Announcements - Camp Roxas, Agat, Guam

Camp Roxas Film Project Resumes Film Production &

Receives Guam Preservation Trust Grant

TAMUNING, Guam – Director Burt Sardoma Jr., under the guidance of Los Angeles-based Chamorro filmmaker Alex Munoz, recently interviewed businessman Donald I. Marshall, president of the former Luzon Stevedoring Co. (LUSTEVECO), one of the Philippine companies which recruited and managed Camp Roxas laborers on Guam.

Sardoma, a Camp Roxas descendant, also filmed interviews of former Camp Roxas residents and exterior shots of the former Camp Roxas facility, located near present-day Camp Covington outside U.S. Naval Base Guam in Agat. Munoz, supervising director and producer, was on-island to cast auditions for his latest feature film, I Fuetsan I Taotao (Strength of the People).

In other news, the 12-minute short film, Under the American Sun, completed by the Camp Roxas Film Project, will be presented by Dr. James Sobredo at the April 2009 national conference of the Association for Asian American Studies in Honolulu, Hawaii. The short film, funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities grant through the Guam Humanities Council, is being expanded into a 60-minute independent film documentary.

Dr. James Sobredo, a Camp Roxas descendant and academic advisor for the Camp Roxas Film Project, is Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies, Asian American Studies Program, at California State University in Sacramento. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees in philosophy and a doctorate degree in ethnic studies.

The Association for Asian American Studies was founded in 1979 to advance teaching and research in Asian American Studies and promote understanding between Asian Americans and other groups, such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Hawai'ian, Southeast Asian, South Asian and Pacific Islanders.

Additionally, the Camp Roxas Film Project also received a $5,000 grant from the Guam Preservation Trust for interviews, research, writing, script development and marketing materials.

The Guam Preservation Trust (GPT) was created in 1990 as a non-profit, public corporation dedicated to preserving Guam's historic sites and culture as well as educating the public about those issues. Although primarily tasked with restoring historic structures, which are listed in the Guam Register of Historic Places and/or the National Register of Historic Places, the GPT also funds various types of cultural preservation projects.

The independently produced 60-minute documentary film, Under the American Sun, will trace the epic post-World War II migration of Filipino laborers to Guam. The U.S. military recruited skilled laborers and professionals to help rebuild an island devastated by war, resulting in the initial 1946 influx of Filipinos to Guam. The recruitment process lasted for two decades, resulting in a migration of over 10,000 Filipino men and women to Guam.

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