In the North Atlantic, a tropical cyclone is called a hurricane. In the Western Pacific, it’s a typhoon.
I learned this as I prepared to travel to the U.S. territory of Guam in May. Typhoon Mawar had just torn through the island, stripping the bark off trees, flooding the main power station and leaving many without electricity for nearly a month.
I was there to photograph life on Guam for a New York Times Magazine article written by Sarah A. Topol. The article explores how the United States military is building up its forces on Guam and in other Pacific territories as tensions with China rise. Guam’s strategic location in the Pacific Ocean — it’s closer to the Philippines than it is to Hawaii — has resulted in centuries of exploitation, colonization and militarization, something I only began to truly understand during my visit.
I wanted to capture the military buildup on Guam and how the operations were affecting the lives of the people there.
I spent the first week driving around. On some days, the island felt like a San Diego suburb, with beige condos and Taco Bells. Other days, it was achingly beautiful, with turquoise lagoons lining the coast and flash rains bringing on giant rainbows.
I also spent time with veterans and activists. I learned how the CHamoru language of Guam’s Indigenous people, and their culture, had been decimated by outside occupiers. I saw what it meant to wage small battles against intrusion — and to keep your sense of self through the struggles.
Ten days after I arrived, I was able to tour the U.S. military bases, accompanied by public affairs officers. On Naval Base Guam, I boarded a nuclear-powered submarine. I went out on the water with the Coast Guard while it simulated an information systems failure. I photographed members of the elite U.S. Naval explosive-ordnance disposal team as they jumped out of helicopters.
I took small planes and visited two of the nearby Northern Mariana Islands, Saipan and Tinian, each of which is smaller than Guam but has a similar political history. These three tiny islands have played pivotal roles in global affairs since the days of Spain’s maritime empire. The American planes that dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II took off from Tinian. And these islands are where America is now amassing troops and building huge infrastructure to prepare for potential conflicts.
I stayed in Guam for three weeks — longer than I had planned, because of the typhoon. By the time I left, leaves had already begun sprouting on the battered trees. Here are just a few of the images I took, with background information following them.
I stayed in Tumon Bay, an area that normally caters to tourists. Many of the hotels sustained so much damage that they closed for weeks. After the typhoon, aid workers and families from all over the island, desperate for air conditioning, quickly filled the remaining hotels. The hotel I planned to stay at had closed; I called hotel after hotel, looking for anywhere that had a room. I finally found one and felt grateful to stay there, despite spotty phone service and a power outage.
Michael Lujan Bevacqua, a father of a newborn baby and three other children, had no electricity — but he still made time to show me around the southern part of Guam. He brought Lulai, his third-born child, whose name translates to “fishes by moonlight.” Mr. Bevacqua is a professor of history, a museum curator and a CHamoru activist and language teacher. During the worst days of the coronavirus pandemic, his online classes helped hundreds of participants learn the language of their ancestors. He explained to me that CHamoru doesn’t use a different word for daughter and son, nor for mother and father. The default is a gender-neutral word for parent and child.
Three merchant marine ships are permanently stationed on the coast of Saipan. These are pre-positioned vessels, with extensive supplies and resources ready to support the military personnel stationed on each island. It’s hard to capture the scale of these giant boats. I wanted to get closer to take photos, but I was told they fire warning shots at any boat that comes too close. I went out on a canoe with 500 Sails (a group that promotes traditional CHamoru maritime culture), unsure of what “too close” really meant. We managed to get a few frames and returned to shore without incident.
The explosive-ordnance disposal team is based at Naval Base Guam and trains for complicated missions, including ones where landing a helicopter may be difficult. The workaround to avoid landing is dropping the troops from a helicopter called “the bird” and extracting them as a group. As the team got ready for the exercise, the troops practiced doing a thumbs-up signal pointed sideways, so that someone looking down from the bird could get a visual on their status.
After the troops jumped from the helicopter into the water, they had to swim to the safety boats with their parachutes. Each boat had a safety swimmer to help. When one of the troops struggled with a tangled parachute, a swimmer jumped in to assist. I photographed from a second safety boat, bracing against the waves and the winds from the helicopters.
While I was on the U.S.S. Springfield, a nuclear-powered submarine, the captain let me look through the periscope. This periscope used mirrors and prisms; newer ones use digital optics. The world glowed and shimmered through it. At first, I was told I couldn’t photograph the view through the periscope. After my visit, I followed up to ask if there was any chance I could try for a photo. With the help of a public affairs officer, I was allowed to return and take a few.
The U.S.S. Springfield is 360 feet long, carries 12 Tomahawk cruise missiles and can stay underwater with a crew of 100 men for months. The picture above is of the main dining area, which, when needed, can be disinfected and converted to a medical clinic. Every inch of the submarine is utilized, with crew members sleeping in “hot beds” on a rotating schedule. One bed is nestled directly against a Tomahawk.
Being on Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands sometimes gave me whiplash: One moment I was looking at shooting ranges and munitions; the next, I was immersed in magical nature. On Tinian, the porous limestone rock formed jagged, emerald-colored tide pools and a very special blowhole, where ocean water can spurt 20 feet or more in the air. In the late afternoon, if you’re lucky, the sun shines on the spot at an angle that creates a veritable rainbow factory; wave after wave leaves just a split-second bolt of color.
Reporting for this project was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Howard G. Buffett Fund for Women Journalists.
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