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This podcast uses government documents to illuminate the workings of the American government, and offer context around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life.
Welcome to Civil Discourse. This podcast will use government documents to illuminate the workings of the American Government and offer contexts around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life. Now your hosts, Nia Rodgers, Public Affairs Librarian and Dr. John Aughenbaugh, Political Science Professor.
Nia Rodgers: Hey Aughie.
John Aughenbaugh: Good morning, Nia. How are you?
Nia Rodgers: I'm excellent. How are you?
John Aughenbaugh: I'm good and I want to wish you a Happy New Year.
Nia Rodgers: Thank you. Happy New Year to you. It's our first episode of the New Year.
John Aughenbaugh: Of the new season.
Nia Rodgers: For those who don't realize we take a little break over the holidays and the intercession because Aughie teaches during the intercession and that is, what is that? Like a 34 hour day for the days that you teach intercession. I take a break, Aughie doesn't really take a break and then we come back in the start of the new year. Although this New Year has been an interesting start, hasn't it? This is 2025 for anybody listening in the future and Richmond has had a bit of a time here in the first week. Don't you feel bad for the Richmond mayor? Hey, here's the keys to the city except we don't have any water. Good luck with that.
John Aughenbaugh: This is what happens when you have a major urban area with a water treatment system that was effectively built 100 years ago. It was built before the New Deal and it not only supplies the city of Richmond, the water for Central Virginia is a shared public resource. When the city of Richmond's water treatment plant had to close it severely affected the water supply for at least two possibly three surrounding counties.
Nia Rodgers: By the bye, if Chesterfield wants us to all reach up and smack them as a group they should continue to say stuff like, our water's fine, we don't know what your problem is. Because Richmond's going on like five days of boil advisory and no water.
John Aughenbaugh: Then Araco and Hanover had to do the same.
Nia Rodgers: Chesterfield being snotty about it, boy, they they need to take a chair, they need to just sit down because that is not nice.
John Aughenbaugh: It's like the parents that have the bumper stickers, my kid's an honor roll student.
Nia Rodgers: No, it just makes me want to hit your car. That's not very nice, is it? First of all, I have something to say and then I have a question.
John Aughenbaugh: Sure. Yes.
Nia Rodgers: Our episode today is we are starting the new year by discussing the US territories and Aughie's going to tell us about territories on Guam and all stuff but we're starting with Guam. I want to tell you-all something. If you've never met Aughie which would be strange because a lot of you have been his students, but if you have never met Aughie, Aughie is a dude. Right now, I can see him on Zoom, he's wearing his baseball cap, he's wearing his VCU hoodie, he's probably wearing cargo shorts, I can't see him from the chest down, but he's probably wearing his cargo shorts and his tennis shoes. He is a dude, it's just his nature to be that. I want you to know that he titled this episode, Guam, where the US stay begins. A very romantical, I'm like, "That's so sweet." Although technically, one could argue it's where the US Day ends because it's actually over the timeline so technically, whatever day you're in in the United States it's tomorrow in Guam?
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: But I thought, now, see, that's a man who's watched too many Hallmark movies over the holiday. Where the US Day begins it's very sweet, but it is interesting because many people believe that the US Day begins in Bar Harbor, Maine, in the National Park there.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: There's a mountain there and people go and sit and wait for the sun to rise, but that is the continental US?
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: It does not count all of the US. Here's my question for you. President elect, Donald Trump has cast his eye upon Greenland and Panama and other places that he apparently would like to make part of Canada. I guess he said he wants to be the 51st state although they'd have to get mine. But technically speaking there are ways that something can become a territory, right?
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: If he followed the rules could he technically make Greenland part of the US?
John Aughenbaugh: That's a big if.
Nia Rodgers: I know and Denmark's probably going to get a little irritable about that. Because Denmark itself is about what? Ten feet long?
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: It's not a very big country but the reason it is "the biggest country in the world" is because one of it's possessions in parts is Greenland which is this humongous island in the North Atlantic.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: How does the territory thingy come about?
John Aughenbaugh: Because technically, to get to your question could Donald Trump acquire, if you will, Greenland or even Canada? The easy answer is yes, through the treaty power.
Nia Rodgers: We can buy it?
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah.
Nia Rodgers: How much for Greenland?
John Aughenbaugh: Or we can initiate a war and then to end the war we have a treaty.
Nia Rodgers: Okay.
John Aughenbaugh: Because the second territory that we're going to cover in our series, Puerto Rico was acquired that way.
Nia Rodgers: Got you.
John Aughenbaugh: Into a certain extent.
Nia Rodgers: That's what you mean by treaty power you don't mean buying the Louisiana purchase, you mean forcefully taking by blocking onto it and then saying.
John Aughenbaugh: Like many treaties that end wars.
Nia Rodgers: There's a loss of territory?
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah. There's usually one of the negotiation points, one of the data points as we social scientists say, is, who's going to carve up what territory, or a former country, etc.?
Nia Rodgers: Isn't that how they project the Ukraine Russia war is going to end?
John Aughenbaugh: Sure.
Nia Rodgers: That there's likely going to be a territory concession to Russia to get them to leave the rest of Ukraine alone?
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah. But in regards to what authority the United States federal government has to, if you will, possess or have territories, once again, we go back to the owner's manual, the United States constitution.
Nia Rodgers: I wonder if president's handed over that way. Who's the owner's manual. The last time I changed the oil.
John Aughenbaugh: The car needs new tires, and the exhaust system is really loud.
Nia Rodgers: Good luck with the unruly passengers.
John Aughenbaugh: We have quite a bit of luggage. We've acquired.
Nia Rodgers: You're probably going to need an extra trailer for that.
John Aughenbaugh: We've acquired some baggage but in the owner's manual, the Constitution, in Article 4, Section 3 clause 2, it reads, ''Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States, and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States or of any particular state. Historically, this has been interpreted as giving Congress broad authority over territories of the United States to acquire them, to issue rules and regulations for them. In fact, the United States Supreme Court has held in the Sims versus Sims case from 1899, ''Congress has the entire dominion and sovereignty, national and local, federal and state, and has full legislative power over all subjects upon which the legislature of a state might legislate within the state. And here, the word state means nation state, not a state of the United States''. Because these are territories. They've not been admitted into the country as a state.
Nia Rodgers: Hence, 50 and not some extras. Well, depending on whether they vote yes or no. They get to choose whether they want to apply for stateness?
John Aughenbaugh: They can apply for statehood but again, who has the authority to recognize them? As we discussed in the previous podcast episode about the District of Columbia.
Nia Rodgers: You can petition all you want, but it's Congress says. That's the end of that.
John Aughenbaugh: Think about the multi decade effort it took to make Hawaii the 50th state.
Nia Rodgers: Right.
John Aughenbaugh: Alaska existed as a territory from the reconstruction era until the 1940s.
Nia Rodgers: Very long time. Almost 100 years.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah, as again, we will discuss with Puerto Rico, but you could even make this claim with Guam. Some residents might want the territory to become another state but historically, the United States Congress doesn't move quickly on any desire for a territory to become a state.
Nia Rodgers: Well, and part of that isn't part of that due to the fact that once you're a state, there's actually federal responsibilities for all things that may or may not be true of a territory?
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah.
Nia Rodgers: There are rights that the citizens have that may or may not be accurate of a territory. Like, your voting rights change when you become a full state, don't they?
John Aughenbaugh: Yes, and it's completely up to the United States Congress, when a territory is admitted into the country as a state, not only do the residents get certain rights. The states get, if you will, certain opportunities that territories don't have. For instance, if you're admitted into the country as a state, you immediately get voting privileges in the House of Representatives and you get two senators in the United States Senate. A territory does not necessarily get any of that. They can have non voting, if you will, representation in the House or the Senate, but that's entirely up to the Congress.
Nia Rodgers: But they do have things like due process and if you're in a territory.
John Aughenbaugh: If Congress requires it.
Nia Rodgers: A territory could say, we don't recognize the constitutional right to due process?
John Aughenbaugh: Correct. Yes.
Nia Rodgers: I would imagine that would put your statehood back. Why you would put that on the back burner if you went around saying stuff like, we're okay with human rights violations, but we'd like to be a state. Probably Congress would be like, no.
John Aughenbaugh: Or conversely, the United States Congress could say, you may be concerned about due process and other constitutional rights for your citizens in that territory, but we don't really care, again, this.
Nia Rodgers: Sucks to be a territory.
John Aughenbaugh: This flows from two Supreme Court rulings. I've already mentioned one, the Sims case, but a case five years later. Congress may legislate directly with respect to the local affairs of a territory or it may delegate that power to the territories except as limited by the US Constitution but there's very few limitations on what the Constitution imposes on Congress in regards to constitutional rights. For instance, pursuant to this authority, Congress has prohibited territorial legislatures from enacting local or special laws on enumerated subjects. To your point, Congress has tended to offer civil liberties and civil rights protections, but Congress doesn't have to.
Nia Rodgers: Got it. Although it would be pretty rude not to if you consider yourself to be a democracy.
John Aughenbaugh: That is true.
Nia Rodgers: Because otherwise, you're a tyrant.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes and Congress can go ahead and mandate the structure of a territory's government. What we frequently see is, Congress actually typically mandates the separation of powers checks and balances arrangement that you see in the United States government, typically.
Nia Rodgers: They basically make it like a state in the sense of the way it runs itself. There is an executive, there is a legislative branch, there is a judicial branch, and those branches theoretically work together and or keep an eye on each other.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes even if the citizens of that territory don't want that type of government.
Nia Rodgers: We would like a dictatorship, please. No, you can't have one. Not if you're going to be one of our territories, you're going to have to act like.
John Aughenbaugh: In according to the US Supreme Court, that's entirely up to the Congress.
Nia Rodgers: Good luck fighting us off Guam. I don't like your odds. I'm not trying to be ugly, but, I don't think they stand a chance.
John Aughenbaugh: Is Nia suggesting, listeners, the first territory we're going to look at in our series is Guam. Guam became a US territory in 1898 and was placed under the jurisdiction of the United States Navy. In 1950, Congress passed a law granting US citizenship to the residents of Guam and establish the territory's government.
Nia Rodgers: What are the citizens of Guam called?
John Aughenbaugh: Guamanians.
Nia Rodgers: Guamanians. I want to be a Guamanian. What a great. That's a [inaudible]
John Aughenbaugh: Yes and the Federal jurisdiction Guam was transferred from the US Navy to the Department of Interior. The first local elections were held 20 years later in 1970.
Nia Rodgers: Can I just say that they went 1898 to 1970 without getting voting rights?
John Aughenbaugh: Local.
Nia Rodgers: That crazy
John Aughenbaugh: Yep.
Nia Rodgers: That's that's a long time. When people say, we don't have voting rights in the United States, people in Guam are like, I don't want to hear.
John Aughenbaugh: Old or beer.
Nia Rodgers: Exactly, who are you telling? We were doing fine out here on this island by ourselves. The US Navy shows up, and next thing we know.
John Aughenbaugh: Here's a particular theme, listeners that you're going to see with a lot of these episodes about US territories. Initially, the unit of the federal government that would run administratively. The territory was typically either a unit of the war department or post World War two, a unit of the Department of defense because many of these territories were procured initially because of a what Nia.
Nia Rodgers: Well, World wars or in this instance, foreign wars, right where you want to have a connecting point where you can stop and re-provision and rest, do that stuff for your folks and then move them to the next theater of war. That's why we did a whole lot of things like we will just stop here in Guam, and we will have a spot where we can.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: Renew ourselves and our supplies and all that other kind of stuff. Supply lines are really important in wars.
John Aughenbaugh: It is the westernmost point in territory of the United States, based on the, geographic center of the United States, which is typically in Kansas.
Nia Rodgers: Big flat, and you walk up and there's a point in the middle of Kansas somewhere that's like, this is the middle.[OVERLAPPING]
John Aughenbaugh: For those of you who have never been to Guam, and by the way, listeners, neither Nia nor I have been to Guam.
Nia Rodgers: But it's on my bucket list.
John Aughenbaugh: It is, by all accounts, an absolutely beautiful place in the world. It is in the Western Pacific Ocean, in the Micronesia sub region. Its capital is at Hacatna, and there is, as of 2022, 168,801 Guamanians. Yes.
Nia Rodgers: In a territory the size of what?
John Aughenbaugh: It's only 210 square miles.
Nia Rodgers: 168,000 is roughly the population of Richmond, Virginia. If you took the entire population of Richmond, Virginia, and you spread it out over 210 miles, 110 square miles, that's a relatively unpopulated. [OVERLAPPING] I mean, I'm not trying to sniff my nose at 168,000 people because that's not a small amount of people, but it's relatively unpopulated for its physical space.
John Aughenbaugh: Geographic size.
Nia Rodgers: It must be lovely. I mean, it must be relatively quiet, don't you think there?
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah.
Nia Rodgers: I'm sure the two towns are bustling, because that's probably where 150 of the 168,000 people live.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: Then, if you go 5 miles out of town, it's probably just birds and the ocean and it's probably, I'm saying all this having never been there. Other people on Guam are probably going, No, honey, it's nothing like that. But that's what it seems like it would be.
John Aughenbaugh: I envision a very quiet place to retire.
Nia Rodgers: Yes.
John Aughenbaugh: This territory, like the next one in our series, were both acquired by the United States because of the Spanish American War, which was fought in the late 19th century. Guam was colonized by Spain in 1668.
Nia Rodgers: The people on Guam are okay, I know it's a stupid question, but I'm going to ask you anyway. There were natives on Guam?
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. The trap, tomorrow. [OVERLAPPING].
Nia Rodgers: Probably not a huge number. Then Spain walked up and said, Oh, if this looks lovely, we should take it, and they moved in. But there is a native populate similar to Hawaii, there is a native population, and then the whatever colonizing territory overlays their government and culture on top of people who were already there? The indigenous. [OVERLAPPING].
John Aughenbaugh: Facts. The largest, if you will, indigenous group remaining in Guam are the Chamorros. But now they are a minority on the island. We procured Wom through the 1898 Treaty of Paris and officially took, if you will, ownership in 1899. Nia, as you pointed out a few moments ago, Wom had a significant importance in the fighting of World War II. Because after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the Japanese captured Guam and occupied the island for about 2 1/2 years.
Nia Rodgers: It's not surprising because where Micronesia is located, would give the US easy access to Asia to fight wars there. Wanting to push that further back means that your planes have to fly further to get to the war zone. You ships have to go further, which means your enemy has a lot more time to know you're coming. Then if they were right there in Micronesia, they could just basically what I think of as hop over. Because I don't think people really grasp the size of the Pacific Ocean, and the distances between the different countries that are trying to fight World War II. You have to have some point where you can stop that is between Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and Tokyo. There's going to be something.
John Aughenbaugh: For most of our country's existence, the Pacific Ocean was always considered one of the greatest, if you will, defensive barriers. Because any country that wanted to attack us on the Pacific, [OVERLAPPING]
Nia Rodgers: Had to come from a long way. We're going to come kick your butt in about five weeks. Oh, I'm so scared [LAUGHTER]
John Aughenbaugh: If you think about the American possessions in the Pacific Ocean, you have Guam, Wake Island, American Samoa, Hawaii, and the Philippines. Now, the Philippines is a stand alone country now. But the Philippines, again, was a United States possession after the Spanish American War. But all five of those are vitally essential, if the United States is going to attack the Pacific. The Japanese taking control over Guam made it extremely difficult for the United States military to be able to retaliate against Japan. That's why.
Nia Rodgers: It's a smart reason. I mean, it's a smart thing for them to do because they cut off that supply line. They held it for quite a while, I think, in World War II.
John Aughenbaugh: 2 1/2 years. We retook it in July of 1944, which is actually commemorated by Guamanians as Liberation Day because the Japanese occupying force was particularly brutal. A number of the Japanese officers were actually prosecuted in the Japanese version of post World War II trials, like the Nuremberg trials in Europe. A number of Japanese officers were prosecuted for war crimes, and some of the primary evidence was how the Japanese treated the native Guamanians during the occupation during World War two. Yes.
Nia Rodgers: Well, and I have to assume that most Guamanians at that point viewed themselves as combination Guamanian American culture. They had been in territory for 100 and some years at that point. They probably were pretty dug in on.
John Aughenbaugh: At that point, they had had 40 years of American control because again [OVERLAPPING] But 40 years. But compared to the Spanish, if you will, colonization, the United States occupation of Guam was considered liberal, civilized.
Nia Rodgers: What I assume if am I correct that their major means of support is tourism?
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. Guam's economy has basically two pillars. One is tourism, and the other is the United States military.
Nia Rodgers: I'm going to add to the tourism thing at some point.
John Aughenbaugh: Well, the US military in many of these territories is like the US military's impact in regards to certain US states.
Nia Rodgers: California and Virginia. We couldn't exist without the military because, think about the number of bases in California. I think the number of bases in Texas, number of bases in Virginia. The military is a huge part of the economy of those states.
John Aughenbaugh: The last study that I read Nia, the three states with the largest per capita gross domestic product provided by the military are California, Virginia, and Florida.
Nia Rodgers: Oh, Florida, not Texas. Interesting.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Because Florida has a number of Navy and Air Force bases. Virginia in parts the Pentagon, but also because of the Newport News area, California's got bases up and down the coast. I mean, because it's our primary defense in regards to the Pacific. Guam as recently as 2023, in public opinion polls, a majority of Guamanians, have a strong preference for American statehood, but the United States Congress has never entertained a proposal to admit Guam as a state.
Nia Rodgers: When I am president, I will force Congress to let them be a state.
John Aughenbaugh: Really?
Nia Rodgers: Yeah. They've put up with a lot. I'm just she saying.
John Aughenbaugh: I mean, of all the things you wanted to do as president, I think that's probably the least controversial.
Nia Rodgers: If Puerto Rico wants in, and if Samoa wants in, if all of them want in, in fact, it'd be really nice if all five did because then the flag would not be wonky. Right?
John Aughenbaugh: We would have 55 states?
Nia Rodgers: Right, aren't they in five rows of ten? Wait, am I messing that up in my brain? I'm messing that up in my brain. Never mind.
John Aughenbaugh: Well, five rows of ten. We would have been.
Nia Rodgers: It's going to be wonky, no matter what we do. We have five rows of 11.
Nia Rodgers: Look at me.
John Aughenbaugh: You would have to increase the width of the flag, because you're basically adding a star to every row.
Nia Rodgers: No, there are nine rows, I'm a moron, never mind, forget that I mentioned anything. It's going to mess up the flag, no matter what.
John Aughenbaugh: I mean, ideally, you would either make it 54 or 60 with the way we have the flag currently configured, mind you, listeners.
Nia Rodgers: But you know what, if we do this, we'll get a new flag.
John Aughenbaugh: Nia and I have basically reached our outer limit of math.
Nia Rodgers: I guess wrong there, nine rows not five, I know that there are 50 stars, and I know they represent the states, that's pretty much. I know that there are 13 stripes, and that represents the original colonies. There my flag knowledge ends, except that I'm aware that in the dark, you must put a light on it, and if you are going to take one down that is, in any way, not complete or whole, you must burn it.
John Aughenbaugh: But in terms of our math skills, Nia and I.
Nia Rodgers: Non-consistent, there's a reason we went to social science.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah, Nia and I just reached the outer limits of our basic.
Nia Rodgers: Sorry, that was embarrassing. Moving on, we might cut that out later.
John Aughenbaugh: Let's get back to Guam. As we've already discussed, Guam was colonized by the Spanish, in the 16th century.
Nia Rodgers: But there were people there way before that.
John Aughenbaugh: The studies that I looked at as far back as the 1400 to 1500 BC, these were migrants departing the Philippines, and they had their own existence until the European.
Nia Rodgers: Can I just say the guts that it takes?
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: To get into what is basically a canoe, because you're not talking about galleons here, you're not talking about big, huge ships, you're talking about small boats on the Pacific Ocean. If anybody has never been on the Pacific Ocean, the Pacific is a lie, it is not pacified in any way, it is one of the most wavy of all the oceans. Get in that thing and say, let's go that direction and see what happens, that takes a lot of guts.
John Aughenbaugh: Then you throw in the weather, Guam has a tropical rain forest climate. Its driest month is March, but even in this driest month of March, they occasionally get monsoons.
Nia Rodgers: In their driest month.
John Aughenbaugh: The weather is hot and humid, with little seasonal temperature variation, the trade winds are fairly constant. To your point, one of the variables in regards to the choppiness of a body's waves is the wind. Guam, like most of the Pacific Ocean gets trade winds, and when they blow, it's constant.
Nia Rodgers: What's their average rainfall, Aughie?
John Aughenbaugh: The average rainfall is 98 inches of rain.
Nia Rodgers: That is a huge amount of rain.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes, 98 inches, and that's declined in the last [inaudible]
Nia Rodgers: Anybody counting, that's eight feet.
John Aughenbaugh: Feet of water, yes.
Nia Rodgers: That falls on them every year, I mean, it doesn't fall all at once, thank goodness.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah, I mean, it's declined, and it's still 98 inches.
Nia Rodgers: That is very tropical.
John Aughenbaugh: In terms of its population, the Chimaros which are native, account for almost a third of the population. Asians, including a wide mixture of Filipinos, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, 35.5% of the population. Then you have other ethnic groups from Micronesia, 10% of the population's multi racial. European Americans make up about 7% of the population, and then there are small percentages of African Americans, Hispanics, and Mexicans in Guam. The estimated interracial marriage rate is over 40%.
Nia Rodgers: I mean, that makes sense given the diversity of the population.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: That's got to be way higher than in the regular 48.
John Aughenbaugh: It's way higher than most Asian countries, yes.
Nia Rodgers: That's a big deal in Asian culture.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes, the dominant religion, not a big surprise because it was colonized by the Spanish, Christianity, three quarters of the population is Catholic.
Nia Rodgers: That's not surprising.
John Aughenbaugh: Nope. In terms of sports, the American influence is obvious. The most popular sport is American football, not soccer, but the American version, followed by basketball and baseball. As we've already discussed, the economy is driven by tourism and the United States Department of Defense, Guam residents do pay federal income taxes.
Nia Rodgers: Do they get Social Security?
John Aughenbaugh: Yes, they do.
Nia Rodgers: Pay in, pay out, that's legit, I mean, if they pay into the system, they should be covered.
John Aughenbaugh: Guam has a governor and a unicameral 15 member legislature. They don't have a two house legislature, like we do, but they do have separation of powers because they have an executive, the governor, the unicameral legislature, and they have a judiciary, which has a Supreme Court of Guam. There is a US federal district court in Guam, it's a part of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Nia Rodgers: I need to be appointed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, although probably now that's done a lot by Zoom.
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah, I imagine so.
Nia Rodgers: You know what I mean, I doubt people are flying out to Guam on a regular basis.
John Aughenbaugh: On the other hand, if that was your permanent lifetime judicial appointment.
Nia Rodgers: Except, honestly, I don't know if I can handle that much rainfall, that's a lot of rain.
John Aughenbaugh: Really? See, I don't know.
Nia Rodgers: Although, if it were warm, I mean, it sounds like it's relatively warm, and rainy, so it wouldn't be so bad, as opposed to cold rain.
John Aughenbaugh: Because underneath those black robes, I'm in my cargo shorts and flip-flops.
Nia Rodgers: There's hockey weariness, his beach gear, are we done here? I'm going surfing.
John Aughenbaugh: Guam has one delegate to the US House of Representatives but does not have a vote, but they can participate in committee hearings with a vote. They have to be recognized to speak to the House, just like every other member.
Nia Rodgers: Am I correct that if Guam is highly Catholic, that it is also probably mostly Republican, would I be correct in that assumption?
John Aughenbaugh: It has shifted more conservative, but you also got to remember that many Catholics until the abortion issue in the United States were liberals.
Nia Rodgers: Is their current representative Democrat or Republican?
John Aughenbaugh: That I do not know, Nia. It's a Republican, James Molin.
Nia Rodgers: But that could change depending on who they vote in.
John Aughenbaugh: That's right. US citizens in Guam vote in a presidential straw poll, but they have no votes in the electoral college. Their straw poll really doesn't have any effect. They can send delegates to both the Republican and National Conventions.
Nia Rodgers: Their vote could count there.
John Aughenbaugh: In terms of selecting the candidates.
Nia Rodgers: The primary.
John Aughenbaugh: The nominees.
Nia Rodgers: Can you imagine having to woo the people from Guam, I promise you more umbrellas.
John Aughenbaugh: In the 1980s, early 1990s, there was a movement on Guam for Guam to have Commonwealth status, which would give it a level of self-government similar to Puerto Rico in the northern [inaudible]
John Aughenbaugh: Mariana Islands, but the US government rejected that.
Nia Rodgers: We want to be a commonwealth. I'm sorry, I can't hear you. What?
John Aughenbaugh: But there does seem to be a strong interest from most Guamanians to enter the United States as a state.
Nia Rodgers: That's not surprising. The United States despite what we think of as massive internal dysfunction.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: It's still a pretty nice, what is it? The beacon on the hill.
John Aughenbaugh: It's a club that many people outside the United States have expressed interest historically in joining. That's always one of those things about the immigration debate which we've discussed on this podcast that as much as US citizens complain.
Nia Rodgers: We still have pretty done good comparatively.
John Aughenbaugh: That, it's not worthy the number of people who are willing to risk life, limb, families to enter the United States with no legal status.
Nia Rodgers: It would be nice if even though, and I understand the argument about sovereignty and borders and if you don't have borders and you can't protect borders, then you're not really a sovereign state, I totally understand that argument, I totally get that, but I do wish that there was more sympathy and respect for the guts that it takes to leave your village in Guatemala and everything you've ever known and get on top of a train and ride or walk all the way across Mexico to try to find a better life. There is something admirable in that determination.
John Aughenbaugh: I'm reminding Nia that this isn't a recent phenomenon. I think about how many of our ancestors boarded ships and came across the Atlantic Ocean.
Nia Rodgers: What would have happened if the Native Americans had said, no, we're deporting you back? Do you know what I mean? It's a weird gatekeepy thing to be like, I don't understand why people are trying to do that. You just did that 200 years ago. Y'all did the same thing. How can you say you don't understand that desire when two hundred years is nothing.
John Aughenbaugh: What your ancestors did is very similar to what we see, people across the world.
Nia Rodgers: Well, when people are trying to get across the Mediterranean, it's not because they think, oh, let me get in a rickety boat and risk life and limb for no reason whatsoever. They are thinking, it's got to be better there than it is here.
John Aughenbaugh: They may have heard stories about people from their village or their town or their city who came to the United States and they made it. It was a struggle, but they made it, and they began to flourish, and they want that. They want that opportunity.
Nia Rodgers: Right. They want it for themselves. They want it for their children.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: It's not rocket science. Guam's pretty, I don't know how this is going to sound rude and I don't mean it that way, it's pretty normal in its desire to want to be incorporated officially into the United States in some way. Isn't that a pretty common thing for territories not just in the United States, but in other countries where they have territories, a lot of times don't those territories say, hey, we'd like to be?
John Aughenbaugh: Because in many ways, if they're going to have the obligations, then they want the opportunities.
Nia Rodgers: Didn't England have to deal with that over and over?
John Aughenbaugh: With its colonies. Again, this is not a new phenomenon in terms of history, but if you're going to have obligations, then you're going to want the opportunities to participate in the governance. Let's face it, if you are a resident of Guam, you pretty much know that even if you had a vote in the House and in the Senate, would your representative or would your senators have much of an impact on legislation? No, but you could go ahead and say that about smaller states in the United States.
Nia Rodgers: You can say that about Wyoming.
John Aughenbaugh: Or Rhode Island.
Nia Rodgers: Or Montana, where they have one of each and they don't always have. Although when you come down to something like the speakership arguments, it really can come down to one guy who can make the difference.
John Aughenbaugh: If it's a controversial piece of legislation and the vote is 52/48 in the Senate or you're looking at two or three votes in the House of Representatives, well, then all of a sudden somebody from Guam.
Nia Rodgers: Really could make a difference.
John Aughenbaugh: The fine representative from Guam, the fine representative from Wyoming, well, hey, now they become important, right?
Nia Rodgers: Right.
John Aughenbaugh: That logic always appeals to me because.
Nia Rodgers: Me too. I like the idea that when it's close, sometimes that one senator, well, there's always two senators, but that one congress person from that one district could actually make a difference. I don't know. What appeals to me about that idea is people say my vote doesn't matter, I'm like, yes, it does. We've had races so close in Virginia in the last election. In Lynchburg, for the city council seats, came down to a tiny number of votes. I want to say it was like 21 votes or something. It's really small number. That really matters. You getting out and getting involved and being civically engaged really matters. That's why Guam wants to be part of that is because they want to matter in that way.
John Aughenbaugh: If Guam is strategically important to the United States Western defense, then, hey, why not, also accrue the benefits of being a state within that country that deems it to be so important in terms of its defense.
Nia Rodgers: Is it on your bucket list, Aughie? Are you going to go to Guam someday?
John Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Because, listeners, as we were going through the list of territories, I've only been to one of the territories that we will cover in our series, and that will be our next one. But as I was reading up on Guam, I was just like, because I've been to Hawaii and I absolutely loved it, in many ways, the weather and from what I was reading, just the general vibe of the place appeals to me, particularly as I get older.
Nia Rodgers: The only one I've been to is the next one we're going to talk about. I would like to tick them off if nothing else I would like to know what I'm talking about when I'm talking about the United States because I think of the United States as my home turf based territory of my civic knowledge.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: I've never been to Hawaii, but I've been to Alaska and eventually Hawaii's on my bucket list, as well. I'd like to be able to say, I pretty much have a pretty good idea of the entirety of the engagement of the US.
John Aughenbaugh: Because it's one thing to be aware of how large the United States is, but when you also include the territories.
Nia Rodgers: Now you're flying three quarters of the way around the Pacific in order to get to one of our territories. That would be interesting. I think it would also help remind you how big the United States, the reach of the United State is.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: When you think about that, obviously, we have global reach economy wise and all the other kinds, but I just mean physically. Physically, we're pretty good size there. Do you think UK able to run for its money? So far, ours hasn't fallen apart quite like theirs has. Although they've now got the Commonwealth, which is a really good compromise. You don't have to be under us, but you can still be a part of us if you want to have a trade relationship and that kind of stuff.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: But anyway, thank you, Aughie.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: Guam, where the day begins. Although we should explain, by the way, that that technically is tomorrow in Guam because they are across the Meridian timeline for the next day.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes.
Nia Rodgers: When it is the 10th January in the continental United States, it is already 11th January in Guam.
John Aughenbaugh: Yes. That was something that came up in a number of the articles I read about Guam. They almost all begin with we're the United States.
Nia Rodgers: US day begin.
John Aughenbaugh: It begins, and I was just like, mmh, okay.
Nia Rodgers: Acadia National Park says it's where the US day begins, and it is continentally, but anyway. Thank you, Aughie.
John Aughenbaugh: Thank you, Nia.
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