Sculpted Memories: Apolinario Mabini’s Memorialization and Chamorro–Filipino Relations in Guam

Abstract

Abstract: Filipino revolutionary Apolinario Mabini’s incarceration in Asan Beach on Guam from 1901–1903 continues to have political implications today, as evidenced by Chamorro-led pushback against Filipino-sponsored Mabini memorials in the village of Asan. Much of this debate is centered around differences between Chamorro and Filipino memories about Asan, which stems from the US empire’s containment of their relations. Through applying an abolitionist geographical critique to US Naval archives and oral history interviews of Chamorros and Filipinos in Guam, this article unpacks the role that US militarization’s carceral logics play in transforming Mabini’s memory into a marker of containment for Chamorros, Filipinos, and Guam’s landscapes and waterscapes. In centering an Indigenous and Filipino feminist reading of colonial archives and Chamorro–Filipino relations, I identify moments when Chamorros and Filipinos have (re)mapped alternative modes of relation beyond the containment of Chamorros’ ties to place and the US military’s reliance on Filipinos as a source of labor for militarized infrastructure.