I Taotao Tåno: CHamoru Identity, Kinship Intimacies, and Indigenous Self-Determination in Guåhan

• In Event: Unsettling Settler Romances

Abstract

CHamorus, known as I Taotao Tåno (the People of the Land), are the Indigenous peoples of Låguas yan Gåni (the Mariana Islands) including Guåhan (Guam), the archipelago’s southernmost island. A present-day U.S. territory in the western Pacific Ocean, Guåhan has been a part of the U.S. empire since 1898. Previously, Guåhan (and the rest of the archipelago) were colonized by Spain for several hundred years. CHamorus’ identity as Indigenous people is rooted both in their role as the aboriginal people of the archipelago and definitions of Indigeneity which are codified in the Organic Act of Guam of 1950. Moreover, the political implications of a CHamoru identity are evident in the Government of Guam’s decision to restrict eligibility for a plebiscite regarding the island’s future political relationship with the United States to CHamorus. In 2019, a federal judge ruled that the exclusion of non-CHamorus from the plebiscite violated the U.S. Constitution’s Fifteenth Amendment, one of the Reconstruction Amendments (Harvard Law Review 2019). In response, the Government of Guam and CHamoru activist organizations noted that the harms of colonization have acutely impacted the lives of the island’s Indigenous peoples and thus a remedy should be tailored to meet the specific needs of that community. As a result, much discussion has ensued regarding definitions of CHamoru identity for the purposes of the vote and to comply with federal law.

Scholarship in American Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Native American and Indigenous Studies has highlighted the role of Indigenous identification as a key aspect of Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination as compared to settler forms of membership and recognition (Coulthard 2014; Kauanui 2008, 2018; Osorio 2021; Rifkin 2024; Sturm 2002; TallBear 2013). Settler colonial nation states, on the other hand, have problematically sought to define Native identity as something that can be measured biologically and through intermarriage with non-Native individuals, purportedly be diminished thus dispossessing community members of their rights and recognition (Wolfe 2006). Building on these themes and J. Kēhaulani Kauanui’s concept of enduring indigeneity, this paper examines the formation of CHamoru identity during the U.S. colonial period (1898-present). It does so by drawing on archival research, ethnographic fieldwork, and oral history interviews that the author conducted in Guåhan between 2019-2024. Ultimately, in this paper I argue that in the case of Guåhan, an examination of the preservation of CHamoru genealogical ties and perpetuation of kinship practices reveal some of the ways that Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination persist today. These include Committee on Self-Determination meetings during which the CHamoru only plebiscite was deliberated upon, discussions by Government of Guam leadership on the potential benefits and limitations of pursuing federal recognition following the Chamorro Land Trust litigation, an exhibition at the Guam Museum on CHamoru identity, and community workshops on tracing one’s genealogy. In each of these cases, the relationship between the personal, the familial, and the intimate stand in stark juxtaposition to the ongoing legacies and logics of U.S. imperialism and militarism (Carby 2021; Flores 2021; Monnig 2007).

Author

• Kevin Escudero, Brown University