Under his ideas, his incomplete ideas mind you, Guam is a joke. His
notations that the Manakilo’ were the agents of social change on the island are insulting, in that
they were the agents of possible, and mythical social change on Guam. They had
no power for the social change which he wishes to discuss, all that power lay in
American and Spanish hands. The only power those he intimates as to being
“high” had was in the homes and in the lives of his employees and families.
More importance than social standing amongst the Chamorros, was the reciprocity
of respect and assistance. Guam was divided by economy, but never to the point
which the usage of terms alludes to in the text.
The mockery and the cruel joke, comes when Stade believes his own
unfinished research and applies his ideas throughout, page after page. He gives
them a power they did not have, he gives them potential that was not existent
yet, and is still limited today. Guam as a sphere of geo-political, economic, or
even social discourse was not something directly affected by Chamorros before
1950. And this is obvious from the histories and articles of the day. Even up
until the 1950’s, people in the United States still believed Guam was
comprised of cannibals, and even up unlit the 1980’s still believed that women
on Guam went about their daily lives topless. Then there was the infamous
“Lake Rubin Incident,” which I was glad that Stade did mention. In which
economic advisors to Bill Clinton, laughed at the idea of Guam becoming part of
the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation.
All
attempts from within the affect geo-political change on Guam, following American
occupation met with naught, until 1950. This includes the initial petition for
citizenship, signed in 1901, to the base and useless constitution of human
rights signed in the 1910’s, to the efforts by B.J. Boradallo and Francisco
Baza Leon Guerrero in 1937, who spoke before the US Congress, seeking
citizenship privileges for the loyal Chamorros of Guam. Of course all were
denied, as it was not their place for such requests. It was not within their
power. And up til this present day, it is not within their power. As the
Government on Guam is still just a provision of an act, at which the Congress
can disenfranchise at the slightest whim.
Yet Stade gives them this power page after page. In his attempt to be
folksy and perhaps Post Colonial he describes the Manakilo’
as those who sought and affected
social change. Those who held economic power over Guam. He puts power, and
control into the Chamorros’ hands, but not local power, but for this upper
class he affords them global power. Which is of course ridiculous, as in both
instances of colonialism, American and Spanish, all power, save for the homes
and farms where the gaze didn’t penetrate, remained in colonial hands. This
agency which the high families appear to have is one which could be expected and
as apparent in the metropolises of the Phillippines and Mexico, but never on
Guam.
To compound this mockery, it is common knowledge, that the 1950 Organic
Act which gave Chamorros US citizenship, was the first instance of real, global
change, which was instigated by a Chamorro from within. But the irony comes not
from the incidents, but the fact that it almost did not happen. The 1949 Guam
Congress walkout, was instigated by Congressman Carlos Pangelinan Taitano, in
defiance of the tyranny of the Naval Governor, as well as in attempt to obtain
more rights to the Chamorros. But it was only because of the connections which
Taitano had with Stateside press, in Honolulu, Washington and New York, that
made the buzz of discourse possible, which allowed it to become a global,
international, or even national issue. It was this agency on the part of Taitano,
that allowed Guam to harness the power of the press, and then allowed Guam to
become, albeit a small one, but a global player nonetheless.
Ai
Adai, Pot Fin Lai,
(Finally…)
Stade early in his books, attacks, or perhaps criticizes is a better
word, the efforts of Laura Thompson, an American anthropologist who came to Guam
to do research for the US Navy in the 1930’s. Her findings are suggested by
Stade, to be rather than cultural findings, but mere culture stereotypes. Or
reduplications of existing cultural stereotypes, he in kinder words, accuses her
of scratching the surface only, of refusing to see culture, but rather be
content with the stereotypes which show themselves in the daily phenomenology of
any culture.
Well then it is almost poetic justice, in the vein that I am assaulting
Stade on the same grounds which he uses against Thompson. Thompson’s analysis
is much more probing than Stade’s in that they attempts to assimilate and
become assimilated by the culture which she is trying to objectify. She at least
attempts in instances to immerse herself in the discourses of the island, but
refuses to give herself over to complete impartiality, and complete Western
discursive filters, blinders and perspectives
In one event, one of her initial formal cultural interactions on island,
Thompson spoke to a group of women. With the help of her assistant Joaquin
Perez, she translated her speech into Chamorro. Although her subsequent speaking
engagement was one which included the slaughtering and butchering of the
Chamorro language, the attempt at commiseration did not fall on deaf ears. The
speech was met with wild applause, and immediate endearment, because as one
woman told Thompson, it was the first occasion she had ever heard anyone from
the Government use Chamorro.
Thompson because of her attitudes in this vein, makes in-roads into the
island philosophy, and discursive culture at a more productive and more accurate
rate, due to the fact that she attempts more than merely to be a beachcomber, or
a weekend theorists. It is different than Stade who is content with quarter
truths, and one eight truths, which anyone can find, by merely observing, but
due injustice to any culture, anywhere in the world.
It is Stade who is refabricating stereotypes in his books. His constant
refusal to make inroads, to enter the island culture, on any terms saved his
own, limits his knowledge, limits his results, and limits his book in that it
results in little more than reiterating the stereotypes of Guam as an island
full of natives who don’t understand the outside world. He creates this by
ignoring actual power relations on Guam at the turn of the 20th
century, and allowing the people’s of that time, through retrospection to
feebly fight against the glass ceiling, the United States Navy, as well as the
United States government had snuggly placed over them. To further it, his class
distinctions, further stereotype Guam as squabbling natives, who fight over
land, who are always crying for something or other. This is a stereotype which
Henry Kissinger was also apt to pick up, in that when asked about the effects of
nuclear testing in the Micronesian islands, he responded, “Who cares?
There’s only 90,000 people out there anyways.”
Stade’s
work is an extension of the history of Guam Destiny’s
Landfall, by Robert Rogers, a
former professor at the University of Guam, who believed that history of Guam is
made by the nations which visit its shores. That Guam is a bystander, a way
station for other nations, more important nations, to make the history here, as
well as write it.
In the minds of outside academics such as Stade and Rogers, Guam’s
position is a poetic and historical justice of its own, in that they see it as
an island full of squabbling and pesky natives, children, and therefore in need
of parental guidance by older and wiser nations and academics. An early argument
in the United States against rights for people in there territories, which
included other islands in the Pacific as well as the Caribbean, was that they
are just monkeys, and you do not give little monkeys little guns.
I
see Stade as being a perfect parallel to the monkey with the gun, and many
theorists follow this down trend. In that monkey’s are very dangerous with
little guns, just as theorists are dangerous with little pieces of knowledge.