Guam people ponder their identity

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Last weekend 90,000 people turned out to protest the continued presence of US forces on the Japanese island of Okinawa. The protestors want US forces moved off the island, something Washington is loathe to do – still, there are plans to move 8,000 Okinawa Marines to Guam. Guam is a US territory in the Pacific, but as The World’s Mary Kay Magistad reports, plans for the military build-up on Guam have ignited soul-searching about just how American people there feel. (Photos: Mary Kay Magistad)

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Drive around Guam, and you might think you were in an American suburb – same chain stores, same chain restaurants, same American culture – on the surface.

But beneath the surface is 4,000 years of Chamorro tribal history – history young Chamorros who have grown up as US citizens are starting to rediscover. This group of teenagers – is dressed in grass skirts – the girls with flowers in their hair, the guys with loin clothes and fighting sticks.

They shout about how Chamorros need to remember their roots. One is 20-year-old Rico Sablan:

“My message was talking about the outsiders came and tried to change our culture, and my message was saying – stand strong for our people and keep our people strong.”

The outsiders who first came were the Spanish – some 400 years ago, bringing with them disease that wiped out all but a couple thousand Chamorros. Survivors intermarried with the Spanish colonizers and other settlers, so the language is now heavily accented with Spanish. Much Chamorro oral tradition has been lost too, so the songs and dances performed by these young people tonight are a reconstruction – a best guess of what they might have been.

Dancer Rico Sablan says given Guam’s colonial past, he has mixed feelings about the US military’s plans to move 8,000 marines here, in addition to the 6,000 military personnel already in Guam.

“Don’t get me wrong, I feel safe with them coming here. But don’t take the land from the people.”

In recent months, Guamanians have been weighing what an expanded US military presence might mean for them. There are concerns about the environmental impact, about Guam taxpayers being asked to bear too heavy a burden.

Seventeen-year-old Alyssa Eclavea, who’s at the evening gathering, has her own worries:

“I’ve looked up some stories in Okinawa, that they’ve been raping women, or young ladies, as young as 12 years old. And if they bring those Marines to our island, there are so many beautiful women on our island, it’s going to happen.”

Although, that’s not been a problem on Guam so far. And Guam has hosted far more US military personnel in the past – some 200,000 at the end of World War II. But Guam’s civilian population was much smaller then, and felt less empowered. Now some in the generation that has grown up American are questioning American dominance. Michael Bevacqua has a white American father and a Chamorro mother:

“I don’t know how American I feel, I mean I prefer living on Guam, I like living on Guam, I spent half of my life in the States getting educated and I think for me my perspective is that America is a colonizer.”

Guam is a US territory, and Guamanians are US citizens. They have full rights to live, work and vote in the rest of the United States. But while on Guam, they can’t vote for president – they can only elect one non-voting representative to Congress. Still, the US military says it has consulted extensively with Guamanians, about their concerns about the military build-up. John Jackson directs the Joint Guam Program Office for the Secretary of the Navy:

“We received responses everything from Yankee go home to welcome back Marines we are glad to have you here. And everywhere in between. So it is a reflection of Guam’s society, a reflection of the society of the United States. Many different views on many different subjects.”

Jackson says some of the environmental or cultural concerns have led to modifications of the plan. But he says – the overall expansion will go ahead – because it serves US security interests in the region:

“Guam’s strategic location enhances the flexibility of the US forces in the Pacific, which allows for greater freedom of action as well as the ability to respond to crisis whether it is, say, humanitarian assistance or disaster-related crisis or perhaps deterrence or military action.”

This is being done, in part, with an eye to China’s military build-up and increasingly muscular navy, which is starting to roam deeper into waters traditionally patrolled by the US Pacific Fleet. The move to Guam is to also meant to avoid what’s been happening in Okinawa – protests that create uncertainty about how long US bases can stay. Guam, as a US territory, can’t exactly kick them out. And many Chamorros feel it shouldn’t, anyway. Many have served in the US military.

Retired Sergeant-Major Juan Blaz served 21 years in the US army, was wounded three times in Vietnam, and received the Distinguished Service Cross. He says, he’s a fiercely proud American, and he doesn’t see what all the fuss about the military expansion is about:

“I think it is great for the island and the island in part is also a great contributing factor to our nation and defense of our nation.”

This difference in attitude is somewhat generational. Older Guamanians have positive memories of US forces liberating Guam from the Japanese. At least some younger ones are caught between their US passports and a growing awareness of an identity separate from America. Still, there may be room for both. Several of the guys here, shouting fiercely in loincloths, plan to join the US military once they’re old enough.

For The World, I’m Mary Kay Magistad, Guam.

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