Because, in so many ways, a young woman asked me why I seem less bitchy these days.

I can’t help but write a “New Year’s” blog entry.  I tried not to, but as the first days of the new year roll by, it’s hard not to think of all the lessons you’ve learned and ways in which you’ve evolved as a person. Revealing my emotions and thoughts in this blog has had a profound impact on my life. Through regularly posting in this blog, I have learned that there are many people who identify with the things I thought I was struggling with alone. 

I am often invited into classrooms to discuss the blog, pieces of creative work, speeches I have delivered, or particular entries. Each time, I leave moved by the deeply personal things students have decided to share.  I’ve left a few sessions moved to tears by some of the emotion that individuals from various backgrounds have revealed. We’ve talked about ways they’ve been hurt by people like me and how they’re more aware of ways in which they hurt others in return. It’s surreal to walk into a room full of people you have never met and walk out feeling like you have known them for years.  It’s beautiful- being able to connect with strangers and turn them into life long friends after a single conversation. 

A graduate student from off-island called me to speak about my blog.  One of the things she pointed out was, what she perceived as, a “change in voice” from earlier entries.    I didn’t even remember writing some of the things she brought up during our interview.  It prompted me to do some reading when I had the house to myself.  As  soon as my baby was whisked away to school for the morning, I began reading through early entries.  She was right.  My earlier entries were often written in a very desperate, panicked tone.  Then there was a shift toward flat out anger and bitterness, then bouts of sarcasm and mean spirited humor.

While reading older entries, I watched myself move through the process of thinking about my family’s history, our island’s political status, narratives of history that had been marginalized in America’s framing of past events, our island’s uncertain future, and for the first time in my life, taking an honest look at who I am as a Chamorro, particularly a Chamorro who has been raised within a military family.  

This blog has prompted many honest discussions with people around me.  Close girlfriends from the states called, surprised that I had so much sitting inside me.  They asked me why I never shared certain things with them.  Some of them cried, remembering incidents I had wrote about, asking why I had not said anything in the moment. I would only show them things that kept them comfortable in the knowledge they currently had regarding island life, my patriotism after the “liberation” of my grandparents, and showing how many similarities we had. 

I had two very different groups of friends that I kept separate from each other through much of my education.  I had the friends I met in the states and my friends from Guam and Saipan.  I was more honest about my feelings in front of the latter.  And those of us who shared a heritage in the Marianas were not always forthright with certain subjects in front of friends from elsewhere. This hurt some of my friends. It even hurt relatives through marriage who are from the states. It came as a shock to those who had married into Chamorro families who weren’t entirely aware of some the feelings held by people around them.  Some of them still insist that they “know” how Chamorro people feel because they “married a Chamorro.” 

I had a friend e-mail me, saying he had come across my blog, began reading it and was suddenly sad thinking of comments he made.  I had never said anything.  He said that after reading a few entries, he couldn’t understand how I was able to hang around our friends. He was suddenly remembering the silence he received from certain relatives and thinking about it in a new way.  He thought they were shy and inarticulate, not informed enough about certain issues to contribute to the conversation.  He suddenly realized that there was much more behind the polite silence and indifferent hospitality.  It was the same with girlfriends.  They asked me if I hated them.  I never hated any of them.  Accepting comments like that had just been so much a part of me.  I had been raised to absorb them and not confront them as problematic. I was raised to ignore anything rude, biased, or insulting and to focus on showing others that I was not hateful or racist, even in the face of blatant racism against me or people like me.  Many times, they didn’t even realize I was identifying with the people they felt so harshly about.  They forgot or didn’t realize that I was one of those people; because I was so busy prioritizing their cultural lens.  I tried to be “Chamorro,” which I thought was being “accepting, giving, and tolerant.”  Despite what many of those public service commercials from certain businesses and our visitor’s bureau tell you, there is a lot more to us than that. 

All the effort put toward proving that I was not resentful actually ended up doing the reverse once actual scholarship and a broader understanding of my home’s history came clashing together with my emotions and upbringing.    

It’s not that I feel there is no longer anything to feel panicked about.  It’s not that I feel there is no longer anything Chamorros should feel angry or bitter about.  I have just learned that in order to prevent those things from consuming you, you have to be honest about them. In order to stomp out feelings of resentment or racism, you have to first acknowledge that they are there. In order to fix a problem, you have to actually look at the problem and study it.  

There is so much racism and resentment on this island because we spend so much time talking about how it’s not there, pretending nothing is going on. We pretend that everyone is getting along and that all military dependents stationed here are basking in the friendliness of islanders; and that in turn, locals are swinging their doors open for sailors walking down the street. We try to pretend we are living in a big Guam Visitor’s Bureau commercial.  GVB's commercials are constant reminders that we need to be welcoming, share, invite foreigners into our home, and be diverse.  The people of this island have never had to be reminded to do those things before.  The sudden upswing of public outreach messages to be welcoming and “one” with everyone is a big indicator that something else is happening on this island.  


I had a hard time answering the graduate student earlier because in the short span of time in which she asked me the questions, I didn’t have time to think about exactly WHY a subtle shift in tone had snuck its way into my entries.  But now I have an answer for her:  I am less bitter, less angry, and less hateful because I was honest with myself and with others. I allowed myself a space in which others could challenge my negativity, question it, and disagree with it.  I made a space where I could challenge others in return.  I feel less anger toward individuals associated with institutions and systems that I fundamentally disagree with because I have done something our island has largely refused to do without buffering the discussion with reminders of our friendliness and gratitude:  I’ve acknowledged the reality of how I feel and went to the root of it in order to move forward (instead of trying to push aside the root of these feelings and pretend they are too far away to be valid parts of the discussion). They are valid parts of the discussion today because we never took the time to discuss them in the past.

Her questions make me think of a quote from Howard Zinn’s widely read book, The Peoples History of the United States.  When explaining the emphasis on marginalized aspects of American history and our tendency to prioritize some things and ignore others, he wrote:

“One can lie outright about the past.  Or one can omit facts which might lead to unacceptable conclusions.”

I feel that is something our island should take to heart if we ever want to get beyond some of the very real tension brewing around us.  And trust me, there is some serious tension snaking around this community.  We can keep omitting parts of our history and our actual feelings, or we can keep going back and forth over the unacceptable conclusions that fuel discussions regarding our culture, history, attitudes, and our futures.  

When I began this blog, I began in a state of grief and anger.  I let myself grieve appropriately and honestly, realizing there was legitimacy to my perspective. This helped me to move on and conserve energy for more meaningful work and progress in the present.  The problems we face on this island are big.  We have a long road ahead of us. A change in political status, the slowing of the build up, or getting swept away with the rhetoric of “oneness” and “buying local” aren’t gonna fix it.  There is no single cure for our island’s many ailments.  But one very important place to start is acknowledging just how unhealthy our home and our people are right now.