FREEDOM is not given. It is not a gift from the generosity of others. Most of our Chamorro people like to remind themselves of how much freedom they have under the American rule. Most seemed content with the way they have been handed their freedom, being free under the rule of another.
The fact is, those who continually expressed their sense of freedom as “our freedom” are too mentally colonized to recognize that freedom under the American rule is sovereignty suppressed. How can one reconcile one’s expression of freedom with an equal determination to human colonized?
The oppression of our ancestral freedom in the hands of foreign domination created a sphere of mental dependency upon the generations who know no other freedom than that given them at their “liberation” from war. They had become opponents against their own human rights of self-determination.
The colonial indoctrination of our people and the consequences of our seemingly eternally subjugated status created generations among us who had become enemies against ourselves.
Truly, we are unique human specimen. We are free but subjugated, liberated but occupied, proud but second-class, democratic but colonized. When you free the land, you free the people. As you can see, our land is not free.
Maybe “our freedom” means we are free under the rule of another nation. Or maybe “our freedom” stands for “we are free but doom(ed). . . FREEDOM!
FANACHU! CHAMORUS!

VICENTE “FA’ET” GARRIDO
Tamuning, Guam