Guam’s Quiet Dream: The 51st Star
The other day, as I read an article in The Wall Street Journal about a Filipino-American resident lobbying for Guam to become America’s 51st state, a wave of memory carried me back to my own youth in the Philippines.
I remember, as a teenager, hearing whispers of a dream that the Philippines itself might one day become a state of the United States. It was a time of uncertainty and hope, when we measured our identity in shades of dependence and aspiration. Yet, as history would have it, a stronger voice rose, a voice for independence, for self-rule, for the right to breathe under our own sky. And so, on July 4, 1946, the United States granted the Philippines its freedom.
That memory lingers of a people yearning to define who they were, and who they wanted to be. And now, decades later, another island in the Pacific stands at a similar crossroad. Guam, small, beautiful, and deeply strategic longs not for separation but for belonging. Its residents are American citizens who cannot vote for president, whose delegate in Congress cannot cast a final vote. They serve in the U.S. military, they pay taxes, and yet they stand at the periphery of the democracy they defend.
Guam’s dream of statehood is both humble and profound: to be seen, to be counted, to have a voice.
But beyond politics, there is geography, and in that geography lies destiny. Guam sits like a sentinel in the Pacific, closer to Manila and Tokyo than to San Francisco. Its location is the fulcrum of America’s strategy in Asia, a vital outpost in the tense balance of power that now defines the region. In the shadow of China’s military rise and its ambitions toward Taiwan, Guam’s role grows only more critical.
And yet, even as the world maps Guam as a military asset, its people live lives of quiet dignity and rooted in Chamorro heritage, enriched by Filipino culture, bound by faith and resilience. Their island may be a pawn in the great chessboard of global strategy, but it is also a home, full of laughter, music, and memory.
When I think of Guam’s wish for statehood, I think of my own history, a tale of becoming, of letting go, of defining ourselves anew. The Philippines sought independence; Guam seeks inclusion. Two islands, two directions, but the same yearning at heart: to belong, to be recognized, to have one’s story matter in the eyes of the world.
Perhaps the 51st star, if it ever comes to be, will not just mark expansion but reconciliation and symbol that the distant and the devoted, the strategic and the small, all have a place under the same constellation.
As I grow older, I find myself reflecting more on this deep human longing, to belong, to be remembered, to be part of something larger than ourselves. Whether it is a nation seeking statehood, or a person seeking meaning in the twilight of years, the desire is the same: to find one’s rightful place in the vast, unfolding story of life.
- After acquiring Guam from Spain in 1898, the U.S. classified it as an "unincorporated territory". This means the full U.S. Constitution does not automatically apply, and Congress has broad authority over it.
- The U.S. Constitution gives Congress "plenary power" over territories, and political progress has often been secondary to national security interests. The island's strategic military location has made the U.S. hesitant to change its status.
- The Guam Organic Act of 1950 established a local civilian government and granted U.S. citizenship, but it did not grant full political rights. Guamanians are U.S. citizens but cannot vote for the U.S. president and have a non-voting delegate in Congress.
- Guam is a crucial strategic military hub for the U.S. military, home to vital air and naval bases.
- Its location in the western Pacific is strategically important, making the U.S. reluctant to relinquish control and change the island's political status.
- The indigenous Chamorro people have a unique cultural and historical identity, and issues related to land rights and self-governance are central to discussions about Guam's future.
- Some historical obstacles to statehood, such as Guam's small population, have been debated.
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