Some people here such as University of Guam President Robert Underwood felt that the anecdote which has been retold by the national media indicated that Guam does not get much respect for the island.
I don’t know if it is Guam or Alaska that is not getting enough respect in this case. I remember making the comment before the general elections of 2008 that if Palin could be on the ticket, then Felix Camacho could, too. He is just as qualified given the small populations of both jurisdictions. In fact, that’s how folks view the insular areas such as Puerto Rico, the CNMI, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa and Guam. They lump these islands with Alaska and Hawaii for the most part, which is why some right-wingers still feel that President Obama is not a legitimate president since he was not born in the states proper or “worse, even in Kenya.”
Getting respect works both ways in my opinion. Besides the fact that we have a hugely patriotic crowd on Guam which is host to a major military outpost, what other attributes do we have that would make us be well-known in the states? Our test scores, our adult population who consumes large amounts of alcohol and tobacco, our teenage pregnancy rate, our dropout rate, our welfare rate, our EITC rate, our median income rate?
The tourists who come here are not aware of these statistics. They just look at Guam as “America in Asia” with a short hop and a skip away. Some leave disillusioned because of the maltreatment and ripoffs they face, which is why we have difficulty getting repeat visitors.
Dr. Underwood is a great visionary and has great plans for UOG. If he were the governor of Guam, I think we would have been in a much better place. But it is Underwood’s “snarkiness,” in part, that led to his defeat both times.
The governor and the lt. governor took the right tact when they declined to comment of Bush’s “is she the governor of Guam?” comment.
MATT PHILIPS
Mangilao, Guam
