School Days


After finishing up an online lecture series last week for the Guam Museum and the cultural diasporic group Håle' Para Agupa', one of the attendees in zoom asked me where I get all this information from, is it in books, are there movies or documentaries. I responded that there are a fair amount of books out there and some documentaries, especially if you are looking for World War II history in Guam. There are many more books out there than in the past, and what is nice is that more of them are written by Chamorus or at least people who have ties to Guam, but who may not be ethnically Chamoru. 

I do my best to read whatever I can out there that is connected to Guam, to the Marianas and to Chamoru issues in anyway, and this doesn't only mean things formally published. I enjoy going through documents, archives, newspaper and magazine articles, transcripts from interviews that others have conducted. But one great source of information for me over the years has been interviews I have conducted or those that I have had students conduct for classes that I'm teaching. I used to incorporate 30-60 minutes interviews for my UOG classes. 101 and 102 level classes would do 30 minute interviews with elders, 200 and higher level courses would to 60 minute interviews. These oral histories from Chamoru elders have been invaluable to me, since they contain certain details about recent history that may not have been documented. History from a village or even family level, often comes out in these interviews. 

One thing that these oral history interviews often reveal is the breadth of taotaomo'na experiences on island for Chamorus. I have students ask their interview subjects about their local supernatural experiences and so claim to have none and others provide interesting portraits into the way they and their families connect to the world of spirits. Since I stopped teaching at UOG in 2019, I have only had a handful of classes focusing on education and culture at Guam Community College. But I've still kept this assignment alive, having students ask people over the age of 60 about their educational experience. 

Here is a sample of one interview conducted earlier this year with Annie R. Perez, who was born in 1947. 

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Transcript

Interview conducted on 10/13/2021

Meagan: Can you tell me your name, date of birth, parents names and what they did for a living?

Annie: My name is Annie R. Perez. My date of birth is July 11, 1947 (74 years old). My father’s name is Francisco B. Perez and my mother is Isabel R. Perez.

Annie: My dad is a construction supervisor. He manned all the construction workers at Perez Brother’s. He would go to each construction work site to see how the workers were doing and told them what he expects on a day-by-day basis and what he expected them to complete within the day. 

Meagan: Okay and what about your mom?

Annie: My mom was a stay-at-home mom. She took care of us until we were ready to go to school. She made sure we went to school and when it was time to come home from school, she made she we were home on time. If there was any homework that needed to be completed, she made sure that we, did it. Even if we wanted to go out and play, we had to do our school work first. If there was time to go out and play, we could.

Meagan: So, she took care of things like cooking and cleaning around the house?

Annie: Well, we would do general cleaning like on a Saturday but she kept the whole house fixed up. She would remind us if we touched something that we would put it back where it was supposed to go. And my mom and dad expected us to help out around the house whether we were going to school or not. Anybody who was capable of doing something we were supposed to do our part as a child around the house. 

Annie We were surprised by something my dad said this one time, he said to my brother “do you drink?” like drink water…

Meagan: How old were you guys at the time?

Annie: We were like elementary school aged. But my brother just looked at him and I think I was already in middle school at San Vicente. My brother was just in elementary and he just looked at my dad like what is he talking about do I drink. And my father said,’ if you drink you should learn to take care of putting that glass or cup back in its place and it should be clean. So if you know how to drink you should learn how to wash your dishes. And that’s the training that we learned from my mom and dad. My dad doesn’t do a lot of house work and things like that because he knows his role was to go and work and earn money. My mom was never asked by my dad to go work to earn money. “You stay home and take care of the kids and then you take care of what we are going to eat. So we help out with all of that. When we were getting older my mom expects us to start helping her in the kitchen and that’s how we learn how to do cooking and cleaning or whatever and that’s how we learned to do things as a family. 

Meagan: Okay so going into when you went to school. Where did you attend school? You can choose between elementary, middle school, high school that’s up to you. How old were you and what type of school was it? 

Annie: Okay let me just go through it because I went to three different schools.

Meagan: Okay.

Annie: During my elementary age and this was from Pre-primer (Kinder) to 6th grade was elementary. When you get to 7th grade you go to middle school. Well, when I was done with 6th grade the middle school, I went to my parents sent me to San Vicente School. So, I was at San Vicente from 7th grade to 10th grade. Then when I was done with 10th grade I went to a different school. It was surprising that San Vicente went from 7th grade all the way up to 10th grade because 9thand 10th grade are high school now. But at the time they were running the school like that. For my last two grade in high school, I went to academy. So, from kinder-6th grade I went to Barrigada Elementary School, 7th grade-10th grade (middle school) I went to San Vicente. And like I said it was surprising that elementary went up to 6th grade and middle school went up to 10th grade.

Meagan: Because now its different elementary is from kinder to fifth grade, middle school is from sixth to eighth grade, and high school is ninth to twelfth grade. 

Meagan: So, what were your teachers like when you were going to school?

Annie: They were strict. You come to school to learn, no playing around. I mean we had play time (recess) and that’s when we could play. But once that bell rings and we are back in the classroom no playing around. You settle down. And so one of my primary grade elementary that I found very enjoying is when I was in second grade. My second grade teacher really made me love math. We learned our addition facts, subtraction facts. We need to learn that and we started learning those things, we need to learn the simple facts like 1+1. We were given that foundation in elementary school. We were interested in learning. 

Annie: When I was an adult thing changed and kids didn’t want to learn their addition facts, subtraction and division facts. They thought it was boring. 

Meagan: So, school during your time was very structured? 

Annie: Yes, you cant go to another grade unless you master the skills. So a lot of kids worked really hard and their parents would say, “You better do what your teacher asks you to do.” No kids in our neighborhood here could go out and play unless they did their school work. When kids would come to play with us my mom would say, “they are doing their homework so they aren’t going to play yet.” And we have a certain time to go out and play and by a 4 o clock everyone should be in the house because you know dinner time and we always ate dinner early. 

Meagan: And that’s kind of like when we were younger and we were coming home with you after school the way your parents were that’s how you were with us. We had to do our work first and then we could go out and play.

Annie: Yes exactly. And those were some of the things that were really important to us not only at school but at home. And even at school we couldn’t go out to recess if our work was not done. I mean some of my classmates would get so disappointed and some would even cry in 1st and second grade because we couldn’t go out and play. Only those that were done with their work could go out and play. When I come home it was the same thing. So, our teachers would basically see what kind of behavior we were coming from. We had all types of kids they weren’t perfect. Some were rowdy and would say things like, “my mom doesn’t make me do that” and the teacher would say I don’t care and when you come to this classroom there are school rules you need to follow. My teacher would say I’m hear to teach you and I can’t teach you when you are misbehaving. So, most of my teachers were firm and strict about things. The naughty kids would be put in a corner so they wouldn’t disturb the students.

 

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