HACHA

I have to admit, I wish I had had a hard copy of this book.

It is deeply upsetting, although not surprising at all, that nothing about Guam was ever taught to me in school, and if it was, I’m sure it was just in reference to the “strategic” army base in the Pacific. The preface helped me get oriented, and I did a lot of googling to catch up on this history that was glossed over in all of my history classes.

There is so much to read into in this books use of different languages. The English represents the obliteration of Native language by the US, it represents the pressures of assimilation, Americanization. And this was clearly violent and forceful. Children were sent to mission schools, people were tricked into speaking chamorro and then punished for it (37). Chamorro, the native language, is used throughout the text in brackets, remaining “insular” like a little island  in an “ocean of English” (12). That, to me, was incredibly poetic and an incredible example of how something formal like brackets can be so intentional, and so full of meaning that reflects the rest of works content. There is also Spanish peppered throughout the text, representing Spanish colonization, as well. Some Japanese. With the back and forth, the competing languages (I think there was even some Latin Catholic prayers?) compete with each other, mix with each other

One poem, from ACHIOTE is titled for a plant that was brought to Guam by Spanish colonists but probably originated from the Mayas. This represents the wide reach of the colonization by the Spanish: colonizing central and South America, taking things, like plants, for their own, and bringing them to other colonies. And then the achiote is something that the speaker’s grandmother prepares and uses, so then maybe it becomes culturally specific to Guam in many ways today, but how confusing is that? Maybe it’s a reclamation of a plant that was brought by colonizers, or maybe it is used but is still tinged with the violence of colonization, not meant to be growing there. One line says “You can find achiote powder in the ethnic foods aisle of some grocery stores” (17). Of course, all “ethnic foods” get maybe one aisle, lumped together. This poem about one plant told such a complex story.

Another really intentional move I appreciated was the use of “from” in the titles of poems / sections. In the preface, Perez writes:

On some maps, Guam doesn’t exist; I point to an empty space in the

Pacific and say, “I’m from here.” On some maps, Guam is a small,

unnamed island; I say, “I’m from this unnamed place.” On some maps,

Guam is named “Guam, U.S.A.” I say, I’m from a territory of the United

States.” On some maps, Guam is named, simply, “Guam”;

I say, “I am from ‘Guam’.”

The sentence “I point to an empty space in the / Pacific and say, “I’m from here.”’ It sums so much up for me. There is pain in being left out, “unincorporated”, forgotten but still colonized. Completely exploited and then left off of the map. Or named simple as a territory. The Marianas were named by the Spanish, I learned that in this book. The marks of colonization are deep. Will they ever get renamed?

I got way off track here, I wanted to point out the use of “from”. I’m from, I’m from, I’m from. Perez cites multiple definitions, giving the word many different layers of meaning. It “indicates a particular time or place as a starting point”, suggests a “cause” or “source”, and implies a “separation, removal, or exclusion”. Of course, If one is telling someone one is from Guam, pointing to a map, they probably are no longer there. There is an implied displacement, rift, gap. All the poem titles are from some thing or another. “Each poem carries the ‘from’ and bears its weight and resultant incompleteness” (12). Clearly every little word in this work holds the ache, the cellular trauma that stems from Guam’s centuries of colonization.