HAGÅTÑA — The Museum of Us in San Diego’s Balboa Park will transfer 186 Chamoru cultural belongings to the Guam Museum this Sunday as part of a three-year repatriation initiative called The Homeward Project, marking a significant milestone in the return of Indigenous Pacific cultural heritage.
The museum, formerly known as the San Diego Museum of Man, invited Guam Museum representatives to a viewing and repatriation event Sunday, March 22, from noon to 3 p.m. at the museum’s Gill Auditorium. Formal presentations on the repatriation process are scheduled for 1 p.m. and 2:30 p.m.
Dr. Jesi Lujan Bennett, Director of Decolonizing Initiatives at the Museum of Us, said The Homeward Project is designed to accelerate repatriation efforts and fulfill the institution’s commitment to hundreds of Indigenous communities whose belongings were taken, objectified in the name of science, and held for decades.
The Museum of Us worked closely with Dr. Michael Lujan Bevacqua and Nicole Dueñas from the Guam Museum, as well as Leonard Leon from the Northern Mariana Islands Museum of History and Culture, to develop a framework for international repatriations, particularly for communities in Oceania.
The repatriation of the 186 Chamoru items represents one of the most significant returns of Pacific Indigenous cultural belongings from a U.S. mainland institution.
