Guantánamo is about people. Mired in the languages of the War on Terror, and previous to that, of relief efforts and military operations, it is a fact easily obscured. Guantánamo has been variously discussed as a ‘detainment centre,’ a ‘prison,’ a ‘military base,’ a ‘camp,’ one full of ‘detainees,’ ‘prisoners,’ ‘refugees,’ ‘soldiers,’ with a…

This picture is of former Assistant Principal Jay Gilbo of W.T. Sampson High School and Elementary School with a group of third graders going back to class after lunch.  The current popular opinion and perspective surrounding Guantánamo Bay is of Camp X-Ray and the “enemy combatants” detained at the base. However, there is another side…

Regina José Galindo is a contemporary Guatemalan artist who often uses performance and her own body to comment on international political and social issues.  Often, Galindo will put her body in difficult, violent, and compromising positions as a way to bring attention to ignored or hidden abusive acts by the powerful over the vulnerable.  She…

At the turn of the twentieth century, the regular enlisted men of the U.S. Navy stationed at Guantánamo Bay were enmeshed in a culture of intense masculinity and sexual isolation, with no American women on the base, except for the wives of high-ranking officers. The raucous activities that took place just outside the walls of…

Despite the Guantánamo Bay base’s military purpose, it has also been home to a number of children over the years. In 1931 the W.T. Sampson School was founded to accommodate the children of military personnel and continues to operate today. The school was closed and students evacuated to the mainland during three periods of intense…