Tip of the Spear: Land, Labor, and Us Settler Militarism in Gu乕an, 1944-1962 (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781501771347)

In Tip of the Spear, Alfred Peredo Flores argues that the US occupation of the island of Gu乕an (Guam), one of the most heavily militarized islands in the western Pacific Ocean, was enabled by a process of settler militarism. During World War II and the Cold War, Gu乕an was a launching site for both covert and open US military operations in the region, a strategically significant role that turned Gu乕an into a crucible of US overseas empire. In 1962, the US Navy lost the authority to regulate all travel to and from the island, and a tourist economy eventually emerged that changed the relationship between the Indigenous CHamoru population and the US military, further complicating the process of settler colonialism on the island.

The US military occupation of Gu乕an was based on a co-constitutive process that included CHamoru land dispossession, discursive justifications for the remaking of the island, the racialization of civilian military labor, and the military's policing of interracial intimacies. Within a narrative that emphasizes CHamoru resilience, resistance, and survival, Flores uses a working class labor analysis to examine how the militarization of Gu乕an was enacted by a minority settler population to contribute to the US government's hegemonic presence in Oceania.