As we close out the month, March on Guam carries a powerful dual meaning. It is both Mes CHamoru and International Women’s Month, a time to honor culture, ancestry, and the strength of women who shape our communities.
For me, these celebrations are intertwined. My identity as a Chamorro woman informs not only my art, but my ambition, work ethic, and the way I navigate life’s challenges.
When I think about resilience, I think about my great-grandmother Agueda Iglesias Johnston.
During the Japanese occupation of Guam, Chamorro people were forbidden from speaking their language. Agueda quietly resisted. Our family produced soap on island, and she hid handwritten messages in Chamorro inside the wrappers, circulating information connected to George Tweed, the last known American radioman receiving updates from the U.S. She was suspected, beaten, and tortured. She never gave in.
It was a brutal time and resilience wasn’t just some positive feature, it was necessary to survive.
The U.S. returned to recapture Guam July 21, 1944. This day was named “Liberation Day,” though many on Guam have mixed feelings about the history and don’t consider it liberation at all. This is because it was later learned through military documents that the U.S. did not intend to “save” the people of Guam. It intended to decimate it and reclaim the land. Ironically, the Japanese had marched much of the island into central areas to be mass murdered, and at the time of the U.S. bombing mostly the coasts of Guam, many of the Chamorro people ended up surviving.
She lost her husband to the concentration camps in Japan and raised seven children on her own during wartime. She continued to build back the broken down schools and restore the education system on Guam from the ground up. She held classes even without walls sometimes. She knew the importance of morale and knowledge, and that the children literally are our future. She created so many long-standing foundations for Guam, such as The Liberation Day Parade and The Guam Girl Scouts, as well as helping start the Guam Museum, Guam Women’s Club, Guam Fine Arts & Historical Society, and much more.
That is the bloodline I come from.
Her strength was not loud. It was strategic and enduring. She carried grief, danger, and motherhood without surrendering her integrity.
I have not lived through war, but I have faced danger in my own time.
Early on, I navigated toxic relationships, including one that turned violent. I learned quickly that survival sometimes requires clarity and the courage to walk away. Sometimes it meant enduring until you could create an escape.
Years later, I faced a different endurance. I gave birth to two sons at home, by choice, without doctors. There is a whole story behind this, but it was the most challenging and empowering experience of my life. My next challenge was building stability while raising my sons as a single mother. There were seasons of overwhelm, stretching every dollar, wondering how I would hold everything together.
When my boys were young and I felt that pressure closing in, I thought about Agueda.
Seven children. War. Violence. Loss.
If she could endure that, I could overcome this.
Resilience does not skip generations. It evolves.
That perspective did not erase my challenges, but it strengthened my spine. It reminded me that I come from women who built under pressure.
Creativity became my strategy. When life felt chaotic, I built something. When fear crept in, I focused on what I could control. Stability became my quiet rebellion.
Chamorro women have always been builders. We preserved language in secret. We protected families in crisis. We adapted and endured.
International Women’s Month highlights leadership and progress. Mes CHamoru reminds us of preservation and inheritance. Together, they call us to honor where we come from while choosing how we move forward.
In my studio today, creativity is more than art. It is resilience in action. It is a space where people can pause, reconnect, and create something tangible out of whatever season they are in.
Resilience runs through my blood. Creativity is how I carry it forward. Creativity is how humans have always survived and moved forward.
Because sometimes the most powerful thing we can do IS to just keep creating.
Agueda Iglesias Johnston, December 12, 1892- December 30, 1977