OPINION: Anthropology, humanities at UOG recover the voices of Micronesia

OPINION: Anthropology, humanities at UOG recover the voices of Micronesia

OPINION: Anthropology, humanities at UOG recover the voices of Micronesia


10/21/2025
Professor Atienza
David Atienza, Professor of Anthropology and Micronesian Studies.
William Bill Jeffery with a Canoe
William (Bill) Jeffery stands alongside a canoe.

Every semester, when we begin a new course on the peoples of the Pacific, we ask students to list by memory the 50 states of the United States. They look surprised that we might require such knowledge in an anthropology course. However, they do it, and the truth is that they are pretty good at that.
 

Immediately after we ask them to name islands of the Pacific, some can mention three, some four, and those more curious may arrive at six, including, of course, Saipan and Hawaii.
 
As anthropologists, we are interested in those silences. When young people on Guam know more about the Pilgrim Fathers than about traditional navigation in Micronesia or the location of Tuvalu, we understand that something is not right.
 
Read the full story at Guam PDN