Land and People

Guam (gwäm) , Chamorro Guåhan, the largest, most populous, and southernmost of the Mariana Islands (see also Northern Mariana Islands, an unincorporated territory of the United States (2005 est. pop. 168,000), 209 sq mi (541 sq km), W Pacific. The southern part of the island is mountainous, rising on Mt. Lamlam to 1,332 ft (406 m). Hagåtña (Agaña), on the central W coast, is the seat of government, and Apra Harbor, a large U.S. naval base, is nearby. Andersen Air Force Base is in the north. The interior of the island is dense jungle; most of the villages are on the coast.
Guamanians are U.S. citizens but cannot vote in U.S. elections. Guam's permanent inhabitants are predominantly of native Chamorro stock (37%) or Filipino descent (26%); the rest of the population mainly consists of roughly equal numbers of other Pacific Islanders, Caucasians, and other persons of Asian descent. The people are overwhelmingly Roman Catholic and speak English, Chamorro, and Japanese; English and Chamorro are official languages. Efforts to preserve the Chamorro language began in the 1990s. Some one fourth of the population consists of U.S. military personnel and their dependents.
Providing goods and services for the huge U.S. bases is the major industry. Tourism, especially from Japan, is also important, and the territorial government is an significant employer. There is some light industry. Some inhabitants practice subsistence farming, but large-scale agriculture is no longer possible because military installations occupy so much land. Local leaders began pressing for access to military land in the 1990s, and several facilities have been turned over.
Human artifacts dating from c.1500 B.C. have been found on Guam, but the first settlement may have occurred as much as 500 or more years earlier. Visited in 1521 by Ferdinand Magellan, Guam was claimed and controlled by Spain until 1898, when it was taken by the United States in the Spanish-American War. After 1917, Guam, under the Dept. of the Navy, was governed by a naval officer who was advised by a local congress. Guam was captured by Japan in 1941, was retaken by U.S. forces in 1944, and became a major base for assaults on the Japanese mainland.
The Organic Act of 1950 transferred jurisdiction to the Dept. of the Interior and provided for a governor, appointed every four years by the U.S. president, and a 21-member unicameral legislature elected biennially by residents. During the Vietnam War in the 1960s Guam was an important base for air assaults, and the island's military installations remain strategically important to the United States. Since 1970 the governor has been popularly elected to a four-year term. Guamanians voted in 1987 to seek commonwealth status from the United States. Guam was devastated by typhoons in 1976 and 1992 and suffered a severe earthquake in 1993. Felix Camacho was elected governor in 2002, succeeding Carl T. C. Gutierrez.

Government and politics.

Guam is governed by a popularly elected governor and a unicameral 15 member legislature. Additionally Guam elects one non-voting delegate to the US House of Representatives. During the U.S. Presidential election, citizens in Guam vote in a "straw poll" for their choice of president, but it doesn't count toward the general election results.
There is a significant movement in favor of the Territory becoming a commonwealth, which would give it a political status similar to Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands. Competing movements with less significant influence exist, which advocate political independence from the United States, statehood, or a combination with the Northern Mariana Islands as a single commonwealth. These proposals however, are not seen as favorable or realistic within the U.S. federal government, which argues Guam does not have the financial stability or self sufficiency to warrant such status. The same sources quickly provide evidence of Guam’s increasing reliance on Federal spending, and question how commonwealth status or statehood would benefit the United States as a greater whole.
Most people on Guam favor a modified version of the current Territorial status, involving greater autonomy from the federal government (similar to the autonomy of individual States). Perceived indifference by the U.S. Congress regarding a change-of-status petition submitted by Guam has led many to feel that the territory is being unjustly deprived of the benefits of a more equitable union with the United States[citation needed].

Economy

Guam's economy depends primarily on tourism, the United States military base presence, and other federal spending. Although Guam receives no foreign aid, it does receive large transfer payments from the general revenues of the U.S. Federal Treasury into which Guam pays no income or excise taxes; under the provisions of a special law of Congress, the Guam Treasury, rather than the US Treasury, receives federal income taxes paid by military and civilian Federal employees stationed in Guam.
Sometimes called "America in Asia," Guam is a popular destination for Japanese, Korean, and Chinese tourists, and with over 20 large hotels, a DFS Galleria, Pleasure Island aquarium, SandCastle Las Vegas shows and other shopping and entertainment features in its chief tourism city of Tumon, the island's economy has grown dramatically. It is a relatively short flight from Asia compared to Hawaii, and a series of hotels and golf courses were built to cater to tourists. Today, about 90 percent of tourists to Guam are Japanese. Significant sources of revenue include duty-free designer shopping outlets, and the American-style malls: Micronesia Mall, Guam Premium Outlets, and the Agana Shopping Center and various businesses catering to tourists in Tumon.
The economy had been stable since 2000 due to increased tourism, mainly from Japan, but took a more recent downturn along with the rest of Asia. Guam has a 14% unemployment rate, and the government suffered a $314 million shortfall in 2003.[1]

History

Guam's first contact with western civilization occurred when Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan reached the island in 1521 during his circumnavigation of the globe. General Miguel López de Legazpi claimed Guam for Spain in 1565. Spanish colonization commenced in 1668 with the arrival of Padre San Vitores, who established the first Catholic mission. Between 1668 and 1815, Guam was an important resting stop on the Spanish trade route between Mexico and the Philippines. Guam, along with the rest of the Mariana and Caroline islands, was treated by Spain as part of their colony in the Philippines. While Guam's Chamorro culture is unique, the cultures of both Guam and the Northern Marianas were heavily influenced by Spanish culture and traditions.
The United States took control of the island in 1898 after the Battle of Guam of 1898 in the Spanish-American War. Guam came to serve as a way station for American ships traveling to and from the Philippines, while the northern Mariana islands passed to Germany then Japan.
During World War II, Guam was attacked and invaded by the Japanese armed forces on December 8, 1941. The Northern Mariana Islands had become a Japanese protectorate before the war. It was the Chamorros from the Northern Marianas who were brought to Guam to serve as interpreters and in other capacities for the occupying Japanese force. . The Guam Chamorros were treated as an occupied enemy by the Japanese military. After the war, this would cause some resentment by the Guam Chamorrose towards the Chamorros in the Northern Marianas. To this day, Guam remains the only U.S. soil, with a sizeable population, that suffered under foreign military power occupation. Guam's occupation lasted for approximately thirty-one months. During this period, the indigenous people of Guam were subjected to forced labor, family separation, incarceration, execution, concentration camps and prostitution. The United States returned and fought the Battle of Guam in July 21, 1944 to recapture the island from Japanese military occupation. The U.S. also captured and occupied the Northern Marianas. After the war, The Guam Organic Act of 1950, which established Guam as an unincorporated organized territory of the United States, provided for the structure of the island's government, and granted the people United States citizenship.