Word: guam
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Guam (pop. 100,000), a 209-sq.-mi. island 1,500 miles north of New Guinea, taken as a prize of the Spanish-American War. It has a nonvoting representative in Congress...
Farming, once a basic livelihood, has virtually disappeared from all the American-held islands. Indigenous private enterprise is almost nonexistent: there are no local entrepreneurs, for example, exploiting the lush timberlands of some of the Carolines. Unemployment runs at 13% in the trust territory, 9% on Guam, 15% on American Samoa...
...addition to controlling Kwajalein, Johnston, Midway and Wake islands, the military has reserved substantial acreage in Palau and the Marianas. The highest naval profile is on Guam, where two-thirds of the island-including the best beach, the only lake and the one patch of tillable soil-remains off limits to the population save for 8,800 U.S. servicemen and Pentagon civilian employees...
America's day begins on Guam at 6 a.m. when the large McDonald's (328 seats, parking for 105 cars) begins serving Egg McMuffins. By 9 o'clock the five-story Ben Franklin department store is vying for the local shopping dollar. TV sitcoms, complete with commercials, start at 10 a.m. Guam's main road, Marine Drive, is a snarled jam of rust-eviscerated autos, and buses packed with Japanese honey mooners...
With a $38 million budget deficit, high unemployment and 25,000 of its people on food stamps, Guam has plenty of problems. Elected following a campaign stressing "77 years of [U.S.] neglect," Guam Governor Ricardo Bordallo blames Washington for all the difficulties. "You'd be shocked at the number of sophisticates who know nothing about the Pacific," he sighs. "On my first trip to Washington, one Congressman asked me what was the citizenship of the Guamanian people. When I tried to cash a Government of Guam check, one bank manager demanded the address of my embassy...