In Conversation with Mina Flores-Cantrell
Image courtesy of Mina Flores-Cantrell
Mina Flores-Cantrell is a climate activist and community organizer based in Guam. She is also the founder of Numa’lo Refillery, a zero-waste business to help Guam residents reduce their waste. She is Okinawan and Chamorro. The Chamorros are the Indigenous people of Guam and Okinawans are the people of an island near Japan that Japan has colonized. Flores-Cantrell currently serves as the co-executive director at the Micronesia Climate Change Alliance. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The EJP: How did you get into environmental organizing?
Mina Flores-Cantrell: I used to be a teacher before I got into this work. I taught high school and was an educator all throughout college and then a public high school teacher for six years. When the pandemic hit, I was already trying to transition out of my career as a teacher. I've loved teaching and I loved connecting with young people, but the public education system didn’t take care of me, to be honest. And I realized that I was much more interested in helping people outside of that framework. So during the pandemic when everything shut down, I went on a spiritual self improvement journey and started my zero waste business. I had also been very active on social media for a couple years educating myself about Guam’s colonization, and I realized how greatly the issues surrounding colonization had affected me, my upbringing, my familial background — basically every aspect of my life traced back to Guam's colonial status, so I nosedived into climate justice work, and sharing and educating on my own personal platform.
When I moved back to Guam in the summer of 2021, I just knew that I had to be doing this work. I was already kind of doing it on my own, and I wondered how I could do it full time. I reached out to Micronesia Climate Change Alliance and I’ve been in community with them ever since. I worked with them for a couple years unpaid before I became a full time employee. It's kind of hard to say how I got into this work, because it's very personal work. Everything that we talk about at the Micronesia Climate Change Alliance is very personal because we're so embedded with our culture, with our community and with our land. It's hard to describe this as a passion project because it's not like I am doing this because I love doing it. I feel like there needs to be more people who are doing this sort of community work.
The EJP: What was it like growing up in Guam?
Mina Flores-Cantrell: You're outside all the time. You're definitely connected with the land more. We're a small island. You can drive around the whole island in like two and a half hours so I went to the beach all the time. My grandparents raised me when I lived on Guam. My grandmother is a gardener and my grandpa was a hunter and fisherman, and so I was really taught growing up how to be in communion with the land and how much it provides for us.
The EJP: Could you talk a little bit about the history of Guam's colonization?
Mina Flores-Cantrell: I think it's important to note that — and I'll also refer to it as Guåhan, because Guam is the American name for it — Guåhan is one of 15 islands in the Marianas archipelago. Guåhan is usually isolated because out of the 15 Islands, it is the only US unincorporated territory. The other 14 northern islands are a part of the Northern Marianas Commonwealth. And so even though we're one archipelago, we have political differences. Guåhan has been colonized for so long. We were colonized in the 1500s by the Spanish when Magellan arrived on our shores. We took good care of him and healed his crew from sickness, and they turned around and basically murdered all of our people and started a war. After we were colonized by Spain, we were colonized by the US and were also occupied by the Japanese for a short amount of time in World War II when the Japanese were island hopping in the Pacific. Then we were reclaimed by the United States, and have been colonized ever since. We are an unincorporated territory which means we are tied to all federal regulations but we have no representation on the federal level so we don't get to vote for the president. We do have our own governor in local government, but we're very much at the mercy of the federal government and policy, so that really restricts Guam in a lot of ways because a lot of federal policies that are made on Turtle Island don't necessarily relate at all to what's going on in Guam. But yet those decisions are still made for us, despite the community rallying against it.
Another huge part of our colonial story is the military. The island is so small but a little bit over a third of it is occupied by the military. There are two military bases on the island, and a third one being built for the Marines, which is going to open in 2030. Because of that military occupation, all of those lands and everything that happens on those lands, is totally out of our control. There's a lot going on here with water and air pollution. There's an open burning detonation happening right now from the Navy, and that's happening right next to our only prime source of water, which provides like 95% of our drinking water. And so our political status definitely impacts everyday life on Guam and the health of our community.
The EJP: Why do you think the U.S. colonized Guam and not the other 14 Mariana Islands?
Mina Flores-Cantrell: Guam is the biggest out of the islands. I think Guam is so incredibly small, but when I visit the northern islands, I'm reminded about just how small our communities can be. It's also a very strategic placement to militarize Guam because of its isolated geographic location in the Pacific. It's a perfect place for testing bombs. We’re also right next to China, so we are kind of a first target versus targeting any other states. It's also important to say that when World War II ended — like I said, we were occupied by Japan and then taken over by the US — those two parties negotiated about the military buildup on the island and Guam didn't have any say in that. There were actually other locations considered for the buildup. There was Hawaii but Hawaii already had a military presence and opposed it. There was also California and, again, both those places have statehood so they did have the voice to say, “no, we don't want buildup to occur here.” The Philippines also said no. Guam was the last option, but we didn't have any say because of our political status as an unincorporated territory.
The EJP: You mentioned that the military is polluting a water system. Could you elaborate on that situation?
Mina Flores-Cantrell: The top third of the island is the Andersen Air Force Base. No one has access to the land there unless you are of military status or a family member of military status. So all of the Chamorro people who lived up there were basically removed. There are a lot of families still actively fighting for their land up there. I have a friend whose family are Land Back activists and have been camping out for generations trying to get their Land Back up there.
All of that land was taken and a number of years ago the military proposed a live firing range complex right next to our aquifer. It is also located on a preserve natural area called Litekyan which is an ancient village home to many small artifacts and our last native species. When this was proposed by the military, there was a lot of concern because with all the lead bullets going over the aquifer — I think it's something like 15 million a year — all those contaminants from the lead get into the water, and that aquifer runs all the way down through the island. That base is also next to the two most highly populated villages on the island so there's that concern too. And then right within the base, down the coast, the Navy is openly detonating and burning excess nuclear waste and the Navy is doing that. Open burning is banned in so many different places. You can't even do it in the States. There have been so many different documentaries and studies about the communities who do live next to places with open detonations and burnings that develop horrific skin and lung diseases.
There is an on-the-ground organization here spearheading the fight against that, and they have taken the military to court. But it’s an uphill battle because the military is definitely in cahoots with the local government here. There was like a bill passed to stop the open burning and the open detonation which was such a win for our community. And then at the very last minute, within this month, they had a private hearing and flipped the bill. We know that that happened because there are senators having small side conversations with military officers, who are probably being bought out or paid some sort of financial compensation to flip their vote. These leaders are Chamorro, too, and so it really just feels like a betrayal by our own people and community. I do also want to say that there are so many Chamorro people and local residents who are military members. You cannot find a family on Guam who doesn't have a family member in the military. There's not a lot of economic opportunity for people on the island. We don't manufacture anything. We are definitely reliant upon the tourism economy here. So I don't blame people and I completely understand Chamorros for joining the military; it's not an attack or criticism on servicefolk. It's an attack on the institution itself and the lack of accountability to consult with the community here who have to bear the effects of these actions. If this were happening in the United States, and there was a community outcry, there would be tension, there would be conversation. But because of our political status, there's not. Sometimes it really feels like shouting into a void.
The EJP: Could you expand some more on what is going on with the sacred site of Litekyan?
Mina Flores-Cantrell: The construction has been going on for about 10 years now, since 2012 I think. The site used to be filled with pristine limestone forests, and limestone is a very precious material here. We use it a lot in Chamorro architecture, and many acres of that limestone forest have unfortunately already been cleared.
One of the most important pieces of this though is, because it’s an ancient village, there are many ancestors buried in the ground. So when the construction crews began, they dug up and disturbed a lot of ancient remains and just placed them in a warehouse. It's so surreal to hear that because if we had heard that the military was digging up graves in a cemetery, there would be a riot, like this is crazy. But it's not really shared or talked about here that they're digging up remains and putting them in this warehouse, and not even laying them to rest properly or bringing them to the families or even figuring out whose remains they are. They completely ignore the community’s pleas to halt construction. There's just like a complete lack of respect for the community on so many levels with that firing range project.
The EJP: When do they plan to finish construction on the firing range?
Mina Flores-Cantrell: I’m not sure. It feels so long, to be honest. They are actively using it for training. You can hear it if you’re on base. You can see the smoke and the detonation in the air. We're just constantly a part of these war games. And it's like, what is the war? Whose war? We're still a pawn in the middle of this international arms race.
The EJP: Are there any initiatives to halt construction?
Mina Flores-Cantrell: Yes, there's another group called Protect Guam Water that just started up. But these cases have been brought up to the UN court level because they're not being acknowledged on the federal level. To be honest, we haven't had too many wins. It's just constant going back to the table and reconfiguring out what we need to do to win. It's very discouraging to talk about sometimes because, like I said, it feels like shouting into the void. The impacts are so real for our community and we physically can see it. We feel it in the air, but these issues are not prioritized.
I know that Puerto Rico has also gone through the same thing, especially when their military buildup on Vieques was still active. And what it took for them to win there was a loss of life. A Puerto Rican resident was accidentally killed in a bomb testing and that created so much community outcry that the military pulled out of their island. But of course, like we don't want to get to that point. No one should die for our voices to be heard.
The EJP: What specific water issues is Guam facing that are being caused by the military?
Mina Flores-Cantrell: The aquifer is the main issue because that provides the whole island with clean drinking water. Water is a human right. We shouldn't have to be here advocating for clean water when it is something that sustains us. There are other water contamination issues that have happened all around the island because of the nuclear waste left within the lands and the surrounding waters for years. Like, years and years and years dating all the way to World War II. After a lot of testing in the waters of different parts of the island, many have been classified as unsafe. Like, we cannot swim in it, we cannot fish when fishing is huge to our island and to our culture. Fishing is our main source of local protein.
There are a lot of people in the south, specifically: I'm thinking of a body of water in a village called Merizo that was classified as contaminated. Over the years, a lot of people in that village who still actively fish have cancer. Cancer is very common in Guam because of the nuclear contamination. A lot of Agent Orange has also been spread on Guam throughout the years. If we were a state, Guam would have the number one rate of cancer. It is so hard to find anyone on Guam or a family who does not have cancer.
The EJP: How does your Indigenous identity inform your climate activism?
Mina Flores-Cantrell: Guåhan is the land of the Chamorros, and our creation story starts with the birth of the land. It starts with a brother and sister sibling pair who sacrifice themselves and their bodies to create the island and to create the waters and the mountains, and everything to provide for our life. So when all of this harm is occurring on our lands and into our waters, it's very personal and deeply traumatizing because in extension, it’s basically harm to our ancestors. As I mentioned, anytime you go into the jungle, if you were raised within a Chamorro family, you're taught that you ask permission from your ancestors to enter. You ask for permission anytime you take and you only take what you need because we're very reciprocal in nature and give so much to our community. We say that you have to support your community out of love and it will always come back. If you went fishing, you didn't just fish for your family, you fished for the entire village; you shared and it came back to you.
So as this destruction occurs, it's deeply traumatizing. But I guess it is also fueling in a way to alchemize that pain into motivation and purpose to keep having conversations like this, sharing our story. Also finding joy in our culture, in our indigeneity, because this work can be so dark sometimes. So being able to go back to joy as a form of resilience, cultural joy to keep fueling the work is personally vital for me. If I didn't have that connection to my culture and understood its connection to my work, it would feel like a nine to five job. That’s why I mention that this is not a passion project. It is a dedication. It's my life's work. I show up every day because it's so much more than justice, it's my roots and my family and my future family. That’s how I connect my work to my Chamorro and Okinawan backgrounds.
Image courtesy of Mina Flores-Cantrell
The EJP: What are you working on right now? And how can people support your efforts and, in general, environmental justice in Guam?
Mina Flores-Cantrell: I just stepped into co-executive directorship at the Micronesia Climate Change Alliance. Currently, we are focused on cooperatives to bring more community wealth and community ownership to Guam. We don't have a standing law right now for cooperatives to exist to create profit, so we're creating a task force to change legislation, and we'll be proposing that to Congress here on the island soon. We also are focusing on energy democracy. Guam has the highest rates for electricity if you count us as a US state, which is insane. It's absurd how much people pay for power here. We have one monopolizing energy company that is creating a lot of false solutions, which has also been working with really distrustful companies who already have long histories of environmental damage.
The EJP: What company is it?
Mina Flores-Cantrell: KEPCO, which stands for Korea Electric Power Corporation, and they have a lot of subsidiaries and work with Samsung, for example. GPA (Guam Power Authority) which is the monopolizing energy company here, worked with them a couple years ago to create a power plant and it exploded. And then GPA got millions of dollars from that damage and then turned around and hired KEPCO again to create a solar farm. They built their solar farm on the ground which is just not strategic at all for Guam because we have a lot of rain, and they also didn't manage their waste runoff when they were building this project which contaminated an ancestral watering cave.
The second thing is that they’re proposing a liquefied natural gas (LNG) power plant. LNG is extremely volatile and unsafe, and they're building this within 1500 feet of a middle school. There’s a 1990 law that says you cannot build a power plant or anything with exhaust that close to a school, so GPA is lobbying to turn that law over. Those are two big important issues that we feel need to be addressed right now.
Also, in Guam you're either working as a waiter in the restaurant service because you get a lot of tips from the tourists who come here or you work for United Airlines because it's safe. But besides that, people either join the military or move off the island because there's nothing to do here as far as work. We really want to start forming community cooperatives to start building some infrastructure here of things we could provide the world. There's so much abundance on this land.
The EJP: How can the international community support Guam?
Mina Flores-Cantrell: One key thing is to listen to what's going on in Guam and care. I could be sharing this with you, and then you could just turn around and go on with your day, which is your prerogative. But if we're saying we want to have justice for all of our communities and see each other as one earth, one people, we need to be included. We need strong allies to speak for us and to uplift our work because we have no political voice. If you're on Turtle Island, and you have something going on in your community, you can reach out and you can lobby against it. Here, it's a different case. There's no case. There's a lot of people who are upset that we are a territory, but we can't vote or have any say about what happens here.
I think there's been a big renaissance in supporting the Indigenous people of Turtle Island, and there needs to be that same sort of community and support for other Indigenous peoples who are in relation to Turtle Island. We're literally across the world, a whole day ahead of you, but I'm still being controlled by the government over there. What affects you affects me too. So listen to our stories and share them with others.
The EJP: Yeah, definitely. Last question, you mentioned that many Chamorros are involved in the military and how many are also patriots. I guess that would make things very difficult for community organizers when you’re organizing against the entity that provides so many jobs for your people but also terribly oppresses your people. How do you navigate that? And finally, what is the end goal for community organizers in Guam? Is it Land Back? Sovereignty? US statehood?
Mina Flores-Cantrell: The organizing and activist community here on the island is incredibly small because of the friction it causes with other residents and even with your own family. If you’re a community organizer, you definitely are the black sheep of the family unless you have an amazing family who's also in activism. There are some families who have been organizing for generations, but it's very few and far between. Many see people like myself and my colleagues as “too radical.” They believe that the decolonization and sovereignty we are pushing for is impossible.
We have a great Commission on Decolonization here who educates and answers all questions one could think of when people ask, “how is it possible for us to be independent?” How would we create laws for ourselves? How would we establish relationships with different countries? The Commission on Decolonization is doing great work to educate people. But in order for people to even get to a point where they're wanting to learn about sovereignty, I have found personally that it has to come from a place of wanting to understand and connect to their personal lives. How does colonization affect their personal lives? How would being sovereign affect their personal lives? Not a lot of people here understand that everything they experience in their life — high prices, work struggles, family struggles, access to land — all of it has to do with Guam’s political status. There's a lot of education that needs to go on, even within our island, not just internationally to have people support decolonization initiatives. People are in a fear mindset on our island, which is understandable. For example, both of my grandparents were around during World War II and their parents before them were prisoners of Japanese occupation.
When you're a colonized territory, everything about your identity is oppressed and punished. My grandparents couldn't speak Chamorro. They had to speak English or they would be punished in school. So when we talk about our culture and stand up for our culture and against the US, it's extremely traumatizing for them. It's difficult to navigate but it's really about just having to understand everyone's different life experiences.
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