Inheriting: Leialani & The Occupation of Guam
Imperfect Paradise
LAist Studios
4.5 • 535 Ratings
🗓️ 23 July 2025
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In honor of Guam Liberation Day on July 21, this week we feature an episode from the Inheriting podcast. It's about a CHamoru woman untangling the deeply complex history between the U.S. and the island she was raised on.
Leialani Wihongi-Santos is CHamoru and was raised on the island of Guam with a distorted view of history. She was taught that the United States "saved” her island from occupation by Imperial Japan. As she’s gotten older, Leialani has learned that framing is not entirely true. In some ways, the U.S. military took advantage of the island and the people who live there, sometimes destroying culture and customs that had survived centuries of colonization. Leialani is now determined to understand more of this history from a CHamoru perspective, so she can preserve and teach it to others. In this episode from season one of Inheriting, she turns to her grandpa, Joseph Aflleje-Santos, for answers.
Transcript
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| 0:33.9 | Hey, this is Imperfect Paradise. |
| 0:35.9 | I'm Antonia Serejito. |
| 0:40.2 | Starting next week, you'll keep getting the same imperfect paradise you know and love every week, episodes with original reporting, real people, |
| 0:46.8 | and sound-rich conversations, but in a slightly different format. Each episode will feature a deep-dive |
| 0:53.2 | interview with one of our newsroom's |
| 0:55.0 | amazing reporters. And soon you'll be hearing different LAS reporters host this show too. We can't |
| 1:01.0 | wait to bring you these episodes, and I just want to say personally, I'm very excited for what's to |
| 1:05.5 | come on Imperfect Paradise. But this week, we bring you another special episode from our sister show, Inheriting. |
| 1:17.4 | Inheriting is a podcast featuring stories from Asian American and Pacific Islander families, all about how the past is personal. |
| 1:26.3 | On the show, families talk openly and unapologetically about |
| 1:29.6 | living with trauma generations later. 81 years ago this month, on July 21st, 1944, Guam was |
| 1:37.7 | liberated from Japanese occupation by U.S. military forces. And Lailani Wahangi Santos, |
| 1:43.7 | who grew up on the island of Guam, was always taught this history, how the U.S. military forces. And Lailani Wahangi Santos, who grew up on the island of Guam, was always |
| 1:46.2 | taught this history, how the U.S. saved her ancestors. But there's way more to this story and how it |
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