“One part of the research has been looking for the descendants of Chamorros who went to live in Spain during those days. Many were maids, workers and sailors,” said Dr. Carlos Madrid, who was on Saipan last week for the NMI Humanities Council’s Teachers Institute.
Madrid believes there could be several Chamorros who moved to Spain during the last 20 years of the Spanish period in the Marianas which ended in 1899.
Acknowledging the difficulty of the research, Madrid said he had found three so far: Rita San Nicolas Sablan, who moved to Spain with the family of the last Spanish governor; Maria [whose last name Madrid could not recall during the interview], who moved along with the last Spanish military doctor on Guam; and Joaquina Portusach Martinez Pangelinan.
Madrid said the research is voluntary and he has been doing it for the last seven years.
He said he would like to get the information out that he is doing the research so those who may hold important information can come out and share information with him.
Asked how he stumbled upon the information about the three Chamorros, he said he had been combing directories for information relating to the descendants of the last Spanish governor.
He also conducted online research and through his circle of friends who may have information to share.
He said the grandson of the last military doctor on Guam confirmed they had a maid from Agana who moved with them to Spain.
Maria’s family, he said, gave him a photo of her.
A granddaughter of another Chamorro mestiza said her grandmother cooked Chamorro dishes, he said.
Madrid said he is also continuing his work on the “deportados.”
The Spanish historian who published his study in 2007 regarding the deportees in the Marianas from the Philippines in the 1870s, said, “I am also looking for information on the descendants of the deportados who were here. I found some descendants but they didn’t want to talk about it.”
Aside from the descendants of the Filipino deportees, he said he is also trying to locate the last Spanish flag taken away when the American troops took over the Marianas in 1898.
Madrid said he found a website that showed a recipe for “Gazpacho de Saipan” or soup with tomato, onion and cucumber.
He said he wrote to the administrator of the website but failed to get a response.
“I believe they could be descendants of the deportees,” Madrid said of those who kept the website he found 10 years ago.
Madrid also recognized the key role that Filipinos played during the Spanish period of the Marianas.
“The influence of the Filipinos is something that has to be highlighted,” he said.
He cited similarities between the two cultural groups, the family relations and interchange of cultural traits pointing out that the Chamorro culture’s flexibility in incorporating Filipino cultural traits.
He mentioned the Filipino influence in the Chamorro vocabulary and recognized the Filipinos’ contributions in building roads and bridges.
He said many Chamorros married Filipinos during the colonial period.
He, however, also noted that Filipinos and Chamorros didn’t get along that well as documents suggest.
Madrid also said the study of the Philippines’ past is indispensable to the study of Marianas history.
He said there has been evidence of the contact between two cultures during the s pre-contact period, before the Spaniards colonized the Marianas.
A fine example of the cultural exchange between the Philippines and the Marianas during the pre-colonial period is the presence in these islands of “lusong” or mortar used to de-husk rice.
