Remembering My Year in Atåte
From 2014-2015 I spent a year in Atåte in the village of Malesso’. Not in a physical sense mind you, but in an intellectual and scholarly sense. During that time I was a professor in the Chamorro Studies Program at the University of Guam, and I worked with the late Jose Måta Torres to publish his memoirs “Massacre at Atåte” through the University of Guam. I was so thankful that we were able to see his book to completion in 2015, as he would pass away later that year. In addition to being the memoirs of a young man, coming of age in Japanese-occupied Guam, the book also provides a first-hand account of the uprising of the people from Malesso'. After the people of the village learned that the Japanese had attempted to massacre 60 of their friends and family at Tinta and Faha, most felt that it is only a matter of time before the rest were slaughtered. On the eve of the US invasion, a group of men led by Jose "Tonko" Reyes, surprised the Japanese, killing most of them an