The Homeward Project - Chamoru Repatriations

On International Museum Day, we share our deepest gratitude to our partners at the Guam Museum and the Northern Mariana Islands Museum of History and Culture whose collaboration and leadership made our most recent repatriation of cultural resources a success. We acknowledge that repatriating cultural resources to home communities is a process that requires a great level of logistical planning, time, and emotional effort from our community partners.

Repatriation is a core priority at the Museum of Us. In March 2026, the Museum completed the first wave of returns of its Chamoru belongings to the Guam Museum in Hagåtña, Guam. This first set of cultural resources includes woven pandanus items, slingstones, prewar irons and pitchers and more. These cultural resources were stored at the Museum of Us for decades. Now, generations of Chamorus can reconnect with these items – or in some cases, see them for the first time – supporting the preservation of history and revitalization of cultural memory.

In addition to the repatriations, Dr. Michael Lujan Bevacqua, Curator of the Guam Museum, and Nicole Delisle Duenas, the Archeological Collections’ lab manager at the Guam Cultural Repository, led a community viewing of the cultural resources for Chamorus in San Diego. They also shared the history of the Guam Museum and Chamoru self-determination with Museum of Us staff and trustees.

Dr. Michael Lujan Bevacqua viewing Chamoru cultural resources during a community consultation

The Guam Museum will offer a public presentation and exhibit on the history of these cultural resources and the process to bring them home. This return comes during the Guam Museum’s centennial celebration.

Photos were taken and shared with community permission.