Ten Weeks for the Tweed Protest
George Tweed was such an incredibly important symbol for Chamorus during the Japanese occupation. For me as a historian it is fascinating to think about how, just two years after the end of that occupation, more than a 100 Chamorus felt compelled to make signs and protest him when he returned to island. They didn't do this in the dead of night, but in the middle of the Plaza de España in front of the leadership of the US Navy on Guam.
As I wrote in this last column, it was a multitude of things that compelled Chamorus to take this act, but many of them weren't about Tweed himself. Chamorus were frustrated that the war, and their loyalty to the US and suffering at the hands of the Japanese hadn't improved their relationship to the US. They were confused as to why more and more land was being taken from families even though the war was over. Finally, they were perturbed as to how a country that claimed to have the corner market on freedom and liberty, yet Guam was still a colony where the interests of the military overruled those of the people who called it home.
My columns discussed all these reasons and others, and it is for this reason I would argue that with his book and his attitude Tweed made an easy target for a protest. You could make signs and chant and demonstrate against him, express and vent frustration with many things, while avoiding being called anti-American or communist. That while many families were upset with Tweed, in the way in which he appeared to be "ungrateful" or "oblivious" to the experiences of Chamorus, who had suffered on his behalf, whether directly or indirectly, this mirrored in small and large ways their own feelings about the US.
During the war, the average Chamoru had developed a very close and intimate relationship to Uncle Sam, praying, pining, hoping that he would soon return. This intimacy is part of the war experience, like the tattered, multicolored, handmade flags that Chamorus hid on their bodies from the Japanese during the occupation.
But the end of the war, meant a return to the reality of their situation. Uncle Sam, could be a great benefactor and benevolent patriarch one moment, and an indifferent, ignorant and ungrateful military-obssessed master the next. But while Guam was still under Naval rule in the 1940s, you couldn't say much that was critical about the United States or the military. It was common in those days to have those suspected of it to be brought in for questioning and investigated and scared off from daring to speak such truths. As Antonio "Gå'ga'" Cruz said in an interview reflecting back on the Guam Congress Walkout, they all assumed they were going to get arrested by the Naval Governor, since that was a common thing in those days.
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