Evelyn Flores is an Associate Professor and Division Chair of English and Applied Linguistics at the University of Guam. She is also known for her poetry and children’s books about Chamorro culture and identity.
Flores was born on Guam and possesses a great love for literature, both reading and writing, as well as a passion for teaching. As a child, she was unusual among her peers in that, while they couldn’t wait for summer vacation to start, she couldn’t wait for it to end.
“I was one of those students who loves going to school,” she said. “I remember sitting there during summer vacation and watch the clock because I could hardly wait for school to open again.”
She looks at these memories as the starting point of where she got to today.
Even after earning her Bachelor’s degree in English, Flores felt the call of academia and returned to school for more. Thus she got a Master’s degree before moving on to get her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.
“There comes a point when you feel used up, a car running out of gas,” Flores said. “Then I need to go back and do some more studying and research, kind of refueling the tank.”
Flores found herself drawn back to Guam for her work in the field of Pacific Island Literature. She considers herself to be the type of scholar who is where the action is, hence her decision to return. With her love for learning and teaching, taking on her post at UOG’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences only seemed natural.
She is currently working on several projects. The most prominent is an anthology of native writers for use in future semesters. She also hopes to one day release a poetry memoir.
“It’s okay for other people to tell our story, but that’s not good enough,” Flores said. “We have to tell our stories too. If you only get our stories from outsiders’ perspectives, it’s a very one-sided view.”
Flores uses the following quote by James Baldwin to describe her feelings on Literature:
“You write to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can’t, but also knowing that that literature is indispensable to the world… The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter even but a millimeter the way people look at reality, then you can change it.”
“There’s another part of writing that’s like playing the piano,” she said. “You could learn to play the piano to bring joy to people and to be helpful. I play the piano, but I don’t play well enough to play for anyone else. I play enough for my own enjoyment, and I think writing is the same way. It has a cathartic purpose. Even though some of my poems will not see the light of day, they have served their purpose by allowing me to begin to articulate an experience.”