Happy Natives, Land Loss and Woven School Bags

 

Ya-hu este na litråtu. Lao guaha råson siha, ni' muna'ti ya-hu lokkue'. 

 

I posted this image a few months ago on the Guam Museum's social media as well as my own. 

 

It shows a Guam classroom in the late 1940s. Manggagaige todu, i ma'estra yan i estudiante siha gi halom un kuatto. Tumotohge i ma'estra gi me'nan i pisåra. Esta matuge' guihi i leksion. Uno na hobensita tumotohge mientras i otro manmata'ta'chong. Håfa ilelek-ña este na påtgon? Kao magacha' gui'? Pat kao gof osgon na estudiante ya ha kehåhayi i otro estudiante lol. Hekkua'.

 

Regardless of whatever is happening in the image itself, I have mixed feelings about this picture, reasons I really like it and reasons it makes me feel uneasy.

I like this picture because it shows Chamorus just a few years after the end of the Japanese occupation, life is returning to normal. Schools have been built or rebuilt. Education which was paused or disrupted for two to three years because of the war is starting up again. 

 

Chamorus are excited upbeat in these images because they are happy to have the trauma of the occupation behind them. 

 

At the same time, I don't like this image because it is part of a series of photos that were taken by the US Navy in the late 1940s, when they were trying to show off how wonderful a job they were doing governing the Chamoru people, without providing basic civil and democratic rights for them. It was also a time when they had displaced thousands of Chamoru families to build new bases, and so while Chamorus were happy for the war to be over, there was also a great deal of anxiety in this time over what the future held for them. 

 

At the time that this photo was taken, the Guam Congress Walkout had yet to take place and the Organic Act was not yet signed. Chamorus were still US nationals with little to no rights. Frank Duenas Perez gave these remarks in the Guam Congress expressing the worries people held after the US military had taken so much in the postwar years from the Chamoru people. 

 

“You have seen all of the discrimination going on, depriving us of our rights. Do you want to let this thing go on for another century until we lose everything we have? Until we have nothing to fall back on? What will be our economic situation in the days to come? No land, no money, no home. Where is our security? Have we any secure spot on these 225 square miles? I say, no.”

 

This photo is part of many where Chamorus are clearly happier than they were a few years ago, but this is also a photo op being used by the US military to justify their policies, including the fact that they had just displaced thousands of Chamoru families from their land, including perhaps some of these very children. 

 

My favorite part of this picture is actually the woven bags in the background, leaning against the wall on the desk. At this time, Chamoru students and teachers were still using locally woven bags. It was, at least at the time, cheaper and made more economic sense to make your own bags, as opposed to purchasing bags or backpacks made elsewhere. 

 

Oh how I wish there was some local industry for locally woven bags up until the present day.

 

Hu hasso este kada humånao yu' para Payless. I think of this each time I go to the store and purchase a reusable bag. I understand that reusable bags is better than disposable trash bags, but wow, how much better it might be if we wove shopping bags instead. 

Ai mohon!