Co-opted Heritage: Political Action, Identity, and Preservation at the Pagat site, Guam

Abstract

During the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process for the proposed US Navy military buildup on Guam, a community activist group, We Are Guahan, protested the selection of a live fire training range complex near the late precontact site of Pagat in northeast Guam. The site was used to rally native Chamorro resistance to the military buildup. The group led a coalition of community groups in a lawsuit seeking a restraining order against the project. The case was subsequently dismissed, but heritage preservation had become the focal point for community action against the buildup, and an expression of cultural identity. However, contemporary Chamorro identity is rooted in the late Spanish and early American periods of Guam’s history, and traces to the nineteenth century and not to pre-Spanish indigenous culture on Guam. The latte stone, a distinctive architectural feature that supports house and canoe shed beams, has become a keystone of Chamorro identity, but Chamorro today have few cultural memories of pre-Spanish settlement. The base of the latte is capped by a “tasa” on which beams are laid for the superstructure of the latte house. The political action was successful in firing public imagination off Guam, but arguably stalled the military buildup that is supported by the majority of Guamanians, Chamorro along with Filipinos, Asians, and Anglo-Americans. Unfortunately, the site of Pagat is now at greater risk of neglect once out of the limelight.