Repositioning the Missionary by Vicente M. Diaz

Historic events seem very clear and simple. The historical fact of Diaz’s work in the killing of the Spanish missionary San Vitores at Tonhom on the island of Guam in 1672. Danger was an inherent part of pioneer evangelization in the Pacific. Diaz has raised questions from this point. Is that a typical Western missionary’s intrusion?
 

..historically mostly foreigners making racist and patronizing assumptions about “Native” cultural authenticity and purity. Such presuppositions, of course, left/leave no room for comprehending the complex histories of how Natives, in the interest of cultural and social rearticulation and survival, can also convert those who come to convert them (205).

 

By considering from various vantage points, we find a new perspective and meaning. As the subtitle says it, Diaz tries to rewrite the histories of Colonialism, Native Catholicism, and Indigeneity in Guam. 

 

We need such alternative stories and meanings, furthermore, because whoever we understand ourselves to be and wherever we end up calling home, we will continue to be at the mercy of those who speak in the name of God and who have at their disposal the smallest , or the largest, weapons of mass destruction to unleash on those who are not with them in their holy crusade. (207)