Tip of the Spear - (United States in the World) by Alfred Peredo Flores (Hardcover)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

In Tip of the Spear, Alfred Peredo Flores argues that the US occupation of the island of Guåhan (Guam), one of the most heavily militarized islands in the western Pacific Ocean, was enabled by a process of settler militarism. During World War II and the Cold War, Guåhan was a launching site for both covert and open US military operations in the region, a strategically significant role that turned Guåhan into a crucible of US overseas empire. In 1962, the US Navy lost the authority to regulate all travel to and from the island, and a tourist economy eventually emerged that changed the relationship between the Indigenous CHamoru population and the US military, further complicating the process of settler colonialism on the island.

The US military occupation of Guåhan was based on a co-constitutive process that included CHamoru land dispossession, discursive justifications for the remaking of the island, the racialization of civilian military labor, and the military's policing of interracial intimacies. Within a narrative that emphasizes CHamoru resilience, resistance, and survival, Flores uses a working class labor analysis to examine how the militarization of Guåhan was enacted by a minority settler population to contribute to the US government's hegemonic presence in Oceania.

Review Quotes

Flores's work essentially documents the beginnings of the history of US land takings on Guam, including forms of coercion, deception, and intimidation employed to dispossess native Chamorros from their most valued and valuable resource.... This book does justice to two sides of a complicated--still percolating--story.

About the Author

Alfred Peredo Flores is Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies at Harvey Mudd College. His publications have appeared in American Quarterly, Amerasia Journal, and Critical Ethnic Studies Journal.