PEACE CORPS ACCULTURATION

 

The Peace Corps is an independent agency of the US Government which enlists volunteers who go out to developing countries to assist in their progress in many areas of life.

Since all of Micronesia, except Guam, was considered "foreign" in the sense that none of those islands were formally part of the United States at the time, Peace Corps volunteers could be found all over Micronesia. In the late 1960s and early 70s, that volunteerism often blended with the cultural revolution going on in the US. Many young people in those days wanted to break out of "old fashioned" cultural norms.

A number of Peace Corps volunteers, then, sought to adopt the various Micronesian cultures in which they worked. They wanted to live like the people they were working with, and even dress, or undress, like them.

Renowned Saipan singer Candy Taman told me the story of one such Peace Corps volunteer.

It was the early 1970s, when one could still watch passengers descend from the airplanes when they landed. Security was very lax in those days. There were no jetways. The airplane door opened and passengers went down the stairs onto the tarmac. Friends and family members coming to pick up arriving passengers got up very close to the plane, separated from the runway by a chain-link fence or sometimes just a concrete or wooden barrier.

Candy related to me,

"Påle', katna måtai yo' annai hu li'e' un palao'an Peace Corps annai humuyong gi batkonaire ya tåya' ni håfafa chininå-ña! Annok todo i sisu-ña. Ya blondie na Amerikåna! Sus te guåtde!"

"Father, I almost died when I saw a Peace Corps woman exit the plane and she had no blouse on at all! All her breasts were exposed. And she was a blonde American! Oh my gosh!"

It was one thing to see a Yapese, Ulithian or Outer Islander woman topless, but a blonde, blue-eyed American lady from Wisconsin or where-have-you? It was too much.

I don't think this thing happened much, but it did happen.

Usually the Peace Corps taught in schools or helped in community projects, among other things.

A Peace Corps volunteer assisting in a water supply project in Chuuk