Did you know that when I first applied for this job, the thing I was most afraid of was the color of my skin? I grew up unafraid of color, hardly ever gave it much thought. Guam is a melting pot, and difference is more norm than not here. But that was my biggest fear — the color of my skin.

Do you know that something freezes up inside me, makes me sit stock-still, when you tell each other how much you hate this place? How you can’t wait to leave and why would anyone ever want to come back, extend, stay here a moment longer than they had to?

Do you realize, ever? That this is my home. Our home. This is where I grew up, made friends, fell in love. Guam has raised me, sheltered me, schooled me. This is where I was born. This is where all my history has happened to me.

When I travel far away, this is the place my eyes always ache to see. This is the place that tightens my chest into a ball when we’re flying back in and I catch sight of its lights and borders outside the window. This is my sigh of relief.

My grandfathers, both dead now, helped build the house that I grew up in. Imagine the heat and the ache and the deep creak in their bones. Imagine these two old men kneeling there alongside my father, nailing a tin roof secure. Imagine having the mouth of a super-typhoon rip it right off like rice paper. Imagine having to rebuild it again.

I can step outside and pick fruit and vegetables from trees my grandfather planted here longer than my sister has been alive. Even dead, he is still here, showering me with these gifts. How could I not love this land? How could I not have pride or be invested? How could I not hold it deeply within myself?

You have come into my home, looked over it all with the sharpest eyes, found it lacking, not enough. But I need you to look again. Please look again. Because Guam is beautiful. She is a jewel in the Pacific. And from the moment you set foot on her shores, she has housed you, fed you, shared with you what she could. She has given you an ocean of a backyard to play in, painted you an incredible sky, day in and day out.

I know it’s hard to see because the home you love and the ties you have inside yourself are thousands of miles away. I know you’re homesick and miss it all. I don’t know what it feels like to be so physically far from someone when I can jump in my car and see anyone I’ve ever loved in twenty minutes flat. I don’t know what a whole ocean feels like when you miss someone and are hurting and need their arms around you.

But I do know what love for home feels like. And I know that you’d rise up and fight to defend yours if anyone raised a hand against it. It’s your home and your history, after all.

I need you to know that this place is mine. Guam is mine. All of its stunning and sweet, all of its ugly and shame. All of it is mine.

So when you slander my home, I need you to realize that it hurts. That I feel it. That something deep inside me tenses up when I start to hear. That I am always holding my breath, always waiting for your words to fall across my back. It doesn’t get easier. It never gets easier. And the worst part is that at the end of it all, I’m the one left feeling like I have to say sorry.

I’m sorry we’re not enough for you. I’m sorry we’re not up to par.

Can you imagine? It makes my heart ache to think of it — that instead of defending her, I have felt the need to apologize for her. For over a year, I have been silent. I’ve listened and lowered my eyes in shame and just taken it.

And I am so very sorry for that. Dispensa yu, Guahan. Because you are more than enough, and I have always known that. You are more than just an island to me. You are more than just a rock in the middle of nowhere. You are more than two or three more goddamned years.

You are mine, mine, mine.