An Island Away from Home: Filipino Home-Making on Guam

Guam, an outpost of the United States, carries more than a military and strategic importance in the Pacific region. The island sits on the fringe of migration routes serving as a path to other places. For a number of Filipinos, this US territory has been a migration path since the Spanish colonial period. At present, Guam stands in its own right as an important migration destination, despite garnering much attention as a stepping stone for transient Filipino migrants who are attracted to a US migration dream. This paper wishes to explore transient migration as a more complex process that transcends its standard definition of arrival and period of waiting. Through select narratives, this paper examines the local complexity in the transient migrant life process, including local adaptation, hybridization and the multi-sited belongings of transient Filipino migrants on Guam. How do Filipinos living in the fringe of continental US experience belongingness and engagement? What makes Filipinos feel at home in this specific locality?