Dolls made in a family’s image

Growing up in a poor neighborhood in Guam, Maria Letuligasenoa was taught by her mother how to mend her family’s almost always worn out clothes.

With needle and thread in hand, she learned how to mend and sew even the most desperate tears and rips on clothes.

By ninth grade, Maria had a chance to apply her now expert hands in a home economics class that required students to sew together leftover cloth to make a doll. It was no surprise she made the best rag dolls.

Little did she know that what mother and her home economics class taught her was an apprenticeship to something which would enable her to channel creativity and express love for her family. That something was sewing together Guam Cultural Dolls.

Maria started making the dolls after a trip to the US. A friend who collected dolls asked her to send a Guam Doll on her return home. But after scouring the stores and craft fairs of the island only to end up empty handed, she decided to make the dolls herself.

She was confident enough because of what her mother taught her in her youth and her experience during ninth grade. But just to make dolls with unfamiliar faces, no character and no history made her think. She soon asked herself, “what if I create the dolls in my loved ones image?”

Before long, Maria has sewed her first two creations, Tan Maria and Tun Francisco, doll replicas of her parents who survived World War II and the Japanese occupation.

Soon after, Maria sewed together dolls of other members of her Chamorro family. And after a while also created dolls in her own image.

“I feel there is no other better way to preserve my culture than by creating something I love and passing it on,” Maria said.

During last weekend’s 20th Flame Tree Festival held at the American Memorial Park here in Saipan, Maria and her doll creations were part of the Guam delegation.

Some 30 or so of Maria’s creations were on display at her kiosk during the festival. Some dolls were arm’s length but a number were as small as key chains.

The handcrafted dolls depicted the bespectacled Maria and her family in different costumes and all are as colorful as the Chamorro culture they come from.

There are so many ways to preserve culture and Maria showed us last Sunday a beautiful and creative way of keeping a generation full of memories using just a scrap of wood, a piece or two of cloth, some thread and a great love of family.