By Gregorie Michael Towai (Eipéráng)
I recently read Del Benson’s opinion, “Election Laws — Follow Them or Get Rid of Them,” and while there are portions of his argument concerning consistency in election law that deserve legitimate discussion, one particular assertion deserves a response, especially because Mr. Benson has now chosen to become a candidate for public office in the Commonwealth.
Mr. Benson questions why people living on the mainland should continue voting in CNMI elections, particularly those whom he describes as our “biggest critics” who are not physically here to experience high utility costs or the everyday struggles confronting people in the islands. His answer is straightforward: “They shouldn’t.”
That is where I believe his argument crosses into much more complicated territory.
Let me first make something equally clear. Mr. Benson has every right to speak about the CNMI. He is a U.S. citizen and resident who chose to make the Commonwealth his home. Whether someone is NMD should never determine whether that person is entitled to an opinion, civic participation or respect within our community.
But that principle must work both ways.
There is something deeply uncomfortable about someone who came from outside the Northern Mariana Islands, chose to establish a home here and is now seeking the privilege of elected office suggesting that people from these islands who were compelled by circumstances to establish lives elsewhere somehow have less standing to participate in determining their homeland’s future.
For Northern Marianas Descent communities in particular, that distinction matters.
NMD is not simply another description for whoever happens to be physically residing within the Commonwealth at a particular moment. It exists within a very specific historical and legal context involving the indigenous people of the Northern Mariana Islands, our relationship to land and the political compromises embodied in the Covenant.
That history helps explain why some NMDs remain cautious when people who come from outside our islands begin defining who belongs, who should participate and whose voice should carry weight in decisions concerning our political future.
That caution should not be confused with hostility toward non-NMD residents. Our Commonwealth has benefited enormously from people who came from elsewhere and made these islands their home. Many have raised families here, built businesses here, taught our children, served our government and contributed decades of their lives to the community.
But belonging should never require diminishing somebody else’s belonging.
And physical departure does not automatically sever someone’s relationship with home.
The CNMI diaspora did not collectively wake up one morning and decide that the islands were no longer worth living in.
Our people left for education.
They left for military service.
They left because specialized medical care was unavailable at home.
They left seeking employment capable of supporting their families.
They left following typhoons and economic contractions.
They left because industries disappeared and opportunities vanished.
They left to care for aging or sick relatives.
Some left because the economic and political decisions shaping their futures were themselves made thousands of miles away.
I am part of that diaspora, and I know firsthand that an airplane ticket does not erase where home is.
Neither does an Oregon, Washington, California, Hawaiʻi or Guam address erase family, culture, responsibility, property, history or concern for what happens in the Commonwealth.
Look around whenever tragedy strikes one of our families stateside. Who raises the money to send our deceased loved ones home? Who contributes when someone needs medical treatment? Who sends remittances to parents and grandparents? Who mobilizes following typhoons? Who buys fundraising tickets from thousands of miles away? Who advocates before federal agencies when decisions affecting our ocean, land, immigration system or economy are being made in Washington?
Very often, it is the diaspora.
Our geographic absence should therefore not be confused with civic abandonment.
Mr. Benson writes that people on the mainland should “come back and try to fix it yourself.” But that statement reverses the question that candidates for office should actually be asking.
Instead of asking, “Why don’t you come home?”
Ask:
Why did so many of our people have to leave?
Why have generations of young people concluded that their best opportunities require a one-way ticket?
Why do families leave for medical care?
Why do graduates struggle to find careers capable of supporting a household in the Commonwealth?
Why are housing, utilities, food and transportation increasingly difficult to afford?
And most importantly, if you are asking the people to entrust you with public office:
What are you going to do to make coming home realistically possible?
Those are much harder questions than telling the diaspora to return.
There is also an important distinction between Mr. Benson’s broader argument about election law and his judgment about who should vote.
If CNMI law establishes residency, domicile and voter eligibility requirements, enforce them consistently.
If the law contains loopholes, close them.
If residency requirements no longer accomplish their intended purpose, debate them publicly and amend them through the democratic process.
If someone is unlawfully registered, there are legal mechanisms for addressing that.
But eligibility cannot simply become a philosophical test of whether somebody has been gone too long or whether a candidate believes that person sufficiently understands what people at home are experiencing.
The law should decide eligibility, not resentment toward the diaspora.
And there is an additional irony here.
Mr. Benson correctly argues elsewhere in his piece that election laws should mean something. I agree. But if we are going to insist upon fidelity to law, then we must accept the rights those same laws provide even when we personally disagree with the people exercising them.
You cannot simultaneously demand respect for election law and then substitute your personal definition of who deserves political participation for what the law actually permits.
Our diaspora should also be careful not to dismiss the hardships experienced by people who remain physically in the Commonwealth. Residents paying CUC bills, buying groceries, trying to operate businesses and raising families through the CNMI’s present economic difficulties experience pressures that those of us stateside may not encounter in precisely the same way.
That perspective deserves respect.
But respect is reciprocal.
Those who remained should not be pitted against those who left.
Resident versus diaspora is a false division that does nothing to solve the CNMI’s problems.
The Commonwealth cannot afford it.
Our population has declined. Our workforce has contracted. Families are scattered across the United States and Pacific. Our political influence is already limited by geography and population. Why would we voluntarily make ourselves smaller by telling thousands of people with continuing connections to the Northern Mariana Islands that their voices matter less because circumstances carried them beyond our shores?
The diaspora should instead be viewed as an extension of the Commonwealth’s human capital.
Imagine what could happen if government actively engaged our nurses, doctors, engineers, educators, attorneys, tradespeople, entrepreneurs, military veterans, researchers, cultural practitioners and young professionals living abroad.
Create pathways for them to invest.
Create incentives for them to return.
Create professional networks connecting diaspora expertise with agencies and businesses at home.
Build an economy capable of bringing families back rather than questioning their loyalty because they left.
That is the conversation I would rather hear from anyone seeking public office.
Mr. Benson has every right to make the CNMI his home. He has every right to participate in our democracy, criticize our institutions and present himself to the voters as someone capable of helping lead the Commonwealth.
But with that opportunity comes responsibility.
For someone who was welcomed into this community to suggest that members of the CNMI diaspora should have less political participation because they now live elsewhere will understandably strike a nerve among NMDs and others whose connection to these islands predates their current ZIP code.
It touches an old and sensitive question in the Marianas:
Who gets to define belonging?
My answer is that we should be very careful about allowing anyone to reduce it to geography alone.
A person can leave Saipan, Tinian, Rota or the Northern Islands without Saipan, Tinian, Rota or the Northern Islands ever leaving them.
Our diaspora is not foreign to the Commonwealth.
They are our families.
They are our people.
They are part of our story.
And rather than telling them that they should come home before speaking about the future of the islands they still call home, perhaps our political candidates should tell them something much more meaningful:
Here is how we intend to build a Commonwealth worth coming home to.
That would be a conversation worthy of this election.
Gregorie Michael Towai (Eipéráng) is a Refaluwasch writer, researcher and cultural advocate from Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, now residing in Oregon. He is the founder of the Refaluwasch Journal of Knowledge and Culture (RJKC), an emerging initiative dedicated to cultural preservation, research, language, historical documentation and greater Refaluwasch visibility. His writing and advocacy focus on Indigenous representation, CNMI governance and accountability, diaspora engagement, cultural preservation, economic development and the political relationship between the Northern Mariana Islands and the United States.
The views expressed are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of NMI News Service.
