a friend’s experience-

(his name will be AJ for the sake of this post)

Born in Southern California, raised in a Chamorro house, AJ grew up with his grandparents speaking Chamorro and Spanish. He didn’t learn English until he started school.

He moved to Guam and went to private school (the one in particular where all the officials send their kids to). Only him and one other person spoke Chamorro. As they would communicate with one another, the people around him would gawk, and treat him as he AJ puts it, “a side-show”.

His nephew, is going through a similar thing today. He is little white passing Chamorro boy that is being raised in a Chamorro speaking household (something very rare nowadays). During a day at kindergarten, he got frustrated and couldn’t articulate what he was trying to say in English. He then switched to Chamorro and got scolded for it by his Filipina teacher. He came home and asked his uncle, in Chamorro, “where do we come from?”

AJ had told him that they are from Guam. His little 6 year old nephew was so confused.

How do you explain colonialism to a 6-year-old?

Another experience-

In the grocery store, AJ was with his nephew and his nephew starts doing what normal 6-year-olds do and starts to throw a tantrum. They speak back and forth in Chamorro when a lady pulls out her phone and starts recording. AJ stops and confronts her, asking what she is doing. Innocently, she responds “oh, I just think it’s so neat that you two are speaking Chamorro.”

Aliens at home