Mensahi Ginen i Gehilo' #20: Independence Daze
![Image](http://web.archive.org./web/20231225134537im_/https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NQK9WBtHv2o/WIzcHbg6EWI/AAAAAAAAM-Q/39doUJxirs8uJa0wbFf05UqMBZtjGZqkACLcB/s400/Flag%2BRaising2%2Bphilippines%2Bindependence%2Bguam.jpeg)
It is intriguing the way that so many people assume something to be impossible and frightening in a particularly local or familiar context, but then completely miss the way that they accept such things in other contexts without even a hint of fear or apprehension. In Guam, a colony of the US for more than a century, and a colony of Spain for several centuries prior to that, this is frustratingly true and real in terms of the people of the island, both indigenous and non-indigenous, living in terror of Guam becoming independent. For other nations and other locations, independence is something to celebrate, a key moment in terms of a nation's development or evolution, something to look back on pride, even if your country has serious problems past or present. But it is intriguing how for example, Filipinos, Chinese or Koreans and others on Guam can celebrate the nationhood and the independence of their own nations, whether it be from colonialism, from imperialism or from their own s