Nicknamed “the tip of America’s spear” by the grand strategists of American imperialism, about 30% of Guam is covered in American military bases.
The Austronesian seafarers who first discovered the island around 1450 BC couldn’t have guessed that three and a half millennia later, their progeny would suffer the misfortune of living on one of the world’s most strategically important bits of land.
Guam sits in the Western Pacific, only about 1,800 miles from China’s Fujian province. It’s closer to cities like Beijing, Manilla, Tokyo, Pyongyang, Seoul, and Taipei than it is to Honolulu. That’s why it’s one of the American capitalists’ most important assets for maintaining their dominance over the Asia-Pacific region. As tensions rise between American and Chinese imperialism for control of vast resources, labor, and investment opportunities, the US continues to pump billions into building up their war machine on the island.
About 30% of Guam is covered in American military bases. / Image: Jeffrey Landis, Wikimedia Commons
400 years of colonialism
Guam was first colonized by Spain in 1668. American imperialists seized control in 1898, after their bloodsoaked triumph in the Spanish-American War. The US Navy enjoyed autocratic authority to administer the island’s land and native Chamorro people. To fund their brutal occupation, the Navy aggressively cultivated the agricultural economy, importing labor to keep wages at rock bottom for both immigrant and native workers. The Navy also encouraged investment from foreign capitalists and wealthy Chamorros.
To maintain control over the population and establish friendly conditions for capitalism, Naval governors sought to eliminate the Chamorro language and traditional family structure. They declared English the official language and made speaking Chamorro a crime. Chamorro literature and dictionaries were burned. Chamorro children were shamed, beaten, or had their mouths washed with soap for speaking their native tongue. The occupiers also attacked the traditional matrilineal Chamorro family, imposing a patriarchal society by law while punishing and publicly humiliating “immoral” Chamorro women.
Phony “self-government”
Guamanians fought back. After decades of protests and petitions, Democrat Harry Truman spearheaded the Guam Organic Act of 1950, transferring control over the island from the Navy to the Department of the Interior. The new law granted Guamanians an elected governor, trial by jury, American citizenship, and other democratic rights. These concessions were a mere ploy to divert the Guamanian class struggle into the safe channel of meager and toothless “self-government.” Fundamentally, the Guamanian and American ruling classes united to maintain the exploitative and oppressive status quo.
Today Guam remains an “unincorporated territory,” or—to speakers of plain English—a colony. The island’s 168,000 American citizens cannot vote in presidential elections and have no voting representatives in congress. Despite this, Guam has the highest enlistment rate in the country; 1 of every 8 Guamanians is either a veteran or on active duty.
Desperate conditions
The American ruling class would like us to believe that Guamanians are the “most patriotic” Americans or are “grateful” for the cruel colonization of their island. Take a look at the desperate conditions on Guam today, and the real picture is clear. Guamanian workers live in dilapidated housing and drive on pothole-covered streets, while the copious military bases boast pristine roads, fortified buildings, and advanced technology.
Guam’s minimum wage is a paltry $9.25 an hour, and consumer goods are 22% more expensive than on the mainland. As of 2020, over 20% of Guamanians live in poverty, nearly double the national average. Education and healthcare are severely underfunded, and there are few decent job opportunities. Guamanians who join the military are granted the right to vote in national elections like mainlanders. These factors have funneled many into the American war machine, searching for a way out of their economic and social deprivation.
The American ruling class only cares about building up their war machine in a doomed attempt to maintain their dominance in the Asia-Pacific region. / Image: US Navy, X (formerly Twitter)
Military activity, like the detonation and burning of 35,000 pounds of hazardous munitions waste a year, pollutes Guam’s air and only aquifer with “forever chemicals,” carcinogens, and other contaminants. Due to overfarming and soil pollution, Guam is unable to grow its own food. Of the island’s 14 native bird species, 11 are now extinct.
Disregard for the health and safety of Guamanians and the island’s environment is nothing new. From 1946 to 1958, Guamanians were subject to nuclear radiation and fallout from weapons testing, which led to generations of cancer and health problems that were only exposed after survivors leaked internal government documents.
There’s no sign of change, as the Department of Defense recently unveiled an $8.7 billion plan to test long-range missiles on the island for the next ten years, in yet another attempt to flex their muscles against rising Chinese power in the Pacific.
No future under capitalism
There’s no future for Guamanians under capitalism. The American ruling class only cares about building up their war machine in a doomed attempt to maintain their dominance in the region forever. The lives of working-class Guamanians don’t figure into these calculations, except as pawns in their great game against China.
Communist revolution will mean an end to the environmental destruction and colonization of the island. It will eliminate the economic inequality which forces Guamanians to choose between poverty or the military.
As a Chamorro in the diaspora, I look at the state of my island and my people with great sorrow. As a revolutionary communist, I look forward to the future of a liberated and prosperous Guam. This will only be possible as part of the international communist revolution that the RCI is fighting for. This revolution will draw thousands of Guamanians into the class struggle against capitalism and the warmongering and destruction that comes with it.