It’s Time for Philanthropy to Recognize and Address "American Colonialism"
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Sarah Thomas Nededog speaks at Right to Democracy’s Summit on U.S. Colonialism. Photo Courtesy of Right to Democracy.
Most people in the United States would draw a blank if you asked them how many U.S. territories there are, much less actually name them. The correct answer is five: American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The combined population of these five jurisdictions is equivalent to the combined population of the five smallest states. But their residents — 98% of whom are people of color — are denied both political rights in a federal government that holds nearly limitless authority over them and the basic right to self-determination. Even conservative Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch has described this undemocratic relationship as “American colonialism.” Yet as a movement is underway to “decolonize philanthropy,” philanthropy has done little to acknowledge, much less address, the problem of colonialism in the United States. Fortunately, this is starting to change.
For too long, people in U.S. territories have been overlooked, misunderstood and neglected. As the New York Times recently dubbed them, they are “The America that Americans Forgot,” the “most ignored and underrepresented citizens” in the United States.
Philanthropy, too, has participated in the invisibilization of people in U.S. territories by ignoring these communities of color and the problem of U.S. colonialism for decades.
This began to change after Hurricanes Maria and Irma devastated Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands in 2017. Hispanics in Philanthropy and others engaged funders to think about these communities in new ways. What we initially encountered was a state of general confusion among foundations. Some U.S. foundations excluded the territories because they did not consider them “domestic.” But they were also not “foreign,” excluding them from international funding. The end result: For decades, people in U.S. territories have mostly fallen through the cracks.
Philanthropy — including the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Open Society Foundation and others — stepped up to support an “equitable recovery” in Puerto Rico. The U.S. Virgin Islands also saw a significant uptick in philanthropic engagement in the immediate aftermath of the hurricanes. Still, both responses paled in comparison to the field’s response for other communities hit by similar disasters.
While these increased levels of philanthropic engagement have been transformative in the short term, there has not been enough of a sustained focus or investment from philanthropy to address the systemic cause of many of the problems faced by residents across U.S. territories: an undemocratic colonial framework.
The lack of democracy and self-determination in U.S. territories manifests itself in many ways. Most visibly, Puerto Rico is all but governed by an unelected financial oversight board that has the power to veto local laws. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, a national park that covers two-thirds of St. John has brought many benefits, but too often does not consider the voices or interests of those who have lived on the island for generations, while in St. Croix, the community continues to struggle with health and environmental impacts from one of the most polluting oil refineries in the United States. In the Pacific, the environmental and cultural impacts of an expansive military buildup in Guam (where the military controls nearly a third of the island) and the Northern Mariana Islands are too often ignored, drawing troubling parallels to the decades-long military bombardment in Vieques, Puerto Rico.
Congress has also denied core social safety programs like Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to residents of most territories. U.S. territories are also front-line communities when it comes to climate change, yet have no say in the federal or international policies that disproportionately impact their islands. All this has led to high levels of poverty and out-migration, with an astonishing 11.6% of the population in U.S. territories leaving their communities from 2010-2020.
Now, more than six years removed from Hurricanes Maria and Irma, levels of philanthropy in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands are beginning to decline as interest fades. Philanthropy remains largely absent from the Pacific. Instead, local nonprofits are forced to rely on federal grants, which are often not responsive to local needs and capacity. The lack of any community foundations in Pacific territories also creates challenges.
Meanwhile, the underlying structural problem — a colonial framework that denies democracy, equity and self-determination — festers. This anti-democratic framework is so stark that liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor and conservative Justice Gorsuch are in agreement on its fundamental unfairness. Sotomayor called the legal underpinnings of this arrangement “odious and wrong” while Gorsuch called them “shameful.” He even named the elephant in the room — race — writing that these frameworks “have no foundation in the Constitution and rest instead on racial stereotypes.”
But even as philanthropy responded following the murder of George Floyd with historic efforts to both recognize and address systemic racism, the racist colonial framework impacting people of color in all U.S. territories continues to receive little attention. Exclusion from these dialogues is particularly felt in the U.S. Virgin Islands — the only majority Black state or territory in the United States.
Fortunately, there are some promising, if still tentative, signs of progress.
Last month, the Ford Foundation, Democracy Fund and the J.M. Kaplan Fund cohosted a two-day Summit on U.S. Colonialism that was convened by Right to Democracy, a new project focused on bringing together all five territories to work toward advancing democracy, equity and self-determination in U.S. territories outside of the usual “status politics” that can sometimes detract from forward progress. The summit created a space for conversation and engagement between philanthropy and civil society leaders from each of the five territories and their diaspora to begin recognizing and addressing the systemic nature of the undemocratic relationship U.S. territories face. It centered the importance of place-based philanthropy: putting people from each of the territories and the diaspora at the heart of identifying solutions and developing strategies for change. This is important for philanthropy to avoid reinforcing the very colonial structures that need to be dismantled. The summit was the culmination of nearly 20 community listening sessions Right to Democracy convened across all five territories over the last few months.
The timing of these efforts is significant. This year marks the 125th anniversary of the United States breaking from its anticolonial roots to acquire Puerto Rico, Guam and other overseas colonies. It is also the 175th anniversary of emancipation in the Virgin Islands, where enslaved islanders rose up to obtain their freedom long before slavery ended in the United States. The time for philanthropy — and the United States more generally — to address the problem of colonialism in the U.S. is now. This is an opportunity for philanthropy to help empower and provide greater agency to these long-marginalized communities of color. We shouldn’t wait until the next disaster strikes to act.
Ana Marie Argilagos is the President and CEO of Hispanics in Philanthropy — a network that leverages philanthropic resources to mobilize and amplify the power of Latine communities.
Deanna James is President of St. Croix Foundation for Community Development, which is focused on holistic community development and building innovative and equitable people-centered systems in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Sarah Thomas Nededog has over 45 years of human services management, policy and advocacy experience, serving as Chair both of Payu-ta, Guam’s umbrella association of non-governmental organizations, and Pacific Islands Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (PIANGO), the umbrella organization for nonprofits in twenty-five Pacific countries and territories. She is also the Guam Community Director for Right to Democracy.
