Mensahi Ginen i Gehilo' #15: Decolonization Miasma
One thing that I struggled with when I first became more conscious about issues affecting Guam, especially around political status, was the question of why more people weren't interested in this and why so few people were committed to the idea of changing it. For my entire life, for the entire lives of my mother and father, for the entire lifetimes of my grandparents, Guam has been a colony of the United States. The face of American colonialism in Guam has changed significantly. My grandparents grew up at a time when Guam was strictly segregated and Chamorros were openly treated as inferior to white Americans. Today, although people on Guam do regularly experience second-class treatment at the hands of the United States at multiple levels, it is easy to dismiss this as simple ignorance or lack of respect and not tie to it a larger political relationship. Para Guahu, ti ya-hu na mañåsaga ham yan i familia-ku gi un colony. Ti ya-hu na esta para kana' kuatro na siento na såkka