Japan and the Pacific Rim

Japan and Pacific Rim Paper
Abraham Arango
HUMA 210
David Charlton

        I have decided to write my Japan and Pacific Rim paper on the island of Guam. I have chosen this location because I have had several friends move to Guam for a period of their lives as missionaries. They have told me a good amount of personal information about their experiences while they were there, and so I figured that I would take this chance to learn more formal historical information about Guam. I’m interested to learn about their history, who, if anyone, has colonized them at any time, what involvement United States has had there, and how all of this has affected the current culture of Guam

        It is believed that the people native to Guam came from Southeast Asia from Austronesian people. The Austronesian immigrants arrived in Guam somewhere around 2,000 B.C. After centuries of living there and becoming their own culture, these Austronesian immigrants became the native Chamorro people of Guam. (Carano and Sanchez) (Rogers)

Throughout the centuries that the people of Guam were independent from any other government, they held four classes of civil structure. The classes were the Chamorri, who were the chiefs, the Matua, who were the upper class, the Achaot, who were the middle class, and the Mana'chang, who were the lower class. The class structures were geographically separated. The Matua class of people were mostly located on the shore of the oceans because it provided an easy access to the fishing locations, which helped them to increase their wealth faster than other people in Guam. The Achaot and Mana’chang classes were both located further into the island of Guam, which gave them a harder time to access fishing locations to increase their wealth. (Carano and Sanchez) (Rogers)

The Chamorro people of Guam lived in isolation from most of the world until 1521 when Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was traveling for the king of Spain and landed upon the island of Guam. After that, Spaniard General Miguel López de Legazpi formally colonized Guam on January 26, 1565. Spain held Guam as a colony until 1898 when Guam was turned over to the United States during the Spanish-American war. From 1898 to 1941 the United States held Guam as a colony. In 1941, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan attacked Guam and took control of it away from the United States. On July 21st, 1944, the United States returned to Guam and fought the Japanese to free Guam from Japanese control. Currently Guam is under the Guam Organic Treaty of 1950 which makes Guam an unincorporated organized territory of the United States. The people of Guam are given U.S. citizenship, but they are not allowed to vote in political affairs outside of Guam. (Carano and Sanchez) (Rogers)

For the most part, the United States has used the island of Guam as a location to hold military and naval bases. An American naval base was built in the city of Piti in 1899. Later on a marine barracks was built in 1901 in the same Guam city of Piti. From 1921 to 1930, the United States had a marine seaplane unit. (Rottman) Currently, the United States holds a naval military base on the southwest peninsula of Guam and U.S. Coast guard sector. The United States pays Guam for being able to hold the military bases on its island. (Rogers)