About Me
My Platform
As a leader, I care about all aspects of the community – from health care to education and safety. As a senator, I researched and tackled every issue that came before the legislature. Additionally, I have special focus in promoting:
A Better Future through a Sustainable Guam: We must develop sustainably. Being sustainable helps ensure that we meet our present day needs responsibly without compromising the needs of our future. It allows for increased food security; cleaner, less costly forms of renewable energy; new economic opportunities; and more.
Speaking Truth to Power: Leaders must ask the hard questions and not close their eyes to any local or national issues that affect our community. Our people deserve no less.
Community: Caring for the community is working for the good of all of us—for a better quality of life, safer neighborhoods, better education, increased economic and other opportunities, and providing each other a hand up when needed.
Culture: Guam has a special, unique island way of life, it is the reason that so many of us from different parts of the world make Guam our home. We must work to safeguard and help maintain the CHamoru culture and our special island way of life in a world of rapid modernization and globalization.
Environment: We have much to protect on Guam. Our northern freshwater lens provides 80% of our drinking water and we are down to some of our last cultural sites, pristine environments, and remaining native plants and animals, many of which are found no where else in the world. Altogether, our environment provides for many of our needs, attracts tourists, and keeps our community healthy.
My Biography
I am a daughter of educators and grateful that my childhood included living in northern, central, and southern Guåhan—from Dededo to Mangilao and Ipan, Talo'fo'fo'. This gave me the opportunity to experience different special qualities of the island and community.
In my previous term as senator, I sponsored new laws to advance the culture, build up the economy, improve public safety, and reform the electoral process. Working with field experts, I also developed the statute creating the landmark Guåhan 2050 Sustainability Plan.
Over the years, I have served in various leadership roles such as being the Vice-Chair of the Guam Historic Preservation Review Board and President of the American Association of University Women. As an educator for nearly two decades, I have taught various subjects like American Government, History of Guam, and Critical Thinking at the high school level as well as at the Guam Community College and the University of Guam.
As head of the department of Oral History and Ethnography in Palau, we identified key areas in the culture to protect, maintain, and preserve critical to the Palauan way of life and identity. As a community advocate, I’ve directed important cultural projects such as producing educational materials on the ancestral village of Litekyan, the From Manåmko' to Manhoben (Elders to Youth) oral history project, and the Latte in the Marianas book described as “a model of its kind,” among other work.
My Education
Cultural Heritage Studies, PhD, Charles Sturt University, Australia
Micronesian Studies, MA, University of Guam
History and Anthropology BA, double major, University of Guam