206 Contextual Analysis Fall 2020


Photograph by J.R Eyerman

“Guam: US Makes Little Island Into Mighty Base”: A Contextual Analysis

Abi Rosenthal

10/17/2020

World War Two prompted major world powers to expand colonial efforts. The taking over of Pacific Islands was a common trend of the United States and Japan, who were on opposite sides of the war. In 1944, the United States retook Guam from Japanese control and on July 2nd, 1945, Life Magazine published an article called “Guam: US Makes Little Island Into Mighty Base.” This article promotes the military’s control of Guam by portraying the islanders as happy to have them and being much better off with them in control. The article is worded to praise the American military and reframes the context to portray the military as heroic liberating the island, rather than liberating the people. This essay will discuss the rhetoric of the article. In order to do this, I will analyze the historical context of the time period and how that may influence Life’s perspective. I will also be analyzing the role of the article as a whole and how it connects to the other sub-articles within this feature article. Finally, I will also be discussing how the article makes it seem as though the soldiers who are controlling Guam are treating the island as a possession that American tourists should visit rather than a sovereign nation. 

Guam has a long history of occupation. Guam has “been colonised by the Spanish, occupied by the Japanese and militarised by the Americans.” Japanese occupation was harsh and tyrannical for the people of Guam. The Liberation of Guam was in 1944. This conquering was perfectly timed. It followed the bombing of Pearl Harbor by a few years. This “liberation” was strategically planned. Guam is 1,619 miles from Japan, making it the closest United States territory to Japan. While the Life Magazine article does discuss the people of Guam, the main focus of it about the military base. This extends to how the United States views Guam: as a military base with people who just happen to also live there. The Life Magazine article was published a little over one month before the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. The timing was perfect because it sold the government’ narrative of having saved Guam from the Japanese, framing the United States as the heroes.

Page seventy-two has the following large headline: “Its Natives Are Loyal to USA.” This page discusses the history of the island and its people. Through this, it frames it so the people were being killed and imprisoned by the Japanese, but under American control they are said to be able to hold jobs and live normal lives. However, under both, the military plays a large and imposing role. The article specifically says, “Guam is still glad to have the US back.” (72) Despite the article mentioning how the US did force people from their homes, the government is appointing money to repair all of the damages. This page also features the photographs of J.R Eyerman to prove the loyalty of the people of Guam. One of the photos is of young children playing in a field next to a building. It only seems perplexing until you read the entire caption where it says that the field and building were built with assistance from the United States. Another photo on the page depicts schoolchildren assembling for a flag raising ceremony. The caption specifically says local boy scouts are conducting it and that this is something that happens daily. The particular photo of the schoolchildren raising the flag immediately draws your attention to the large American flag. This is meant to convince the viewer that the Guamanians were actively proving their loyalty and were proud of it. The use of the phrase “daily ceremony” (72) shows this. It is important to note that the flag raising is being conducted by native Guam boy scouts. This shows American values being imposed on the people of Guam. Guamamian boys are participating in an American custom and performing a distinctly American ritual that is meant to reaffirm unending loyalty. The other photo of children being inoculated by a native Navy nurse implies these children were poor and sickly before the US intervened. The choice to represent a native nurse is important because it frames the narrative of letting the people govern themselves. In addition, the islanders were more likely to trust another islander than a United States army nurse. This is similar to the narrative of Japanese internment camps where they were also shown to be “governing themselves”. United States Japanese internment camps were also framed and surrounded with propaganda of it being for the benefit of the Japanese people. Like the people of Guam, the Japanese were also allowed to conduct their own religious ceremonies and lead their own local governments, but they were also explicitly shown to be under the careful eye of the American military. It connects a patronizing and racist nature to how the United States treats people it considers to be foreigners.

In the article, Guam is presented as a possession to the United States. The claims and propaganda of the United States saving Guam are furthered as the rest of the article shows that the island exists for the benefit of the United States and its military. This in conjunction with the next page’s subject on how the soldiers spend their time, it fits with how Life is trying to sell the narrative of Guam being a possession. Page seventy-four opens with this headline, reading “It Is A Base For Fun Too.” This page has a series of images with soldiers and officers engaged in leisure activities such as playing sports and attending concerts. By drawing attention to leisure activities, Life Magazine promotes the idea that Guam is not meant for the native people that live there, but for the military. Despite the inclusion of many photos with captions about the Guamamanians, the article still revolves around the United States military.

Guam’s history in the twentieth century is full of conquest and no regards for the native people who live there. The United States had demphasized its take over in order to oppose accusations of being similar to Japan and Germany, who were occupying European and Pacific nations through force. While in the twenty-first century, Guam is a United States territory and the people are citizens, they cannot vote and their representative in Congress has little power. The people of Guam are trying to reclaim their culture and their land, since much of it was stolen from them by the United States military and government. Guam is not the only country that the United States has done this to. Many other Pacific islands have experienced the same thing. This article worked as it was intended to; Guam is still an American territory and is rarely thought of by mainland citizens as anything other than an exotic island. Meanwhile, the military still occupies Guam.

Works Cited:

“Guam: U.S Makes Little Island Into Mighty Base.” Life Magazine, 2 July 1945, pp. 63–75. 

Stinson, Jun. “Guam: What It Means to Be from a US Territory.” US & Canada News | Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera, 24 Aug. 2018, www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/8/24/guam-what-it-means-to-be-from-a-us-territory. 

“Guam in World War II (U.S. National Park Service).” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, www.nps.gov/articles/guamwwii.htm.

Reflection:

I learned about how to properly find connections and underlying messages in what was being told. The article was clearly a piece of propaganda and it was a matter of figuring out what exactly it was trying to sell and why. When I first read the article, everything about it seemed strange and off. After doing the contextual analysis, the photograph that I chose now makes more sense. It looked like a normal photo at first, but now reads like deliberate propaganda within the context. The most difficult part was not falling into any of the propaganda that was being spat out by the article. This was difficult because most of my sources were from the article and I had to make sure not to fall into its traps of how it views Guam. I learned that I use vague pronouns and that I need to stop doing that. I was most confident about the ideas being presented. I think that I made interesting and well informed ideas and presented them as such. I will take with me the ability to make connections between multiple sources, photographs, events, etc. I made connections between different parts of the article as well as comparing the occupation of Guam to Japanese internment. I will use these skills for the next assignment.