By Adam Leon Guerrero for Just Thinking Aloud, Kandit News & Views
Before we can move forward, we have to understand where we are. Right now, too few people on Guam fully grasp the truth of our political status — or how it affects our rights and future. That’s why education must come first.
We are an unincorporated territory—a gray zone the U.S. government calls “foreign in a domestic sense.” That phrase alone should make your blood boil. How can you be both foreign and domestic? It’s nonsense—used to justify treating us as less than equal.
But it’s hard to feel outrage over something you’ve never been fully taught. Most students — and many adults — couldn’t clearly explain our current status. Not because they don’t care, but because education on this has never been a real priority.
Where is the public fire? We get angry when someone cuts us off in traffic or posts something rude online. But when it comes to our political rights — our dignity as a people — we shrug, scroll, and move on. Some of that is distraction. Life is busy. We’re tired. We’re buried in social media. But much of that silence comes because people simply don’t know.
Still, there should be a quiet fire in our hearts — a recognition that something is not right, and that we deserve better.
Understanding Guam’s political status should not be optional knowledge — not once every few years, but continually, like math or history.
Political will doesn’t fall from the sky. It rises from the people.
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Adam Leon Guerrero is a resident of Barrigada
