[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 10 (Tuesday, February 8, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E85-E86]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   THE PASSING OF DR. LAURA THOMPSON, A FRIEND OF THE CHAMORRO PEOPLE

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD

                                of guam

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 8, 2000

  Mr. UNDERWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I rise to mourn and pay tribute to the 
passing of a

[[Page E86]]

great anthropologist and true friend of Guam, Dr. Laura Thompson. Dr. 
Thompson was an anthropologist who not only studied various cultures in 
the world, she contributed to the growth of the discipline during her 
lifetime. For the people of Guam and researchers everywhere, her work, 
``Guam and Its People'', is the seminal work on the essence of the 
Chamorro culture. She was the first anthropologist to formally study 
the culture of the people of Guam and every student, researcher or any 
person interested in serious thinking about Guam must begin by reading 
and understanding her work.
  Dr. Thompson was born in Honolulu on January 23, 1905 and died last 
month right after her 95th birthday. During her life, she published 
nine books in anthropology and more than 70 articles in professional 
journals. She was a compelling and provocative speaker who willingly 
addressed professional meetings, spoke to community groups and 
frequently appeared on radio and television programs. She spoke about 
her experience, the role of women in society and the advancement of her 
discipline. In the course of her work, she spoke out as an advocate for 
the advancement of Pacific island peoples.
  Dr. Thompson came to Guam in 1938 at the invitation of the Naval 
Government of Guam to study the Chamorro people. She served as a 
consultant to the naval governor of Guam. The assumption at the time 
was that naval officers needed to learn more about the nature of the 
Chamorro people so that the task of governing Guam would be more 
efficiently and effectively accomplished. It was ultimately a self-
defeating assumption, because the only way that Guam should have be 
governed was by the people of Guam themselves. Dr. Thompson stayed for 
six months in the village of Malesso' and learned a great deal about 
the rhythm of Chamorro life, particularly in the southern end of Guam 
which was acknowledged as the more traditional part of Guam.
  Her work gave all of us insights into the hybrid culture of the 
Chamorro people, a mixture of Spanish, Mexican and Filipino influences 
interspersed with the pre-Western contact Chamorro traditions. The 
account of the culture was powerful because the strengths of Chamorro 
character and industry were being celebrated for the first time in 
recorded history. Under American and Spanish colonial rule, Chamorros 
were only discussed as a problem. For the first time, Chamorros were 
being discussed as human beings who had designed a dynamic and strong 
framework for life. It was an invigorating vision made more powerful by 
the fact that it was conducted in the name of science.
  Guam went on to be occupied by Japan during World War II and the 
Chamorro people endured a new challenge to their existence. They 
survived and their heroic story inspired their fellow Americans at the 
time. However, naval officials decided that the military should 
continue to govern Guam even as America had just prevailed in a war to 
preserve democracy and defeat fascism and militarism. The post World 
War II military government of Guam was an anomaly whose future was dim. 
And one of the persons who wanted to ensure that military government 
would come to an end was Dr. Laura Thompson.
  She was refused the opportunity to go back to Guam by the Navy and 
visit the Chamorro people. Along with a few friends, she worked to end 
military rule in Guam and advocated the granting of U.S. citizenship to 
the Chamorro people. Her husband, John Collier, was Director of the 
Bureau of Indian Affairs, She prevailed upon him, their friend, 
Interior Secretary Harold Ickes and others like Pearl Buck to assist 
her in her advocacy of Guam issues. She worked with the Institute of 
Ethnic Affairs and they began to issue statements on the true nature of 
the military government in Guam. She testified in front of numerous 
Congressional committees. This lobbying effort was counteracted by the 
Navy who established an office across the street from the Institute to 
issue the Navy's point of view. The objectives of their lobbying were 
both the Executive Branch and Congress. Congress eventually realized 
that the Navy must go.
  The role of the Institute, the articles by Harold Ickes, the articles 
in Asia Magazine by Richard Wels and the letters to the editor in the 
New York Times facilitated by Foster Hailey in moving Guam to civilian 
government has not been fully understood by many except the most 
committed historians. In combination with the efforts of Antonio Won-
Pat, F.B. Leon Guerrero and the willingness of the Guam Congress to 
protest the decisions of the naval governor of Guam, the people of Guam 
finally saw the end of naval rule. It is one of the Guam history's 
greatest ironies that a young woman brought out to help naval officers 
understand Guam more eventually ended the power of naval officers over 
Guam.
  Dr. Thompson did not return to Guam until 1976 at my invitation to an 
event I organized called the Chamorro Studies Convention. She came and 
delivered an inspirational message of hope and understanding about the 
Chamorro people. The event helped rekindle her interest and subsequent 
contacts with the people of Guam. She became good friends with Dr. 
Becky Stephenson, an anthropologist at the University of Guam, who 
edited a publication about Dr. Thompson's life story. Entitled ``Beyond 
The Dream: A Search for Meaning'', the work recounts the growth of Dr. 
Thompson as a scholar and anthropology as a discipline. Dr. Stephenson 
remarked about her colleague, ``Laura was a good friend of Guam. She 
was a woman who loved Guam.''
  Dr. Thompson obtained a B.A. from Mills College in Oakland California 
and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley 
in 1933. She is the 1979 recipient of the Bronislaw Malinowski Award 
for the Society of Applied Anthropology. She has conducted ethnographic 
fieldwork in Fiji, Hawaii, Iceland, West Germany, the mainland U.S. 
with Native American communities as well as Guam.
  Si Yu'os ma'ase' Dr. Thompson for all of your efforts on behalf of 
the people of Guam. To her nieces and nephew and those who cared for 
her in her later years, we thank you for sharing her talent, her 
strength and her inspiration with the people of Guam.

                          ____________________