Guam is a 212-square-mile island at the southern end of the Mariana Islands chain in the western Pacific Ocean, approximately 3,800 miles west of Hawaii and 1,500 miles east of the Philippines. It is the largest island in Micronesia and the westernmost point of the United States, so far west that it is tomorrow here when it is still today on the American mainland. The motto "Where America's Day Begins" is geography as identity.

The Chamorro people, Guam's indigenous inhabitants, have lived on the island for approximately 4,000 years. They survived Spanish colonization, which arrived in 1668 and reduced the Chamorro population by as much as 95 percent through warfare and disease. They survived Japanese occupation from 1941 to 1944, a 31-month period of forced labor, internment, and violence that left deep wounds in the island's collective memory. And they have lived under American sovereignty since 1898, as non-citizen nationals until 1950, and as citizens ever since, though citizens without the right to vote for President.

Today Guam is simultaneously a tropical tourist destination drawing visitors primarily from Japan and South Korea, a critical U.S. military hub that occupies 27 percent of the island's land, and a living Chamorro culture working to preserve its language, traditions, and identity after centuries of colonization. The tension between these three identities, Pacific island, American military outpost, and Chamorro homeland, defines everything about Guam's politics, economy, and culture.