is widespread. Even state-level investigations have found voting by noncitizens to be exceptionally rare.

In Hawaii, American Samoans have faced similar confusion.

Sai Timoteo, who was born in American Samoa, ran for the state Legislature in 2018 before learning she wasn’t allowed to hold public office or vote. She had always considered it her civic duty to vote, and the form on the voting materials had one box to check: “U.S. Citizen/U.S. National.”

“I checked that box my entire life,” she said.

She also avoided charges, and Hawaii subsequently changed its form to make it more clear.

A simple truth is at the root of many false election claims: Voter rolls are imperfect

In Alaska, the confusion reached such a level that the Pacific Community of Alaska reached out to the Alaska Division of Elections in 2021 and 2022 to ask whether American Samoans could vote in state and local elections.

Neither time did it receive a direct answer, said Tafilisaunoa Toleafoa with the organization.

“It is my hope that this is a lesson learned, that the state of Alaska agrees that this could be something that we can administratively correct,” Toleafoa said. “I would say that the state could have done that instead of prosecuting community members.”

Legacy of colonialism and exclusion

The root of the issue stretches back to the colonial legacy of American Samoa.

In the 19th century, the U.S. secured part of the Samoan archipelago as a naval refueling station. Over time, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands gained birthright citizenship — but American Samoa did not.

Congress considered it for American Samoa in the 1930s, but declined. Some lawmakers cited financial concerns during the Great Depression while others expressed patently racist objections, according to a 2020 article in the American Journal of Legal History.

In 2021, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to extend automatic citizenship to those born in American Samoa, saying it would be wrong to force citizenship on those who don’t want it. The Supreme Court declined to review the decision.

Several jurisdictions across the country, including San Francisco and the District of Columbia, allow people who are not citizens to vote in certain local elections.

___

Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska, and Johnson from Seattle. Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, and Jennifer Sinco Kelleher in Honolulu contributed to this report.

Tucked away in the quieter neighborhood streets on the south side of Cannon Beach, just one block from the ocean, Sea Level Bakery + Coffee makes a strong case for the title of best bakery on the Oregon coast.

Opened in 2014 by couple Jason and Liz Menke, the cozy, modern cafe (which was remodeled in 2023) offers fresh-baked bread, sandwiches and bowls in addition to its well-stocked pastry case where there are no bad choices.

On a recent visit, the case was stocked with sticky buns, biscuits, scones, banana bread, kouign amann, Danish, pound cake, muffins and five kinds of cookies. There was also something called tide truffles, a vegan and gluten free treat that sells in packs of three. In a neighboring case were loaves of fresh-baked bread, as well as baguettes, ciabatta and slices of focaccia.

Offerings rotate seasonally, sometimes even weekly, based on available ingredients and the whims and experimentations of the staff bakers.

On a recent visit, we ate a raspberry pistachio scone with lemon glaze that was sweet and delicious. A soft biscuit, dusted with cinnamon sugar and loaded with marionberry jam, was a great accompaniment. I made a mental note to pick up a baguette on our next beach day.

Jason Menke said he grew up going to French boulangeries with his grandmother, where he fell in love with the idea of serving a community through food. When the couple opened Sea Level, in the old Waves of Grain bakery space, they wanted to bring that boulangerie culture to the Oregon coast.

“We felt like it needed to be both a cafe, coffee ship and a bakery,” Menke said of the business. “We just know that people need better food options, particularly at the beach.”

Grab a table on the covered patio outside and you might feel like you’re joining the Cannon Beach community. On our visit, a local woman introduced us to her dog, who stared hungrily at our pastries. We eavesdropped on a group of surfers nearby. A family of sleepy tourists shuffled in and plopped down around a table with cups of coffee. The indoor seating, which consists of a few smaller tables, is crucial for the rainy season, but when the weather is nice the patio is idyllic.

Sea Level, which is nestled into the Tolovana Park neighborhood, is a surprisingly peaceful place given the commotion all around it. The main drag of Cannon Beach, which is choked with tourists in the summer, is only a mile to the north. And only two blocks south is the busy Tolovana Beach State Recreation Site, which attracts upwards of 1.2 million visitors each year.

“When we first started it seemed like a curse to be in that part of town, because it was quiet down there,” Menke said. But after a couple of years, once business caught on, the couple grew to appreciate their place in Cannon Beach.

“We like to say that we’re Tolovana proud,” he said.

With their major remodel still fresh in the rearview mirror, the couple finds it hard to think too much about the future. But when pressed, Jason Menke said they’ve been dreaming about adding yet another offering to their cafe: pizza. After a successful one-time pizza night last year, the couple has been toying with the idea of making it happen monthly or even weekly.

That would only be another extension of their mission to provide good food to the community on the north Oregon coast.

“There’s definitely not enough good food at the beach,” Menke said.

The takeaway: Sea Level offers everything you could want from an Oregon coast bakery: great pastries, good coffee, ample seating and a quick walk to the beach.

Sample menu: A biscuit and jam ($4.25), a seasonal scone ($4.25) and espresso ($4).

Drinks: Coffee and espresso from Portland’s Heart Coffee Roasters, with tea and a rotating menu of seasonal drinks.

Details: Counter service with indoor and outdoor seating. ADA accessible with parking spot, ramp and restroom. Open 7 a.m.-2 p.m., Monday-Thursday; 3116 S. Hemlock St., Cannon Beach; 503-436-4254; sealevelbakery.com.

“I wasn’t sure how far back everybody else was behind me, so I knew to just keep rolling, to keep going, because I really wanted to get first,” Brooklyn Anderson told a local outlet.

A high school Oregon track star somersaulted her way through the state championship finish line last week.

Brooklyn Anderson, a junior at Thurston High School, turned heads during her somersault finish in the girls’ 100-meter hurdles at the Oregon State Track & Field Championships in Eugene, Oregon, on May 30. To much surprise, Anderson tumbled in at first place. Thurston High School is located in Springfield, Oregon, about 120 miles south of Portland.

Footage captured by the National Federation of State High School Associations shows Anderson, who was already ahead in the race, tripping and performing a double somersault across the finish line. She won the race with a final time of 14.93 seconds. The second-place runner, Maisy Scanlan from Wilsonville High School, came in at 15.15 seconds, according to the Oregon School Activities Association.

“All I remember is resorting back to my gymnastics career and just somersaulting over that line,” Anderson told The Oregonian after her race. “I wasn’t sure how far back everybody else was behind me, so I knew to just keep rolling, to keep going, because I really wanted to get first.”

Celebrating the win, Anderson shared a photo and video of her somersault finish on Instagram.

“Wow, what a memorable season,” Anderson wrote in the Instagram post. “Year 3 is one for the books. Thank you everybody for the support, and especially thank you to the most amazing heat of girls a girl could finish a race with. You guys are awesome. GO COLTS #jryear #somersault #track #100mhurdles.”

The 500-meter hurdles weren’t the only event Anderson competed in. She also placed fourth in the girls’ 100-meter race, third in girls’ long jump and 10th in the girls’ 4-by-100-meter relay, per the Oregon School Activities Association.

Watch high school track star somersault to a first-place finish

High school track athlete somersaults to victory

A high school track athlete competing in a championship 100m hurdles race rolled her way to victory after she tripped near the finish line.

Greta Cross is a national trending reporter at USA TODAY. Story idea? Email her at gcross@usatoday.com.