Saipan is the capital island of the Northern Mariana Islands, a string of 14 limestone and volcanic islands straddling the western edge of the Pacific Ocean. About 4,000 years ago, intrepid voyagers from southeast Asia first migrated to our islands in wooden canoes. Today my people who inhabit these islands call ourselves Chamorro. After 500 years of Spanish, German and then Japanese colonial rule, in 1976, the U.S. Congress designated our islands a Commonwealth of the United States—America’s newest territory.
As a boy growing up on Saipan, I used to dream of the ocean. I dreamed of a bounty of yellow, red, blue and green fish darting over mounds of brightly colored coral. These visions of the daytime hours I spent in the water rolled and bobbed in my mind throughout the night. The ocean was my playground, my teacher and a place to catch fish.
The above excerpt was originally published in American Indian magazine.
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