jessie neal

jessie neal (they/she) is a Queer, Disabled, Femme non-binary, Lesbian, Indigenous CHamoru, Fat person who is a vocal advocate for queer indigenous femme representation in academic institutions. jessie has an MA in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Brandeis University and undergraduate degrees in history and gender studies from the University of Arizona. Drawing on both interpersonal and family narratives, jessie’s work foregrounds Indigenous and other historically marginalized narratives of dispossession and resilience, focusing on how women, queer, and gender nonconforming Indigenous communities challenge colonial erasure and heteropatriarchy. In fall 2023, jessie will begin their PhD in American Culture at the University of Michigan.

Håfa Adai: (The Aloha You’ve Never Heard)
A CHamoru Coming of Culture

HÅFA ADAI!

“I was almost 4 years old when the Japanese bomb Perl Arbor [Pearl Harbor]. and life for everyone in Guam immediately changed. As a young child, I remembered a song that was very popular at that time. the lyrics of the song is simple but as we play outdoors we willsing this song, which goes “8 of December. 1941 People go crazyright here in Guam!!

 OH  MISTER  SAM,  SAM  MY  DEAR  UNCLESAM WILL YOU PLEASE COME BACK TO GUAM  WW2 LANDED IN GUAM!!”^[1]

These are the words of my Nana, Teresita Ignacio Santos Currie. “I was born in Agana, Guam on November 7^th, 1937. My home consisted of my mother and father with 4 sisters and one brother.”^[2] Nana is an Indigenous CHamoru woman who was born and raised on the Pacific Island of Guåhan, otherwise known as Guam. As a child during WWII, my Nana experienced the violent thirty-two-month Japanese occupation of Guåhan. After the war, the American military seized and re-established colonial control over Guåhan, and CHamoru people faced an onslaught of American Exceptionalism rhetoric, propaganda, laws, and re-education programs. My Nana is 85 years old, and even now, more than 50 years later, discussing her experiences in Guåhan is a raw, emotional topic for her.  Both because of how long she has been separated from the island, and the trauma that has been interwoven within these memories. In a CHamoru coming of culture, I wayread the oral histories of my maternal grandmother, a woman who is the Indigenous CHamoru definition of a traditional knowledge producer, asserting that the matriarchal social structure of CHamoru customs have provided an avenue of tracing CHamoru lived experience from an Indigenous point of view, reclaiming Indigenous autonomy and our narratives that are at risk of going dormant.^[3]

METHODS:

In this section, I situate Readers in the theory and methods that are critical to my argument. Following that, I transition into the oral histories of my Nana, and our family’s experience during the Japanese occupation. Finally, I assert that my Nana has been subconsciously reinforcing CHamoru ways of being, knowing and doing within her household without her knowledge. These CHamoru customs and cultural traditions have been passed to my mother, her siblings, and their children.

Craig Santos Perez coined the term “wayreading.”^[4]  This methodology “navigates the complex articulations of CHamoru culture, identity, and aesthetics by mapping and locating the moving signs of Indigenous presence, such as CHamoru language, values, customs, beliefs, histories, and arts.”^[5] Wayreading, as a literature methodology, was developed in reference to the navigational wayfinding techniques which located seafaring Pacific voyagers’ positions in space.^[6] I situate this research as “A CHamoru Coming of Culture,” a navigation that has been guiding me through my own position in space. As “wayreading reveals the continuity, resistance, and vitality of CHamoru culture, identity and aesthetics,” I employ this method to place my family’s experiences with colonial violence, focused on the continual resistances and Indigenous autonomies that are located in the oral histories. As outlined in Navigating CHamoru Poetry, the identifying words used in CHamoru history varies significantly across time, place, and space.^[7]

In “On Being Guamanian Guamese Guamite Guamian Chamorro,” Robert Underwood “speaks to the complexity and various nomenclatures of CHamoru identity,” which is exemplified by the array of terminology within the community.^[8] In 2018, the Kumision I Fino’ CHamoru yan Fina’nå’guen I Hisoria yan Lina’la’I Taotao Tåno’ (Commission on CHamoru Language and the Teaching of the History and Culture of the Indigenous People of Guam,) wrote the identity term CHamoru into law as the official orthography.^[9] The word Guåhan translates to “’we have’ or ‘a place that has’” in Fino’ CHamrou, the CHamoru language.^[10] Prior, names of the island ranged from “Goaam, Goam, Guan, Guana, Guajan, Guam, and Guahan.”^[11] When the United States seized occupation, following the Spanish American war, they “officially designate the island as Guam in 1908,” and the other Mariana Islands were contracted out to Germany, further displacing CHamoru populations.^[12] Nana uses the terms Guamanian to refer to her identity, and Guam to refer to the land, dependent on the American military empire. These two things are conjoined in her mind. The term Guamanian, “evolved in the early years after World War II,” in the wake of extremely heightened American patriotism.^[13] This American patriotism blossomed in the hearts of CHamoru peoples following the end of the violent Japanese occupation.^[14] Given that “identity emerges through our lived experiences and is marked by the memories we have of these encounters,” Nana using this term, situates her experiences within the American Exceptionalism Era.^[15]

Eve Tuck wrote in “Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities” of the dangers of “damage-centered research.”^[16] Tuck defines this as “research that operates, even benevolently, from a theory of change that establishes harm or injury in order to achieve reparation.”^[17] As a child, the only narratives that I was exposed to of Guåhan and our histories were focused on the trauma, grief, and suffering of our communities. These narratives only “insist that we are ruined, that we are broke, that we are damaged,” which only furthers the attempts of colonial empires to marginalize Indigenous knowledges and experiences.^[18] I push back on these “damage-centered” approaches in my research by refocusing on the ways that CHamoru history has been retold in my family and relocating the narratives that have been displaced. Tuck’s work has been a crucial reminder that focusing on the damage is not the only story worth being told.

CHamoru histories have been predominantly written by outsider men who documented perceptions of CHamoru culture from their heteropatriarchal positionalities.^[19] These positionalities valued men as leaders of nuclear families.^[20] In these perceptions, they failed to acknowledge the value and power of CHamoru matriarchal family structures because of their liminal view of matriarchal societies. The lived experiences of CHamoru people, specifically CHamoru women, have been, as Christine DeLisle puts it, “erased and marginalized in conventional historiography.”^[21] The hegemonic historiography written by outsider men, has attempted across centuries to subjugate, assimilate, and invisibilize CHamoru knowledge systems. Under these conditions, “women and children disproportionally absorb the impacts of this militarization,” in part because they are not written into the narrative.^[22] My Nana was both a child during the Japanese occupation, and a young woman during the American occupation. Currently, she does not see her story as imperative to the historical narrative because of the way she has been taught to view her own systems of knowledge from outsiders.[23]

My Uncle Roque once wrote that “the fundamental psychosocial problem of Guam is the Americanization of the basic unit of Guamanian society – the family.”^[24] He argues that during the American Imposition, “Emphasis was placed upon the institution of a patriarchal society,” thus, targeting CHamoru family life, specifically to disrupt matriarchal structures.^[25] These matriarchal structures that he references are a technology of CHamoru cultural practice that is maintained through oral histories, stories, and chants to pass down knowledge intergenerationally.^[26] The “main values of our culture are often noted to be inafa’maolek (interdependence), chenchule’ (reciprocity), mamålao (shame), and respetu (respect).”^[27] In an attempt to assimilate and discredit our ways of being, knowing, and doing, the colonial archives often devalue the resilience and adaptability of our practices, and the continuance of CHamoru knowledges. While some of this knowledge and culture has undeniably shifted over time and colonial influence, the narrative of CHamoru culture as inauthentic is anti-Indigenous. Vincente Diaz and J. Kēhaulani Kauanui argue in “Native Pacific Cultural Studies on the Edge,” that Pacific identities have been expected to be a “pure, unchanging set of practices and values that were defined in the ancient past and from which any deviation or change marks impurity and inauthenticity.”^[28] This unfair expectation has functioned as a colonial tool which has sought to devalue CHamoru culture.  The use of the word “impurity” here elicits notions alike to the Blood Quantum measurements that Native American people, theory, and scholarship discuss as an in-human assimilatory practice of settler colonialism.^[29]

CHamoru people are not and never were confined to the 212 square mile island of Guåhan.^[30] This focus on land ownership, rather than a more holistic view that includes the sea, has been perpetuated by colonial ideals of personal property. This view separates humans and the world we live in as opposed to humans as intrinsically tied to the earth.^[31] Epeli Hau’ofa argues in We Are the Ocean, that  “the idea that the countries of Polynesia and Micronesia are too small, too poor, too isolated to develop any meaningful degree of autonomy,” comes from a “very narrow kind” of view “that overlooks culture and history.”^[32] This notion shows itself within my Nana’s narrations often. I suspect this stems from the American colonial re-education she experienced growing up. Nana believes that her experience is not worth my focus, instead she insists that Guåhan is both too distant in time and physical location, for her stories to matter. Alternatively, Epeli Hau’ofa’s Indigenous centric model asserts, that “Oceania is vast, Oceania is expanding, Oceania is hospitable and generous, Oceania is humanity rising from the depths of brine and regions of fire deeper still, Oceania is us. We are the sea, we are the ocean.”^[33] Thinking of Oceania as a “sea of islands,” reminds us that our ancestors are “ocean peoples,” and grounds my analysis of Indigenous CHamoru ways of knowing outside colonial conceptualizations.^[34]

In No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies, Julian Aguon writes, “most of our history books are teeming with ghosts of dead politicians; we’ve filled their pages with so many former governors, senators, and speakers of the house, it’s no surprise no one else fits.”^[35] Agon calls this a “mistake of history.”^[36] He goes on to argue that “we’ve paid in ancestors whose names we do not know and thus cannot call out in times of tribulation—loved ones lost to us forever.”^[37] Despite the limited sources that I have relied on to re-locate my family’s lived experiences, this labor has given names to those who were previously unnamed, and reignited conversations of our CHamoru history within my extended family networks. Without the matriarchal structure and oral histories that have been passed down to me this would not have been possible.

FAMILIAL CONNECTIONS:

In the words of dåko’ta alcantara-camacho, “I am alive, and all generations of my ancestors are alive in me.”^[38] Throughout this process I have fought to eternally recognize the vast linage of women who have come before me. The stories that I do have of Josefa and Jose Santos come from my Nana’s memories, which have been passed onto me by way of oral storytelling.

Nana was the youngest of, from the best of my family’s knowledge, nine babies that were born to her mother, Josefa Ignacio Santos (1905-1998) and father, Jose Santos Santos (1899-1949). Up until 1998, my Nana had no knowledge of her che’lu (siblings) who had passed in their infancy or childhood. It wasn’t until she traveled to Guåhan for Josefa’s funeral that she saw their graves. This to me suggests that her family didn’t discuss the children who came before her. Possibly, this is because she was only 4 when the Japanese occupied. Possibly, this is because the traumatic experience of enduring colonial settler ideologies necessitated Josefa’s full focus on her family’s survival.

Teresita remembers her mom as “a very caring person with lots of natural talents to show How much she loved being around people. She was extremely helpful to anyone who was in need of help. With 6 children to care for, I often wonder how she managed to take care of Each one of us, my most memorable and enjoyable times with her were the many walks we did Around our neborhood visiting friends and relatives.”^[39] The importance of Josefa as a site of safety and comfort is one of the clearest memories that Nana has. The feeling of being individually seen, loved, and respected by her mother is a frequent reflection, and a place Nana returns when overwhelmed. “With a 4^th grade education she showed more Knowledge than most people with more education. She read a lot and knew what was going on Around the world and communicate with ease. She died at age 93 at peace with what she accomplished.”^[40] Nana remembers Josefa, reading international papers, and solving puzzles faster than anyone she knew. She also remembers that Josefa had a close connection to the jungle and ocean and knew of the plants and animals in Guåhan.

Jose Santos Santos was in the American Navy. He died of appendicitis when Nana was 12, so his life is vague in her memory. His military service is almost always followed up by two details. One is that his father fought in the Vietnam and Spanish American war, and the other, is that Josefa had aligned herself with him in part due to the access to social movement and commercial goods available to the wives of Naval men.^[41] Nana only remembers one photo of Jose ever existing, a side profile taken because of his Naval affiliation. Jose Santos Santos “loved to visit relatives on a Sunday afternoon.”^[42] Nana remembers him as “a very jolly person who enjoyed fishing and gardening. He loved to cook outdoors on a grille he made. Fishing was a favorite pastime of his. One of my fondest memory of him, is going fishing in the pacific ocean. We did this often and on one occasion, we out fishing when it was low tide and did not realized that high tide was nearing. We were having a lot of fun, playing and trying to catch a lot of fish. By the time we noticed that the tide was quickly changing, we had to hustle to get to the shore. He might have had to carry me as were in danger.”^[43] This memory situates Jose in a delightful pastime. However, this is where it gets complicated. Jose was an alcoholic, and he physically abused both his wife and children. I have known these facts my whole life, however the moment I became a ‘researcher’ my Nana shifted the access to non-filtered knowledge that she provided me. I presume that this can be traced back to her distrust of formal academic research, which in her experience has portrayed CHamoru people in harmful ways.

Reproducing CHamoru matriarchal traditions, my Great Grandparents named their children to carry on their mother’s maiden name as their middle name.^[44] Their eldest daughter was born in 1923. Her name was Lourdes Ignacio Santos and she died of the measles when she was 9. Following her was Maria Ignacio Santos born in 1924. She became a teacher and lived on Guåhan throughout her whole life. My Aunt Tomasa Ignacio Santos was born in 1926, and she would later move to the United States on a full ride scholarship, against her father’s wishes. Magdalena Ignacio Santos was born in 1928, and she also went to college and lived in the United States for a portion of her life. She became the first CHamoru woman to receive a master’s degree – in library science.^[45] Aunt Maggie married Richard Taitano, a man who later became a senator and the Richard Flores Taitano Micronesian Area Research Center was named after him.^[46] Carmen Ignacio Santos, was born in 1930, she died of pneumonia when she was five. Jose Ignacio Santos was stillborn in 1933, that same year, Roque Ignacio Santos was born. When Roque grew up, he enlisted in the military-like his father and grandfather before him. After his military service he moved to the United States for education. Ana Ignacio Santos was born in 1936. After WWII, during her second-grade year, Ana was pulled out of school due to an epileptic episode. Josefa cared for her until she died in 1998. Teresita Ignacio Santos Currie, my Nana, was born in 1937.  Only six of Josefa and Jose’s children lived into adulthood, Maria, Tomasa, Magdalena, Roque, Ana, and Teresita.

Nana’s childhood memories often take place at family gatherings or special events. This shows how interdependent her family structure was while she was growing up. Now, in the extended family that she has built, siblings, cousins, great uncles and beyond are all seen as family. There is no clear definition of degree of relation to determine authentic family. This practice is in direct contrast to the heteropatriarchal norm that warns of the nuclear family as the only valuable familial structure.  Interdependent family structures, like this one, allowed for the sharing of knowledge, labor, and resources. This was especially utilized during the WWII Japanese occupation when communities and families relied on their interconnectivity for their survival.

LEGACIES OF THE WAR:

“I was born in Guam, and we were very much affected by WW2.”^[47]

The Japanese occupation of Guåhan began with air bombings on December 10^th, 1941, and the island was under Japanese occupation until August 10^th, 1944, when the American military re-seized the space.^[48]  The events of this occupation dramatically changed the lives of CHamoru peoples. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7^th, 1941, in Hawai’i, another Pacific Island where the Kanaka Maoli people have experienced similar histories with colonial imposition, the thirty-two-month Japanese occupation of Guåhan began. The Japanese attempted their colonial escapade on multiple fronts. They forced CHamoru people to work hard labor, marched them from their homes across the island and into concentration camps, kidnapped service men, like my great grandfather, as prisoners of war, forced CHamoru children to attend Japanese assimilatory education programs, and they raped and sexually violated women and girls.^[49] At each of these colonial fronts, CHamoru people faced deadly consequences if the expectations of the Japanese were not met.

Uncle Roque used to tell stories of a moment, or moments, when the Japanese would line CHamoru people up, himself, and my great grandmother included, under the suspicion of theft. Then the soldiers would randomly attack people, beating and mutilating them. Roque remembered that he felt lucky none of our family members were singled out during these explosive moments.^[50] The recurrence of CHamoru people being perceived as thieves, is ironic coming from the very colonizers who were violently seizing labor, peace, and resources from CHamoru communities. The following are collected memories, gathered from moments of my Nana’s remembrance. This provides readers with a first-hand perspective of the Japanese occupation from the eyes of a young girl.

“My Dad was in the USA ARMY during WW2 and was taken as a prisoner of war during the Japanese occupation so consequently we missed him during those terrible times the Island was occupied.”^[51]Josefa was the sole caretaker for the household. Her children ranged in age and gender, which has allowed for my family to get a glimpse into a spectrum of experiences during the occupation. “As a young child we had to move to my grandfather’s house were we had to stay for the duration of WW2 My memory of the time we lived here is vake but It was a beautiful location with lots of vegetations. This was A huge piece of land with hundreds of acres. We love running the small hills and rolling around in the grass.”^[52] During the occupation, “I missed my Mom and wondered how she was able to cope with what was going on at the time.”^[53] “My mom and siblings were at A forced labor environment and came home late at night. Her love and attention managed to keep us safe and we felt protected.”^[54]Josefa shielded her children from colonial violence to the best of her abilities. This certainly lessened the impact of this trauma, but ultimately the responsibility of erasing the violence cannot be placed onto Josefa as doing so would expect her to carry the burden of colonization.^[55] This unjust burden neglects to hold actual colonizers accountable.

“My sister Ana (Neat) and I were never registered, so we were left alone throughout the long day as we watched our mother and sisters, and brother marched off to the labor camp.”^[56]Fearing for the safety of her children, Josefa entrusted her two youngest daughters, Ana, aged six, and Teresita, aged four, to the jungle for protection. They “were tuck away from dangers from the Japanese. The land was beautiful had plenty of fruits and veggies. A very dense wooded area, witch made it a perfect place to hide. I membered playing outside with my brother and sister Ana.”^[57] Josefa kept her youngest children’s existence a secret from the Japanese soldiers when they took headcount of CHamoru families. “We had strict instructions given to us as to how to behave throughout the day. We had to be on the lookout for Japanese patrolling the area. I can just assume that the work they had to endure were miserable, some were beaten for not working fast enough.”^[58]The jungle allowed for shelter, but also left the children alone for long hours while their mother and siblings were forced to do hard labor. My mother remembers hearing stories from her mom of times where she hid from discovery by the Japanese, and times when she stumbled upon piles of beheaded and disfigured bodies on the beach.^[59] This is how the story is told in my family’s oral histories, Nana recalls moments over time that cumulatively come together to tell a story of a very young child’s survival through trauma. Still, the focus in her stories is often on the abundance of food and love within her childhood home.

I do not know directly of the stories of Maria and Magdalena during World War II; their experiences remain dormant and ready to be recovered in the family’s historical memory. It is assumed, from my Nana’s testimonies, that they were interned in forced labor camps and made to work long hours on behalf of the Japanese.^[60]

My Uncle Roque attended Japanese re-education assimilation programs. It is unclear if his older sisters did as well. My Nana often recalls when her brother, Roque, was taught how to count to 10 in Japanese.^[61] She always says that “he had a lot of FUN trying to teach each of us some of what he had learned that day. To this day I still remember counting in Japanese, (a little)!”^[62] Re-education programs function to pass on the ‘desired’ knowledge of colonial empires. This passes through sibling relationships; therefore, children are typically the primary targets for colonial escapade. The reach of colonial education extended towards my Nana, despite the Japanese colonizers being unaware of her existence hiding in the jungle.

My Aunt Tomasa is seen as the person who experienced the occupation the ‘most traumatically’. She was repeatedly raped and faced extreme sexual violence during the occupation, at just 14. There was extreme “institutional rape and sexual slavery” that girls and women experienced in Guåhan during the Japanese occupation. After learning this, Tomasa’s story became clearer.^[63]  Tomasa retreated into her own world following the occupation, and not much is known of the specifics. No one recalls her talking about it. The sexual violence further disrupted CHamoru lived experiences and instilled a strong fear of Japanese authority.^[64]

Following the re-occupation, “The ‘Americanization’ of the Chamorros… received a big boost from the Japanese.”^[65] Craig Santos Perez asserts that this is because of CHamoru “’codes of indebtedness’ ignited feelings of patriotism and loyalty to the United States.”^[66] The memory most centralized in my Nana’s accounts of the war, is that of the joy that she felt once the American soldiers reoccupied the island. Nana often speaks words of thanks – directed towards American soldiers. She remembers that “they did a lot of good stuff for Guam,” like stepping up to provide housing and food for CHamoru people after the Japanese occupation.^[67] I do not know if she is aware that the American military seized her childhood home for the military expansion, but I did not have the heart to tell her.

AMERICAN COLONIAL EDUCATION:

During the Cold War, American schools taught students about the glories of the mainland, and preached of the access to education and material goods that America could provide them.[68] The hyper-masculinization of the military and hyper-feminization of the land was constructed by the American military occupation to decentralize CHamoru women’s roles as heads of their houses and reinforced heteronormative societal expectations. This was established by the American military by asserting the inferiority of Indigenous ways of life, and the colonialist government blamed those same Indigenous ways of life as having failed CHamoru people in successfully protecting them from the Japanese forces.[69] This was reproduced, in part by nuns who were affiliated with the Catholic Church.[70] Oftentimes, the religions sisters were based within universities and convents in the United States. Since 1946, nuns have been “actively working and praying” in Guåhan, “from the classroom to the hospital, the women’s shelter to the senior care home, religious sisters have had a significant presence in people’s lives.”[71] My Aunt Tomasa and Aunt Maggie were “sent off-island for higher education,” by the religious order.[72] They received four-year full-ride scholarships to attend Siena Heights College for Tomasa, and Mount Mary College for Maggie. Each of these schools was affiliated with the sisters who had taught them in Guåhan. A few years later, my Nana also went to the United States, immediately following her high school graduation.

To further ‘Americanize’ CHamoru peoples, the U.S. Navy banned the Fino’ CHamoru language (CHamoru language) from 1917 to the 1970s.[73] During this time, CHamoru-English dictionaries were gathered and burned.[74] CHamoru children, like my Nana, were punished for speaking the language in school, and many CHamoru parents stopped teaching their children the Fino’ CHamoru language.[75] Michael Bevacqua argues that after WWII “many parents on Guam were afraid that teaching their children CHamoru would limit their chances of success in the US.”[76] The attempted linguicide and Americanization was targeted specifically towards children, and the effects of this are still being felt, generations later. Nana does not remember the language, and she did not pass it onto her children because of the stigma and violence that she has been conditioned to associate with CHamoru ways of knowing. Growing up, I had been very vocal about my desire to learn this language. The lack of access to classes in the United States, and family who could teach me made this impossible. This last summer, si yu’os ma’åse (thanks) to zoom, I have found a class and have begun the journey to reclaiming the Fino’ CHamoru language. As the only person in my family who knows some of the language, I feel responsible for using CHamoru words whenever possible in conversation hopefully, to introduce them to words and phrases so that they might become more curious about claiming their heritage language themselves. 

CHAMORU CONTINUANCE AND CULTURAL RESISTANCE:

In the Fino’ CHamoru language, words and syllables are often reduplicated to emphasize the meaning as active or continual.^[77] This reduplication can be seen in the following excerpt of my Nana’s speech.

“The older people believed in all of this, but right now, Guam is really like another state in the United States. The culture has become a lot like here because of the war and the military. Guam is really Americanized. It’s just a very very small little island, it’s just like going to a small little town in the United States right now.”^[78]

In this quote, my Nana repeats words that signify how marginalized she sees the CHamoru customs, and thus Indigenous power. She references how her manåmko’ (elders) believed in CHamoru Legends before the American colonization. She continues to note that the American military occupation has shifted Guåhan’s space into a location that she sees as an extension of the mainland.^[79] By wayreading my Nana’s words, it becomes clear that Fino’ CHamoru language patterns are being reproduced, despite the English language being spoken.^[80] This is a representation of how CHamoru customs appear, despite the cultural reproduction of language patterns being unconscious on my Nana’s behalf.^[81] Language patterns are a medium that is observable, measurable, and often a marker of cultural connectivity. As such, the reduplication of words in my Nana’s speech and writings can be clearly measured, and quantified. I wonder then, if similar instances of unconscious cultural reproduction can be wayread within mediums that are not as transparent.

 The conversation the quote above derives from was prompted by my Nana’s CHamoru book of legends that I had placed onto the kitchen table.^[82] I watched, and listened, as my grandmother read to me the creation story of a mermaid, Sirena.

Sirena was a young girl who enjoyed playing in the water. Her mother told her to stop and come help with the chores, but she was having such a good time in the water that she was not paying attention to her mother’s calls. Her mother complained to Sirena’s godmother and in her irritation Sirena’s mother remarked that if her daughter likes the water so much than, maybe she should be a fish. The godmother chimed in because she noticed the severity of this comment and exclaimed that the human part of her should remain, since that half is hers.^[83] Suddenly, Sirena transformed into a mermaid. Her mother regretted wishing this upon her, but nothing could be done to change Sirena’s fate, so she said goodbye and swam out to sea. ^[84]

Toni “Malia” Ramirez, a CHamoru oral historian, wrote that the story of Sirena is “one of the most treasured stories in the Chamorro culture, the most retold from generation to generation.”^[85] Spanish officials crafted this story based on Spanish folktale that they were familiar with, to create a fear of the water and disobedience in CHamoru children.^[86] Ramirez notes that our, “Oral history relates that the missionaries and Spanish officials had difficulty restricting children from the river which was a resource.”^[87] Young girls were most often who this story is retold to, as a fear tactic. ^[88] This “fear is pronounced in the early socialization of every Chamorro child, especially among females. Perhaps this explains why most Chamorritas today almost consider the ocean alien and the majority not even knowing how to swim.”^[89]  My Nana can’t swim either.

I wonder now if the story of Sirena could be the reason that my Nana did not learn how to swim? Did the stories of the dangers persuade her away? Did her mother or older sisters know the legend? Did they keep my Nana away from the water? As a child, my mother explained to me that Guåhan was a place with no beaches, rough and dangerous waters, and no swimming holes. Of course, I believed her. She is my mother. I was taught not to question her knowledge. This description of Guåhan made sense to me. However, when I learned of the beaches and easily swimmable reefs, I was confused; Until I heard the story of Sirena, and everything seemed to fall into place. My mother inferred the topography of Guåhan incorrectly. She told me of the dangers in the waters in Guåhan. While her rendition is shifted, the original purpose of Sirena’s story has remained intact. My mother taught her young daughter to be wary of the water and to believe and respect the words she was speaking.

The story of Sirena, however altered, has remained with an intact message that can be wayread as a moment of CHamoru cultural reproduction. From my great grandma, Nana, mother, to me. After she finished reading the story, Nana exhaled a disapproving sigh. She called the story “silly” and swiftly ended the conversation. She may not ‘believe’ but regardless, the story remained.

Julian Agon wrote – “we’ve paid in ancestors whose names we do not know and thus cannot call out in times of tribulation—loved ones lost to us forever.” ^[90] This is not where the quote ends. Instead, Agon continues to say – “but sometimes they are found.”^[91] This research has allowed for me, my family, and especially my Nana to reclaim histories that had gone dormant and resituate these legacies within our oral histories. This reclamation would not have been possible without the oral histories, and familial interconnections, that were already established and thriving, prior to my existence; Si yu’os ma’åse (Thank you) to my manåmko’, for their labor which has worked to preserve these knowledges.

^[1] Teresita Ignacio Santos Currie, “My childhood life,” Storyworth.com written response, November 07, 2021.To accurately preserve her speech patterns, her words are directly written, and her writing is not edited; to add clarity her voice is italicized throughout this paper.

^[2] Teresita Ignacio Santos Currie, “My Childhood life,” Storyworth.com written response, November 7^th, 2021.

^[3] Santos Perez, Navigating CHamoru Poetry, 31

^[4] Santos Perez, Navigating CHamoru Poetry, 31

^[5] Santos Perez, Navigating CHamoru Poetry, 34.

^[6] Vincente M. Diaz, “Voyaging for Anti-colonial Recovery: Austronesian Seafaring, Archipelagic Rethinking, and the Re-mapping of Indigeneity,” Pacific Asia Inquiry 2, no.1 (Fall 2011): 26. As seen in Santos Perez, Navigating CHamoru Poetry, 39.

^[7] Santos Perez, Navigating CHamoru Poetry, 11. As such, this paper will not alter the various names present in the oral histories and sources examined.^[vii]

^[8] Robert A. Underwood, “On Being Guamanian Guamese Guamite Guamian Chamorro,” Xanadu II, Spring 1982. As found in Santos Perez, Navigating CHamoru Poetry, 11.

^[9] Santos Perez, Navigating CHamoru Poetry, 10.

^[10] Santos Perez, Navigating CHamoru Poetry, 11.

^[11] Santos Perez, Navigating CHamoru Poetry, 11.

^[12] Robert F. Rogers, Destiny’s Landfall: a History of Guam. Rev. ed. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2011. 15.

^[13] Gina E. Taitano, “Adoption of ‘Guamanian,’” Guampedia, May 11, 2022. https://www.guampedia.com/adoption-of-guamanian/

^[14] Mary Therese F. Cruz, “(Re)Searching Identity: Being Chamorro in an American Colony,” ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2012. 2.  https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/48f7414f-6a78-417f-8abd-8411b3d8bb44/content

^[15] Mary Therese F. Cruz, “(Re)Searching Identity,” 1.

^[16] Eve Tuck, “Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities,” Harvard Educational Review, Retrieved from  https://www.proquest.com/docview/212268515?accountid=9703.

^[17] Eve Tuck, “Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities.”

^[18] Eve Tuck, “Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities.”

^[19] Christine Taitano DeLisle. Placental Politics: CHamoru Women, White Womanhood, and Indigeneity Under U.S. Colonialism in Guam. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press), 2021. Xii-xiv.

^[20] Taitano DeLisle. Placental Politics, 14.

^[21] Taitano DeLisle. Placental Politics, 1.

^[22] Sylvia C. Frain, “Women’s Resistance in the Marianas Archipelago: A US Colonial Homefrotn and Militarized Frontline.” Feminist Formations 29, no.1 (Spring, 2017) https://www.proquest.com/docview/1900112002

[23] To this day, reports are being published that claim that our language is dead, and our culture dying. https://www.guampdn.com/archives/bevacqua-our-language-isnt-dead-yet/article_233775f1-6857-5884-be10-69f7c8d1497d.html However community members are pushing back on this perspective as can be seen in https://www.guampdn.com/archives/bevacqua-our-language-isnt-dead-yet/article_233775f1-6857-5884-be10-69f7c8d1497d.html

^[24] Roque Ignacio Santos. “The Guamanian Family: Psychohistorical Developments,” pg 1. The lack of a better citation is due to the lack of more information. My Aunt Carmen, Roque’s daughter, sent me a 25-page article with no title page, or easily traceable passages, which she says he carried around with him everywhere for over 25 years.

^[25] Roque Ignacio Santos. “The Guamanian Family: Psychohistoircal Developments,” pg 1.

^[26] Judy Flores, “Chant,” Guampedia, November 05, 2022, https://www.guampedia.com/chant/

^[27] Santos Perez, Navigating CHamoru Poetry, 11.

^[28] Vincente Diaz and J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, “Native Pacific Cultural Studies on the Edge,” The Contemporary Pacific 13, no.2 (2001) https://doi.org/10.1353/cp.2001.0049. As seen in Santos Perez, Navigating CHamoru Poetry, 17.

^[29] Katherine Ellinghaus, Blood Will Tell: Native Americans and Assimilation Policy. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2017. xii

^[30] Rogers, Destiny’s Landfall: A History of Guam. (NEED PAGE)

^[31] Epeli Hau‘ofa, We Are the Ocean: Selected Works. “Our Sea of Islands,” Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2008. 28-29. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt6wqzrq.7?seq=15#metadata_info_tab_contents

^[32] Epeli Hau’ofa, “Or Sea of Islands,” 29-30.

^[33] Epeli Hau’ofa, “Or Sea of Islands,” 39.

^[34] Epeli Hau’ofa, “Or Sea of Islands,” 39. As seen in Sylvia C. Frain, “Women’s Resistance in the Marianas Archipelago”

^[35] Julian Agon, No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies: A Lyric Essay. New York: Astra Publishing House, 2022. 38.

^[36] Agon, No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies, 39.

^[37] Agon, No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies, 39.

^[38] dåko’ta alcantara-camacho. “Guam: Where America’s Day Begins with Injustice.” The Seattle Globalist, January 25, 2014. https://seattleglobalist.com/2013/11/27/guam-where-americas-day-begins-with-injustice/17809.

^[39] Teresita Ignacio Santos Currie, “What was your Mom like when you were a child?” Storyworth.com written response, January 03, 2021.

^[40] Teresita Ignacio Santos Currie, “What was your Mom like when you were a child?”

^[41] Christine Taitano DeLisle. Placental Politics: CHamoru Women, White Womanhood, and Indigeneity Under U.S. Colonialism in Guam. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press), 2021. 6.

^[42] Teresita Ignacio Santos Currie, “What was your Dad like when you were a child?” Storyworth.com written response, February 14, 2021.

^[43] Teresita Ignacio Santos Currie, “What was your Dad like when you were a child?”

^[44] Bernard, Punzalan, “Historical Shifts in Naming Practices of the CHamoru People.” Chamorro Roots, August 29, 2021. https://www.chamorroroots.com/v7/index.php/pubs-projects/49-taotao-tano/history/765-historical-shifts-in-naming-practices-of-the-chamoru-people.

^[45] “Magdalena Taitano.” Guampedia. Accessed November 27, 2022. https://www.guampedia.com/magdalena-taitano/.

^[46] “Richard F. Taitano Micronesian Area Research Center: University of Guam.” July 29, 2022. https://www.uog.edu/marc-home

^[47] Teresita Ignacio Santos Currie, “My Childhood life.”

^[48] Wakoko Higuchi, “Japanese Occupation of Guam.” Guampedia. May 14, 2022. https://www.guampedia.com/japanese-occupation-of-guam/

^[49] Wakako Higuchi,“The Japanisation Policy for the Chamorros of Guam, 1941-1944,” The Journal of Pacific History 36, no. 1 (2001) 21. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25169517.

^[50] Elizabeth Sandra Currie Neal, interview by jessie neal, Houston, Texas, November 6, 2022.

^[51] Teresita Ignacio Santos Currie, “What was your Dad like when you were a child?”

^[52] Teresita Ignacio Santos Currie, “Did you ever move as a child? What was that experience like?” Storyworth.com written response, March 10, 2021

^[53] Teresita Ignacio Santos Currie, “My Childhood life.”

^[54] Teresita Ignacio Santos Currie, “What was your Mom like when you were a child?”

^[55] Taitano DeLisle. Placental Politics, “Introduction,” 14.

^[56] Teresita Ignacio Santos Currie, “My Childhood life.”

^[57] Teresita Ignacio Santos Currie, “My Childhood life.”

^[58] Teresita Ignacio Santos Currie, “My childhood life,” Storyworth.com written response, November 07, 2021.

^[59] Elizabeth Sandra Currie Neal, interview by jessie neal, October 22, 2022.

^[60] Teresita Ignacio Santos Currie, “My Childhood life.”

^[61] Teresita Ignacio Santos Currie, “My Childhood life.”

^[62] Teresita Ignacio Santos Currie, “My Childhood life.”

^[63] Leiana Naholowa’a, “Comfort Women on Guam,” Guampedia, November 29, 2022. https://www.guampedia.com/comfort-women-on-guam/

^[64] Leiana Naholowa’a, “Comfort Women on Guam,” Guampedia, November 29, 2022. https://www.guampedia.com/comfort-women-on-guam/

^[65] Vincente Diaz, Repositioning the Missionary: Rewriting the Histories of Colonialism, Native Catholicism, and the Indigeneity in Guam (Honolulu: University of Hawai’I Press, 2010) as seen in Santos Perez, Navigating CHamoru Poetry, 13

^[66] Vincente M. Diaz, “Deliberating ‘Liberation Day’: Identity, History, Memory, and War in Guam,” in Perilous Memories: The Asia-Pacific War(s), ed. T. Fujitani, Geoffery M. White, and Lisa Yoneyama (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001), 161. As seen in Santos Perez, Navigating CHamoru Poetry, 13

^[67] Teresita Ignacio Santos Currie, Oral history conversation with jessie neal, November 6, 2022.

[68] Michael Lujan Bevacqua, “American-Style Colonialism,”

[69] Michael Lujan Bevacqua, “American-Style Colonialism,” Guampedia. November 12, 2022. https://www.guampedia.com/american-style-colonialism/

[70] Dominica Tolentino, “Chamorro Nuns in Postwar Guam,” Guampedia. November 29, 2022. https://www.guampedia.com/chamorro-nuns-in-post-war-guam/

[71] Dominica Tolentino, “Chamorro Nuns in Postwar Guam,” Guampedia. November 29, 2022. https://www.guampedia.com/chamorro-nuns-in-post-war-guam/

[72] Dominica Tolentino, “Chamorro Nuns in Postwar Guam,” Guampedia. November 29, 2022.

[73] Michael Bevacqua, “The Fight to save CHamoru, a language the US military tried to destroy,” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, February 12, 2020.  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/13/the-fight-to-save-chamoru-a-language-the-us-military-tried-to-destroy

[74] Michael Bevacqua, “The Fight to save CHamoru, a language the US military tried to destroy.”

[75] Michael Bevacqua, “The Fight to save CHamoru, a language the US military tried to destroy.”

[76] Michael Bevacqua, “The Fight to save CHamoru, a language the US military tried to destroy.”

^[77] Charles A. Kauffman, “Reduplication Reflects Uniqueness and Innovation in Language, Thought and Culture.” Omniglot. (York College of Pennsylvania, 2015), https://omniglot.com/language/articles/reduplication.htm.; Additionally, Dr. Michael Bevacqua mentioned this during our Fino’ CHamoru classes on zoom. However, I do not have the exact day/ lesson that this occurred.

^[78] Teresita Ignacio Santos Currie, Direct quote, oral history from her kitchen table, casual conversation with jessie neal (granddaughter), Houston, Texas, November 6th, 2022.

^[79] Lina Taitingfong, “Manåmko’.” Guampedia, November 8, 2022. https://www.guampedia.com/manamko/. 

^[80] Santos Perez, Navigating CHamoru Poetry, 31.

^[81] Santos Perez, Navigating CHamoru Poetry, 31.

^[82] Teresita Ignacio Santos Currie, Direct quote, oral history from her kitchen table, casual conversation with jessie neal (granddaughter), Houston, Texas, November 6th, 2022. The legends book that I refer to is entitled “CHamoru legends,” and there is not further information offered. Nana remembers bringing the book with her when she came to the United States.

^[83] Toni “Malia” Ramirez, “Folktale: Sirena,” Guampedia, November 04, 2022. https://www.guampedia.com/sirena/

^[84] Toni “Malia” Ramirez, “Folktale: Sirena.”

^[85] Toni “Malia” Ramirez, “Folktale: Sirena.”

^[86] Toni “Malia” Ramirez, “Folktale: Sirena.”

^[87] Toni “Malia” Ramirez, “Folktale: Sirena.”

^[88] Toni “Malia” Ramirez, “Folktale: Sirena.”

^[89] Toni “Malia” Ramirez, “Folktale: Sirena.”

^[90] Agon, No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies, 39.

^[91] Agon, No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies, 39.