Cultural Integration and Separation: The Pre-historical and Historical Links between Guam and the Philippines, or Where Did All the Filipinos Go?

This article examines available pre-historical, historical, demographic, linguistic, and ethnobotanical evidences of the connections and exchanges between the people of the Philippines and Guam and the Mariana Islands, and illustrates how Filipinos (1) were an integral part of Chamorro pre-history and (2) became more amalgamated with Chamorros during the Spanish colonial era. We argue that the 'invisibility' of Filipinos in Guam's historical record is mainly the result of Spanish colonial practices, which resulted in Filipino conscripts, laborers, and migrants becoming integrated with Chamorro families and their children becoming "natives" rather than "non-natives", ensuring Chamorro cultural precedence, survival and language continuity. Filipinos only became re-visible as a distinct ethnic group after World War II, when large numbers of skilled laborers were brought in by the U.S. military to rebuild the island. Filipinos in Guam now have a well-established distinct community and separate ethnic group identity reflecting different regions and linguistic areas of the Philippine Islands, although they remain a historically ' invisible' part of Chamorro culture.