The Changing of the Colonial Guard: What do the guarded have to say?

Richard F. Taitano

Micronesian Area Research Center the changing of the colonial guard: what do the guarded have to say?

Keynote Address, centennial conference

by

Dr. robert a. underwood June 1998

An online publication of the Micronesian Area Research Center University of Guam

THE CHANGING OF THE COLONIAL GUARD: WHAT DO THE GUARDED HAVE TO SAY? Keynote Address, Centennial Conference, Tumhom, Guahan, June 18, 1998

By Congressman Robert Underwood Buenas yan hafa adai todos hamyo, It is a great honor and privilege to be allowed the opportunity to speak to you on this very important occasion - the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the raising of the American flag over Guam. The commemoration affords us the opportunity to reflect upon more than the events, which occurred some 100 years ago. It is an appropriate time to assess Guam's relationship with the United States and to remember the impact which Spain had on our island preceding the arrival of the Americans. Many of the papers which will be presented in this important conference address various dimensions of both the impact of Spain and the United States and I extend my congratulations to all of the presenters and extend my sincerest welcome to Guam for those who are coming from long distances.

The occasion of our effort in this conference and the June 21 commemoration is certainly problematic. The Spanish-American War raises many conflicting sentiments among the people of Guam. For Chamorros, being reminded about political development and its lack thereof, focusing on the changing of the colonial guard and drawing attention to the Hispanic legacy are full of awkward moments and raise many more issues. Who are we as a people? Are we capable of self-government? Where did we go right and where did we go wrong? When things went well, were we making progress because of what we did or because of what others allowed us to do? When things went poorly, were we led astray or did we go awry all by ourselves?

These are the inevitable questions and issues that colonized peoples must confront. In our own political adolescence, we question our capacity for political adulthood. When we ask questions and make demands for change, the colonizer’s response deals with us as preteens not quite ready to go out our own, but only ready to be accompanied to new destinations by our parental surrogates, our colonial overseers. Our progress must be slow, excruciatingly slow, and carefully assisted. Manmapipipit hit mo'na would be the Chamorro refrain, we are being led forward one slow step at a time.

Today we are finding a way to celebrate and otherwise commemorate what is clearly a changing of the guard in Guam's colonial history. The changing of the Guard had very little involvement from the people of Guam, although they certainly have felt its impact.

Captain Henry Glass extracting a surrender from what was a very surprised Lt. Col. Juan Marina has a certain touch of historical drama to it and has been treated as a kind

of comic opera in our historical folklore. But if the truth be known, I have a hard time getting excited about the experiences of either officer for whom Guam was just a way station in a military career motivated by other concerns.

I am more interested in the faceless crowd, the Manuel Aguon, the Francisco Naputi or the Josefina Santos who may have borne silent witness to the changing of overseers in Piti on June 21, 1898, and who never really wrote about it and, in fact, who never had much written about them.

In the context of this Centennial we are asked to do many things. We are asked to remember, we are prodded to add more to our collective memories and we are asked to commemorate. What a bittersweet experience we confront, what ironies are presented to us, what conflicted sentiments we feel as we, the descendants of Aguon, Naputi and Santos, are asked to reflect upon the experiences of Glass and Marina as the truly important symbols of the Centennial.

And so we find ourselves 100 years hence, reliving the dimensions of the Glass-Marina exchange, on the Centennial of their actions. And we are being asked to relive this experience with the spiritual descendants of Marina and Glass. This triple cornered relationship is alive and well again today as the three groups again interact. I hope we do more justice to Aguon, Naputi and Santos than we did the first time. We are all part of this triple bind as we reflect upon the Centennial. It is not like other commemorations.

If this were the centennial of the Statue of Liberty, its symbolism would be easy, although its lessons difficult. If this were the centennial of the US Declaration of Independence, the dimensions of the commemoration would be relatively easy to figure out.

If this were even the centennial of the liberation of Guam during World War II, even with the problems associated with the meaning of liberation, we all know that if we were alive on July 21, 1944, we would have been pretty happy that the US Marines were on the way. But June 21, 1898, just doesn't connect. And what is the frame for viewing the centennial - is there an American view, a Spanish view, and a Chamorro perspective?

Can there be prospective alliances among the viewpoints, offers to add two sides in order to put out of focus the third?

Certainly my discussions with various individuals indicate that there is much of this subtext occurring in our discussions, in our interactions and in the expression of our viewpoints.

The History The history that I read was all about the comic opera nature of the original encounter.

The American bombardment, its interpretation as a salute and the inability of the inept, surprised Spaniards to salute back. The natives were just part of the scenery. In reading these accounts, I realized that the Americans who were on those ships were not there because they were going to Guam. They were heading for the Philippines and this was

just another stopover. Alas, the story of Guam's existence in the modem world - a stopover. Maybe the slogan should be “Guam - where America's stopover begins.”

There is in my memory a Chamorro comic-opera perspective at work as well. The folk history I learned about the time came via my father who obtained it from his mother, Ana Pangelinan Martinez. The people were sad that the Americans showed up, very afraid and worried about the Spaniards who had been suddenly extracted. This was to be expected from Tan Anan Andaut's generation. But even they couldn't resist a story about the Americans. The Chamorros were wondering why the Americans liked hermit crabs so much. The uniformed Americans kept banging on doors throughout Hagåtña, shouting "umang, umang" (the Chamorro word for hermit crab). Of course, only later did they learn that the Americans were shouting "woman, woman."

The "Legacies" This comprises the sum total of my memory of the incidents surrounding 1898 on Guam. And this is from someone who has paid attention to Guam's history for much of his life. But we are not dealing in historical events as much as we are dealing with "legacies," gifts from the past. We are searching our consciousness to uncover the Spanish legacy, reflect upon the American legacy and to an increasing extent, discover more the Chamorro legacy or more appropriately, tradition. I say tradition because in the colonial dynamics of our situation and of history-making, it is tradition that gets acted upon, but does not act on others. It does not give to others, but it only receives. It is impacted, but has limited impact.

The titles of the presentations we will be treated to and learn much from reflect this reality. We will learn about the architectural legacy of the Spaniards, the impact of the Spanish language upon the Chamorro language, the impact of the Puerto Rican commonwealth, the geopolitical legacy that overwhelms us. Poor Aguon, Naputi and Santos; their fate in life is to be ordered about, moved around and told when and how to speak, wash themselves, farm and build the structures they inhabit.

The use of the term "legacy" itself is useful to understand the dynamics of what we have experienced as a people. Legacy refers to a gift. The term is used to indicate that a bequest, an inheritance, an offering has been given to us. Its use tears it apart from the historical context in which it occurred. What is the difference between a heritage and a legacy, history and memory, an imposition and a tradition, a suggestion and an order.

These are important matters, because we have so easily referred to imposed traditions as legacies, as if force, colonialism, arrogance and power were not part of the equation.

Well, I am here to remind you that they are.

As we examine the program of presentations, we discuss various legacies as they interact here in the land of the Chamorros. And to make the issue more complex, we are dealing with the interpretations of those legacies by others who provided legacies of their own. There is the Spanish view of the Spanish legacy and there is the American view of the Spanish imprint, and there is the Chamorro interpretation of these gifts from

the past. With these conflicting visions, we view the world in what must appear to be at times, a very unfocused way, the world looks like a blur. And the corrective lens that we now put on to correct our double and triple vision include activities like this conference and this Centennial commemoration. I hope that we are up to the task and that we do not prescribe for ourselves visual corrections that only add to the confusion because we are all playing historical optometrists in this conference.

The Spanish Legacy The American treatment of the Spanish legacy is easy enough to obtain. It consists of seeing Spain as a corrupt, backward country whose particular brand Christianity (in the form of Roman Catholicism) left the people of Guam superstitious and manipulated by ceremony. The Spanish priests had to be deported when the Americans arrived because they were "moral lepers" according to Governor Leary (the first naval governor) and the public displays of religion in the form of processions were forbidden. The Americans saw in Guam a colony that was abandoned by Spain and left to venal Spanish officials whose sole preoccupation in life was to enrich themselves. Few attempts were made to uplift the natives, improve their economic or educational status and the island remained stagnant.

The black legend was part of America's view of the Spanish world and this was reflected in the popular treatment of Spain in popular literature, movies, and later, television.

There is no doubt that these views formed a part of the American sense of duty and responsibility as they came upon Guam.

From the American viewpoint, they were here to rescue the Chamorro people from the Spanish legacy, not build on it. I am reminded of the words of the Navy Department as they ended their administration in 1950. They found in 1898, "A listless, ambition-less, unorganized mass of humanity stirred only by the hope for individual survival." This is what the Navy was given to rehabilitate and, by their own accounts, they did a wonderful job.

The Spanish view of their own legacy on Guam is of course quite different. It celebrates the Spanish contribution and it does not discuss the same topics. Rarely discussed are political or economic activities. We are treated to discussions about culture and how Spain was able to influence much of the world, even in places we have long forgotten.

The sense that Spain will never "forget her children" is part of this constellation of views about the Spanish legacy. The acceptance of Spanish influences in indigenous cultures is emphasized and is credited for extending Spanish influence into the 20th century and beyond.

Of course, it is quite common for people to look into the mirror of someone else's experience and see themselves. But imagine the impact on those who are holding the mirror. Even as a supportive friend, Rafael Rodriguez Ponga couldn't resist commenting on how "exciting it is to discover how much of the Hispanic still endures even now that Spain no longer has any direct influence." For students of Spanish culture, we must be

mindful that the desire to see themselves in others is as much a story of self-discovery than it is a contribution to knowledge about Guam. This is not to be lamented, but it is certainly needs to be understood.

The interesting part of this process is the sides that are taken in the process of recounting the historical experience of Guam. Leave aside the fact that I am an American, a US citizen and let me discuss the triangulation of the Chamorro experience as I have interacted with Americans and Spaniards throughout the years. Americans have found it easy to point out the horrors of Spanish colonization and its excesses, particularly in the initial depopulation of the people. They want answers to the seeming paradox of a Catholic indigenous people who continue to celebrate Kepuha and San Vitores to the exclusion of Hurao and Matapang, the "freedom fighters" in 20th century terms. They want to point out the demographic, political and economic disasters which ostensibly accompanied the royal flag of Spain.

For the Spaniards, they want to know why the Chamorro people have failed to culturally resist the American onslaught. They want to lend spiritual support to the Chamorro people in their quest to remain culturally distinct as they endure Americanization and Anglicization. They want to know why Chamorros so willingly relented in the cultural disasters of the 20th century in which Chamorro language loss and perhaps Chamorro identity have grown weaker. They even want to help us understand our truer identity by understanding our connections to the Hispanic world.

The Chamorro View The Chamorro view of the Spanish imprint on the Marianas has shifted over time and reflected both points of view as well as a maturing, but not fully self-confident view of being Chamorro. The main focus of viewing the Spanish legacy in Guam has been to analyze its dramatic impact on Chamorro culture. I was once told by a person who taught Guam history for several decades that Chamorros are really just a bunch of Mexicans and Filipinos who have only a romantic link to the indigenous Chamorros. The view of Chamorros for decades is that they were in fact not the same people as the original inhabitants and that the neo-Chamorro people could be distinguished from the old by virtue of their civilized status, their willingness to wear clothes, their Christianity and the fully Hispanicized nature of their culture in everything from diet, to livelihood, to beliefs, to words in the language.

The reasons for this point of view are many. From an objective point of view, much of it is in fact accurate. But the analysis was not given in order to demonstrate an accurate assessment of the cultural and demographic history of Guam. Rather it was given to create disconnection, to provide a sense of loss and to foster a reconnecting with a different reality. The effort was meant to primitivize the original Chamorros and to civilize the neo-Chamorro. The purpose for the celebration of the Spanish legacy was to colonize and recreate a sense of place and time; to make a clean break with the past.

The Spaniards didn't just say that modern Chamorros were different due to the passage of time and the introduction of new peoples and ideas; they were better off, they were civilized, they were Catholics. The use of the words "sibilisa" and "satbahi" in Chamorro have enormous and continuing power; a power that only a people afraid of being thought of as primitive can understand.

The Chamorros accepted this view and without any developed sense of nationalism as was emerging in the Philippines, Cuba and Puerto Rico, their explanation of themselves fully incorporated the sense of a distinct break with the past. The racist views of the Spanish were fully internalized and any pretense of Spanish lineage was emphasized by the people of Guam. To this day, some Chamorros celebrate their lone, frequently apocryphal, Spanish ancestor to the exclusion of their native born progenitors. This actually accelerated with early American rule as Chamorros sought to distinguish themselves from other Pacific Islanders. The claims of many Chamorros to be of Spanish-Guamanian ancestry grew over time and reached its peak in the ‘1950s’ with the popularization of the term “Guamanian.” After World War II, this invented term quickly replaced the dated, tradition-bound term “Chamorro.”

The political development and educational maturation of the Chamorro people led to the growth of Chamorro nationalism, a force which influences nearly every dimension of socio-political life on Guam today. The nature of this nationalism and whether it seriously seeks fulfillment as a separate nation-state is still being debated. What is beyond debate is the desire of most Chamorros to distinguish themselves from the Spanish legacy and to reconnect to the pre-European Chamorros, the pre-Hispanicized indigenous people of Guam.

Breaking Free The clean break with the past has now become the path to authenticity as a separate people. In today's world where indigenous rights are a central feature of political discourse, claims of Spanish ancestry have no benefit and seem woefully out of place.

The newfound Chamorro tradition will strike some observers as artificial and much of it is very strained and consists of stereotypic impressions about being Pacific Islanders.

But the Chamorro vision of the day is decidedly their own to develop and refine.

Human identity is a fragile, ever changing process. The Chamorros are clearly part of the Hispanic cultural world. Every Chamorro can feel an immediate connection just by being in Spain, in the Philippines, even in the barrios and colonials of Los Angeles and Miami. But even this has its limits. When I am on Guam, I feel very Chamorro. When I am in Washington D.C., I feel even more Chamorro. When I was in the Philippines, I felt some connection, but I certainly felt American and the same goes for the times that I have been to Mexico. But when I finally went to Spain, I discovered exactly how Chamorro I was. I am more Chamorro than ever as a result of this experience, not because I do not recognize the connections, but because I understand the nature and origin of the connection and because I understand that identity is both a political as well as cultural question.

The courage to be Chamorro implies finding your own course and no matter who helped you along the way, you know that ultimately only you can find that course.

The people of Guam have to reach deep in their memories, and fill in the gaps. The Glass-Marina encounter had many Aguons, Naputis and Santos's present. I tried in vain to find the exact names of the Chamorro militia who were mustered on the shores to witness the surrender by Marina. Although we may not know their names, they did have a point of view about being in the militia. One historian reports that after the surrender, "The native soldiers joyfully relinquished their arms to the Americans, not hesitating to tear buttons and ornaments from their uniforms and give them to the United States sailors and marines for souvenir." Another historian reported that the Chamorro soldiers were selling their badges and buttons in response to the American desire to have some mementos from their conflict with the "evil dons." I wonder if the Americans ever reported that the soldiers from whom they obtained the souvenirs were not actually Spaniards.

It is up to us today to reconstruct our history with all of the available tools that we have to uncover and to share the Chamorro tradition and we must do so without a great deal of reference to Glass or Marina and give more attention to Aguon, Naputi and Cruz. In many respects we have done so with great gusto and we have taken some liberties in the process. I suppose it is inevitable that we will have our excesses. Liberation of the mind is a habit that we must become accustomed to and we haven't had much practice.

The Chamorro tradition is a design for life, which was constructed with and under the influence of Spaniards, Filipinos, Mexicans and Americans. But it is a unique tradition, which many will find a familiar thread in, but in which no one can claim ownership except Chamorros. We must abandon the looking “Glass” that we have looked through so often and force the Spanish commander to exit the island through the historical “Marina” which we must prepare for him.