THE MEETING PLACE

 

INN ON THE BAY

Hågat

I was having breakfast one morning with two Santa Rita ladies at a neighborhood restaurant in Hågat, at the intersection of Route 1 and the road that leads up to Santa Rita.

One of the ladies said to me in Chamorro, "Påle', have you ever noticed that there are fewer families in Santa Rita with Filipino fathers compared to Hågat?"

I knew that just up the road from where we were was the old Camp Roxas, built right after the war when hundreds of Filipino workers, a great many from Iloilo, were recruited to work for the many military projects that built up Guam into an important Naval base. Many of these workers stayed on working for the military, and quite a number married Chamorro wives. 

I also knew that Hågat had a good number of families with Filipino dads. Some of their children were my classmates in high school, or whom I knew in other ways. One of my Hågat classmates whose dad was Filipino became well-known as the bet collector (the Cristo) at the local gayera (cockfight, sabong in Filipino).

The lady went on to explain, "But in Santa Rita, you can count on just a few fingers the Filipinos who married Santa Rita girls. Langas, Calip, Claveria, Grecia.....and Viernes but he came by way of Hawaii."

She looked over her left shoulder which faced the window, and said, "You know where Inn on the Bay is? In the old days there was a store there with a pool table. The store was called Para Luchan and was owned by the Bordallos. The Camp Roxas men would go there and hang out in that area, and the Hågat girls would also go there and socialize with the Camp Roxas workers. But the Santa Rita girls couldn't go there. Our parents were so strict. That's why less Santa Rita girls married Filipino men. It was harder for them to meet. That's why there are fewer Santa Rita women married to Camp Roxas men."