The Insular Empire: America's Pacific Frontier

The Insular Empire: America’s Pacific Frontier is a documentary film about America at its westernmost limits, the Mariana Islands of the western Pacific Ocean. Six thousand miles from the U.S. mainland, the Marianas, which include the U.S. Territory of Guam and the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), have played a crucial role in American history, and national security over the past century. Yet most Americans know nothing about them or about the indigenous communities who call them home.

The Insular Empire will change this.

The Insular Empire will let a broad American and Pacific audience know that U.S. citizenship for the Chamorro and Carolinian communities of the Marianas is not complete citizenship. That U.S. citizens on Guam may have their citizenship revoked by an Act of Congress. That both "insular areas" lack voting representation in the U.S. Congress, and that the CNMI lacks any representation at all. That despite this, the federal government maintains a remarkable degree of control over the islands' laws and economic resources. That the Chamorros of Guam have not yet achieved self-determination. And that young people from the Mariana Islands are fighting and dying for - but cannot vote for - their Commander-in-Chief, the President of the United States.

These are indigenous rights issues. They are civil rights issues. They are human rights issues. But they must be made visible before they can be addressed.