When Puerto Rico was suddenly on everyone’s minds after Hurricane Maria,
one question kept coming up:
What does it mean to be a U.S. territory?
Puerto Rico is just one of many U.S. territories,
including the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam.
But many Americans hardly ever think about them.
"Most members of Congress, they couldn't find Guam on a map –
and they don't want to
because it's completely off their radar."
The 4 million Americans who live in these territories
can serve in the military,
but they can’t vote for president.
Each territory has one representative in Congress, but that representative can’t actually vote, either.
U.S. territories are essentially,
American colonies.
"There's a footnote attached to America's empire,
and it's called Guam."
Way out in the western Pacific,
this island of 160,000 people is the furthest west you can get
and still say you’re on American soil.
And since it’s close to Asia,
it’s the perfect location for a U.S. military base,
which is why the military controls more than a quarter of the island’s land.
In this series of “Untold America,”
I’m going to take you to Guam.
I want to know how it became and stayed a U.S. colony.
Driving around Guam
you can’t miss that this is America.
You can hear planes taking off from Andersen Air Force Base,
tourists shoot guns at Wild West-style ranges
and snap photos in front of a replica of the Statue of Liberty.
But like the other territories,
Guam is not fully American.
"Since Guam is considered a possession of the U.S.
but not part of the U.S.,
the Constitution doesn't apply,
and so even today, we still do not have the full applicability of the Constitution."
That’s because of a series of decisions called the “Insular Cases.”
"So the U.S. Supreme Court,
the highest court in the land, basically in 1901 decides that based on race,
based on this idea that these places are populated by quote, “alien races” –
the Constitution wouldn't be applied.
Basically, alien races are incapable of understanding Anglo-Saxon principles."
In Guam’s case, by “alien races”
they meant the indigenous Chamorro people,
who have lived on the island for more than 3,000 years.
Before the Americans came in,
Guam had already been colonized for hundreds of years by the Spanish.
Then, with the Treaty of Paris in 1898,
the United States took control of Guam,
the Philippines and Puerto Rico.
"Now, when they took Guam,
they declared the entire island to be the naval station of Guam.
And what that would mean for the Chamorro people
was that the military ruled our lives.
And there was no consideration of civil rights for the people, political rights.
It became a dictatorship."
The Chamorro people were denied the right to citizenship and banned from speaking their language.
This continued for decades until…
“The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked
by naval and air forces of the empire of Japan.”
Just hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in December 1941,
the Japanese also bombed Guam.
"They had actually evacuated all of the white wives and children to the mainland.
Because they were expecting the Japanese to bomb the island.
Right. And, uh, and I mentioned white wives and children
because they didn't evacuate the Chamorro women who had been married to Americans."
The Japanese occupied Guam for two and a half years during the war.
It was a really traumatic time for Chamorros on the island.
I wanted to hear from people who lived through it.
During occupation, many women were assaulted by Japanese soldiers.
Susie was one of them.
Susie was able to get away, but still has a scar on her knee from the attack.
She lost four siblings and an aunt during the war.
"I’m half-Japanese.
My mom is from Japan, and I lived there for a number of years.
I’m also American.
I never learned these stories growing up.
I didn’t know any of these stories growing up."
During the Japanese occupation,
Chamorro people were forced to work the fields to produce food for the Japanese.
Toward the end of the war, the Japanese became more brutal,
killing Chamorros en masse and rounding them up into concentration camps.
Susie's aunt died on the march to one of the concentration camps when she couldn't keep up.
She was beaten and thrown into a ditch.
"The largest massacre, which happened in the northern part of Guam in Yigo,
there were 45 men who were beheaded.
Just one day after another, there are a number of massacres that go on,
30 people, 45 people, all the way leading up to Liberation Day."
“For 17 days, without let-up, American planes and ships assault the island of Guam.”
"For people who were there at the time,
you can understand the,
the relief, the excitement,
the sense actually of liberation, of freedom."
"People felt safe that the United States is back."
(Laughs) "I was so happy."
"We were really blessed."
"Dear Uncle Sam, won’t you please come back to Guam?
Hey!" (Laughs).
I started to understand why a lot of people on Guam, especially the older generation, are so patriotic.
But after the war,
Chamorros were moved into refugee camps and the military began taking land all over the island.
"The property to the left, all the way practically to the ocean,
is my family's property,
and what the military did is they just took it from us."
Antonio’s family was forced to sign over 4,600 acres of their land to the U.S. military.
He says they were paid less than $12 an acre for it.
That land became Andersen Air Force Base.
Less than 10 years later,
the military took another 1,000 acres from the Sablan family
to create the Naval Communications Station.
"There were 200,000 military on the island,
and the U.S. military had just basically gobbled up vast amounts of land,
probably close to 70% at its peak,
over 100 installations all over the island, it's just every branch of the military was here."
Chamorros who had just survived a brutal war,
were coerced into signing over their land by threats,
the need to prove their patriotism and fear of military backlash.
On average, the military paid only $1 an acre for the land.
"Chamorros were feeling completely powerless.
It was gut-wrenching.
Land was all they had.
Literally land was their wealth.
Land was what they gave to their children and grandchildren.
As a result of liberation,
the Chamorros become landless and many of them become homeless,
and the Chamorros become the poor people of Guam."
After decades of fighting for their rights under American rule
Chamorros were given limited citizenship under the Organic Act.
Now that they were citizens,
the military was legally required to make an official payment for the land they took.
But that didn’t mean the payment was fair.
Antonio’s family got a single dollar for all 4,600 acres taken to create the air force base.
"Almost everybody in Guam,
pretty much we got nothing.
Very little and compensation is just so unjust."
Antonio, who had served in the military himself, did inherit a small bit of land, but throughout the 80s,
the military made it very difficult for him to access it.
"I literally get accosted at gunpoint numerous times when I am in my family's land.
Like a barrel of an M16 on the back of my neck,
laying on the ground
because they're trying to identify whether I’m a properly legitimate person to be there."
“Even though you had an ID card that said you were a landowner?”
“That’s correct.”
“That’s why I became so outspoken and radical,
because what am I doing identifying myself on my own home to go to my own private property?”
Antonio helped form the group Nasion Chamoru,
also known as Chamorro Nation, to protest the military occupation of Guam.
“So we were blocking the road.
“We actually put a tent in the middle of the road.
They would, they all tie us in like handcuff,
and there would be a bus parked up ahead
and they would take us and put us inside the bus.”
As a result of the protests,
the guard shack that checked IDs on that road was eventually taken down.
“I was willing to go to jail.
I was willing to confront the Americanos and die if I have to.”
In the 80s, after hundreds of Chamorros filed claims over the unfair original payments for their land,
the U.S. government agreed to pay up.
But they paid what the land was worth in the 1940s --
40 years too late.
The Sablan family chose not to accept the payment in protest.
Today, Antonio runs a tourism business with some of the land he has left.
But of the 5,500 acres his family once owned
that became military property, none were ever returned.
“I am the victim.
They're the one that's enjoying the fruits of our land.
And they should be paying us billions of dollars in rent money
for utilizing as the most important military outpost here in the Pacific.”
With Andersen Air Force Base to the north and the naval base to the south,
the U.S. military now controls 27% of the land on Guam.
Because of Guam’s complicated past,
I can understand how the legacy of liberation lives on.
But while patriotism on the island is still strong,
there are people who are pushing back against the military.
They say it’s time for Guam,
an American colony,
to choose its own fate.
Thanks so much for watching part 1 of our series.
I can’t believe I never learned about the brutal history of
Japanese occupation on Guam in school.
In this next video, we’re going to go speak to people in
the military who can’t even vote for president.
And we’re going to go talk to people in the
independence movement.
Don’t forget to like, share and subscribe,
for more of “Untold America.”