Gregorio Sablan: “The people of the Northern Mariana Islands love rice. Pre-contact with the West, the Marianas were the easternmost…”

“The people of the Northern Mariana Islands love rice. Pre-contact with the West, the Marianas were the easternmost extent of the cultivation of rice. For us, a meal without rice is no meal. Yet, ironically, one of our most cherished local businesses processes that great competitor of rice: Wheat bread. Pan mamis and Pan toasta. These baked goods bring back mouthwatering memories for all of us in the Marianas. And the source of this goodness we most recall is Herman's Modern Bakery. Perhaps, our devotion to Herman's has to do with the roots of that business in the ashes of war. Like the people of Israel beset by the Babylonians, as the people of the Marianas emerged from the trauma of World War II, 'the famine was sore, so that there was no bread.' We were starving and stored together in an internment camp in the days and months following the U.S. victory over the Japanese in 1944. But the U.S. forces quickly began reorganizing society and reestablishing the ability of our community to care for itself. The occupying forces tapped the young Herman Reyes Guerrero to bake.”