The Imperial Ouroboros
There are certain things in Guam and Chamoru life and history that exist as such potent and powerful symbols to illustrate reality, whether negatively or positively. You could argue the Karabao is one such positive image. Even the latte or the såkman/galaide'. But when it comes to these types of negative symbols, you have the old standard, the vague image of island thieves or ladrones. But you also have two very powerful and obfuscating symbols that are more recent, from just the past century, that of SPAM and the brown tree snake. I was in a virtual symposium last week where I talked about Spam as a way of talking about islanders and their relationship to everything from militarization to colonialism to the impact of capitalism and consumerism on everything from the land, the culture to the body itself. The brown tree snake possess a similar sort of potential in talking about the impact on the island of Guam or the Chamoru people, their natural resources, by invasive species. I