PURO HA' TAGÅLO

In the Philippines, there are Tagalogs, Ilocanos, Visayans, Bicolanos, Ilonggos, Kapampangans, Pangasinenses and many, many others.

Not on Guam. Or the Marianas.

Here, they are all Tagålos.

Not even Tagalog. Tagålo.

Not even Filipino. Tagålo.

For some reason, our Chamorro grandparents just put all the different Filipinos together and called them Tagålo. If they were speaking about Filipina women, it was Tagåla.

The members of the Aklan Association of Guam? Puro ha' Tagålo.

Guam Visayas & Mindanao Association? Puro ha' Tagålo.

Federation of Pangasinanses on Guam? Again, puro ha' Tagålo.

In fact, an Ilocano and a Visayan were fighting and a Chamorro stepped in and stopped the fight saying, "Why are you two fighting when you're both Tagålo?"

What's interesting is that the first Filipinos to live on Guam were mainly Kapampangans, from the Province of Pampanga. The people of Pampanga are distinct from the Tagalogs and have their own language. These Kapampangan soldiers married Chamorro wives and help make us who we are today as modern-day Chamorros. Families such as the Pangelinans, Manibusans, Crisostomos and Lizamas can all trace their Guam origins to a Filipino soldier of the Pampanga regiment.

Not Tagålo!

In time, Filipinos who were truly Tagålo (Tagalog) did come to the Marianas and marry Chamorro women, as did other Filipinos who were Ilocano and Visayan and so forth.

But, for our mañaina, they were all Tagålo.

Our elders seem to have done that with our island neighbors to the south, as well.

To them, all those islanders were gupallau.....people from Palau.

Chuukese, Yapese, Ulithians, Satawalese.....it didn't matter.

They were all gupallau....from Palau.

But that is another story.