Faye Francisca Untalan, MSW, MPH, Ph.D. is a pioneer and leading expert on Chamorro Culture and diaspora in the United States. She grew up in Guam during the Second World War and experienced the hardships of its aftermath. She is the mother of seven children, whom she raised while completing her graduate studies at the University of Southern California and the University of California at Los Angeles, where she received her doctorate in social welfare and health policy. Her dissertation focused on migration and adaptation of Chamorros in California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Dr. Untalan was a strong voice for Chamorros at the First National Conference on Asian American Mental Health, the President’s Commission on Mental Health, and the California State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights in the 1970s. She also served on several national committees advocating for Chamorros and Pacific Islanders, including the US President’s Commission on Mental Health, and the US Census Bureau Advisory Committee on Racial and Ethnic Populations from 1980 through 2000, where she advocated for Chamorro complete counts and the accurate identification of Chamorros across the diaspora. She believes language is the embodiment of culture. In 1995, she established the Chamorro language program at the University of Hawai‘i under the auspices of the Indo-Pacific Languages and Literatures program and has worked tirelessly to ensure that her children, and other Chamorros across the United States, are connected to the Chamorro culture through language.
