I was deeply offended by the way CNN has portrayed Guam, which is a US Territory like Puerto Rico, and subsequently wrote a letter to them in complaint. While I have yet to hear from them, please watch the video and let them know what you think: CNN Video
Portraying us as just a grass skirt-wearing people living in thatched huts hasn't been an accurate depiction since the early 1500s! As a Chamorro, whom are US citizens from birth, I'm extremely disappointed in CNN's ignorance and narrow-minded views of the Pacific. The fact that CNN aired something so xenophobic, bigoted, and irresponsible should be enough to encourage standing up for the Marianas. If they needed accurate and up to date video on the islands, why didn't they ask KUAM for footage? Where did they get this nonsense? A National Geographic visit to Kwajalein in 1952? CNN owes the Mariana Islands an apology. I hope they would be fair to us as they would be to any other racial group, because this is certainly not far from portraying all Sub-Saharan Africans as half-naked spear-hunters or all East Asians as rice paddy farmers.
So, CNN, that's what encapsulates Guam, huh? Thatched huts, grass skirts, and fishing nets? At least find some latte stones with a thatched hut on top of it to be a bit more authentic. Wha...wait? What was that? Oh yeah! The Spanish burned those huts to the ground half a millennia ago! Funny how that works! LOL! Oh, Lord this racism is killing me inside...
Portraying us as just a grass skirt-wearing people living in thatched huts hasn't been an accurate depiction since the early 1500s! As a Chamorro, whom are US citizens from birth, I'm extremely disappointed in CNN's ignorance and narrow-minded views of the Pacific. The fact that CNN aired something so xenophobic, bigoted, and irresponsible should be enough to encourage standing up for the Marianas. If they needed accurate and up to date video on the islands, why didn't they ask KUAM for footage? Where did they get this nonsense? A National Geographic visit to Kwajalein in 1952? CNN owes the Mariana Islands an apology. I hope they would be fair to us as they would be to any other racial group, because this is certainly not far from portraying all Sub-Saharan Africans as half-naked spear-hunters or all East Asians as rice paddy farmers.
So, CNN, that's what encapsulates Guam, huh? Thatched huts, grass skirts, and fishing nets? At least find some latte stones with a thatched hut on top of it to be a bit more authentic. Wha...wait? What was that? Oh yeah! The Spanish burned those huts to the ground half a millennia ago! Funny how that works! LOL! Oh, Lord this racism is killing me inside...
Tumon, Guam and its row of grass huts...
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