22.7.10

Liberation

Yesterday, the island of Guam celebrated 66 years of what we refer to as 'Liberation'. From dawn until right before midnight, there were people celebrating on the streets or in their homes. But, not all were celebrating for the same reasons.


Liberation Day, to my grandparents' generation, was a day we celebrated freedom from the oppressors. In our case, from the Japanese during World War II. We look back at the suffering that they endured. The torture they were put through. The pain and the loss of innocence through the experiences that can only come from living through a war. We look at all of these things and we take in to consideration how they must have felt through the years.


To go through the pain of watching people you love executed right before your eyes. To hear the screams of your child and not be able to get to him and give him the comfort of his mother's arms. To be the child and to see your father shot and your mother standing by, unable to explain what had just happened. It must have been confusing for the child, heartbreaking for the adult.


There are those amongst us who identify with our elders. We hear the stories and see the joy in their eyes as they remember the Americans flying overhead. We hear the relief in their voices as they speak of the Marines marching from their landing points on the beach. We imagine the great sense of gratitude that they must have felt toward these men, these strangers from a distant land to which most of them had never ventured.


I admire my elders for enduring such as they did and for not giving up hope. I hang my head in shame for those in my generation who do not respect the gratitude of our elders. We say things like 'Reoccupation Day' and we don't appreciate the benefits we have as American citizens. We say that the US has left us for dead and we refuse to see the suffering of our neighboring islands and be thankful for what we have. We scoff at the insignificance of being an unincorporated territory, all the while, standing in line to purchase two carts full of food with federal money.


Who are we to complain?


I know that there are some disadvantages to being a possession of the United States. We are seeing some of these today. But we need to find a middle ground. A common denominator. We need to understand the importance of compromising. We need to treat this like a marriage. A good marriage takes giving on both parts rather than just the receiving.


Don't get me wrong. I am not saying that we are to roll over and be submissive to everything that the federal government is proposing. But, we need to know when to set our foot down and when to give. We need to preserve our culture and our dignity while still acknowledging that the US government is not all evil. We need to respect the love and gratitude that our elders have towards these 'strangers' while still keeping our roots intact. We need to understand that we are not slaves and they are not the enemy.

1 comment:

  1. Here Here! I couldn't have said it better myself Jess!

    ReplyDelete