In terms of engagement or recognition, is it better to receive something which is pointless and tokenistic or nothing at all? Is it better to be treated in a mocking, subpar and laughable way, or just be ignored completely?
These types of stopovers happen all the time and they are usually ridiculous and sometimes insulting. So many of these high-level visits are only impressive when you reduce them to a single sentence which marries a famous person’s name with the word Guam. When you include other pertinent information such as duration or content of visit, then you see Guam’s status as a political footnote to the U.S. reproduced in the way it is “visited.”
So many of the famous visits to Guam over the years have been painfully short, even if jubilant in the way they are remembered. presidents and vice presidents sometimes stayed overnight, sometimes just for a few hours. Sometimes they left the base, sometimes they didn’t. In this pantheon of visits, none ranks higher than Bill Clinton’s trip to Guam in 1998. For the few hours that he was here it was as if the name “Monica Lewinsky” didn’t mean anything as he was pelted with the adoration of thousands. Given the recent interest in political status, it’s important to remember that when Clinton visited, one of the promises he made (after being politely chided by then-Delegate Robert Underwood) was that he would support getting the island to another political status.
While this was memorable to the people, in any real terms, his visit was barely anything. The gulf in terms of Guam’s response to the visit and what it meant in political terms is akin to a quick peck on the cheek from someone to whom you have just pledged eternal undying and unyielding devotion and loyalty, taifinakpo’ yan taifinakpo’. Such is the wondrously frustrating gulf that is Guam’s asymmetrical emotionationalism, that rather than see its political realities, a chiku on the cheek can send the island’s collective heart a flutter.
This issue does not only hold true for politics, and it may be instructive here to recall the historic 2000 visit of singer Mariah Carey. The story of how Carey came to Guam could literally be used to start some pretentious random New York Times bestseller written by Harold Robbins. When Carey came to Guam she was not at the usual point in her career where musicians find their way on-island. The conventional wisdom on how celebrities get to Guam is that they come here in the same way Charon ferries people across the River Styx into the underworld, at the metaphoric end of themselves or their careers. When Carey came to Guam she was still famous and rising in her celebrity, but did not come to Guam to perform, but instead wanted to see the truth to the snake stories she had heard.
According to legend, Carey always had a fascination with the word Guam. The word “Guam” mind you. Not the place Guam or the state-of-mind Guam. Maybe she liked the way it rolls around in your mouth and makes your jaw drop when you say the “ahhh” sound. Or perhaps the way your lips get smashed together when you bring home the word with the “mmmm” sound. Carey wanted to give the people of Guam dogs which could hunt snakes and even named one of her many dogs “Guam.” Then-Delegate Robert Underwood wrote her inviting her to see that the snake stories weren’t so dire.
Her visit on Guam was brief and surreal like a strange fever dream which you can never really get into because you aren’t really sure if it has started yet or if you’re just watching previews for upcoming hallucinations. She swam, signed some autographs and was pleasantly surprised when she didn’t see snakes overflowing out our eye sockets.
Guam has been a hub, a transit point for so long, and although a link in a chain can eventually take on a life of its own, it usually doesn’t. Places like Guam usually remain those less than stellar points where people gas up, use the bathroom or buy unhealthy snacks to keep themselves awake as they attempt to reach someplace that matters. They do so because the identity of that place and the people there often seethes with dependency and as such, the mere act of someone from a better place seeing, recognizing or visiting you takes on larger than necessary proportions. This dynamic need not define you, but too often we who live in the rest stops of the world make sure it does.
MICHAEL LUJAN BEVACQUA
Mangilao, Guam
