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by YellOh 1072 days ago
I have no particular opinion on Guam or its governance, but if Chamorus are a minority of the people living there (& a minority of the people born there?) it feels kind of unfair for them to unilaterally make major decisions and remove the majority group from the area.

Ex. obviously what American settlers did to mainland Natives was heinous and should not have happened, but it's less clear that Natives of the current generation should be able to unilaterally vote to remove Americans that are born here now.

Is there a dissimilarity with Guam I'm missing?
1 comments
leobabauta 1072 days ago
Guam is the homeland of the Chamorus, and it was taken from us by the Americans. For them to say they should vote on what should be done with it seems more unfair. We're a minority because of American action, not by choice.
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YellOh 1072 days ago
On a historical level, I agree it's unfair. The Chamorus should never have had your land taken against your will. However, there are now a lot of Americans born on Guam, and it's to the point where it seems like it would also be unfair to kick out those people born there, with their families living on Guam for decades & who are now the majority.

I'm not arguing against you, necessarily. It's a hard situation and maybe Americans leaving is the better solution.

How far "back" do you think it's fair for decolonization advocates to go? Do you think the same argument you're using here, applied to other places (ex. the continental U.S.) is also correct?

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Addendum via Wikipedia: "The United States Department of the Interior approved a $300,000 grant for decolonization education" in 2016[0]. No idea what to make of this.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guam#Government_and_politics

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leobabauta 1072 days ago
Decolonization is a fairly established process around the world, many places have decolonized. And it's established that the colonized people are the ones to decide, not the colonizers. The U.S. (and Americans living in Guam) don't seem to grasp it because they think if they're living in Guam, they should have an equal say. That doesn't make sense if you're not one of the colonized.

And yes, as you noted in the addendum, there has been money allocated for decolonization education. It happened, but all efforts to have an actual vote were blocked in court by (a handful of) Americans living in Guam.

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