NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

For each Inacha'igen Fino' CHamoru, the Chamorro Studies and Chamoru language faculty at UOG collect or produce a handful of creative and expressive texts in the language. These texts are used as part of the competition for these categories, Lalai (chant), Rinisådan Po'ema (poetry recitation) and Tinaitai Koru (choral reading). Students have to memorize and then recite or perform these either as individuals or as a group.

For the longest time, there wasn't a lot produced creatively in the Chamoru language. Most of it could be found in terms of music, as Chamorus were making songs, releasing albums and performing. Much of the publication and promotion of Chamoru could be found in the church, but little of it was creative. Much of it was translations of things written elsewhere in the Catholic universe and localized to Guam. In this way, the church preserved words and meanings in Chamoru, it helped teach and propagate the language, but it wasn't a venue for Chamorus …

In less than a week, a new Governor will take power in Guam, as will a new non-voting Guam delegate and a number of new senators will be sworn in for the island's legislature. I have certain hopes for the new crop of leaders. There is great potential for them to learn lessons from the past, especially on the topic of decolonization. In recent years, the small, but significant maturation of the community on the topic, is part of the fact that for decades it has been circulating in conversations and political agendas. For a long time, rhetoric around decolonization wasn't worth much to voters, and wasn't really worth it. That is why for decades it was rare for politicians to share what their personal preference would be for Guam in terms of political status. It wasn't that they didn't have opinions or thoughts on it, but it was either something politically risky or simply taibåli. 

For the past few years, I've been interviewing Guam politicians from the previous…

Independent Guåhan will discuss the need for stronger historic preservation laws at May General Assembly
Independent Guåhan (IG) invites the public to attend their May General Assembly (GA) on Thursday, May 31, from 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. at the Main Pavilion of the Chamorro Village in Hagåtña. The educational discussion for the evening will focus on how an independent Guåhan can create stronger policies around the preservation of historic sites and cultural properties.
Guåhan has a unique and rich cultural heritage that manifests in the island’s food, historic locations, artifacts, buildings, landscape, and oral history. On an island that is becoming increasingly modernized and militarized, having strong laws for historic preservation is essential in protecting the unique identity of this island, that which makes Guåhan Guåhan. While many think that improvement must come at the cost of preservation, in reality, strong policies that promote and protect the island’s cultural resources will …

Media Shouldn't Defend Colonial Status Quoby Michael Lujan Bevacqua
January 5, 2018
Pacific Daily News

As we crawl out of the dumpster fire that was 2017 for much of the United States and its territories, we inch cautiously into 2018 and hope for the best. As someone who has been working over the past few years to elevate the community consciousness about decolonization, I am most interested in what the coming elections and federal cases will bring in terms of changing the island’s political status.

What occupies my thought process is the role of the media in helping build that consciousness or impede it. The media institutions in any society don’t just exist to report or investigate. These institutions also, often in less perceptible ways, promote values and norms, usually on behalf of elite segments of society.

In a colonial context, these roles gain a colonial dimension. Both institutions and individuals often will be compelled to defend and naturalize the colonial s…

Hagas umatungo' ham yan este na taotao, si Siñot Joe "Dågu" Babauta, un ma'estron Chamorro yan gof maolek na titifok yan danderu. Desde i ma'pos na såkkan hu ayuyuda gui' mama'tinas lepblon e'eyak para i ma'estron Chamorro gi GDOE. Hu kekeayuda gui' på'go mama'nå'gue klas gi UOG para i otro semester (Fañomåkan 2018). Halacha nai hu interview gui' para i website Hongga Mo'na, ya debi di bei edit yan na'funhåyan ayu.

Estague un tinige' put guiya yan i bidadå-ña ginen i gasetan PDN.

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"Chamorro teacher Joe 'Dågu' Babuata keeps weaving tradition alive"
by Chloe Babauta
Pacific Daily News
August 7, 2017


When Joe “Dågu” Babauta saw “Tan Maria” weaving a hat out of coconut leaves at 12 years old, his lifelong love affair with the art of weaving began.
“Being that I was so young, I had to ask older friends who drove to take me down there from Agat, to where she used to weav…

Fanhokkåyan is my series where I share articles, writings and other documents from some of my previous websites, most notably the Kopbla Amerika/Chamorro Information Activist website and Minagahet Zine. The one I'm sharing today is an intriguing one, as it represents a piece that helped shape alot of my own perceptions as an early activist about Chamorro issues, in particular their relationship to colonial legacies. This piece, which I co-wrote with a friend of mine at the time, built off the idea of "soul wound" a theory that was first popularized in considering the contemporary place of Native Americans in relation to their historical (or continuing) trauma. It is far too easy for us to argue that we shouldn't be stuck in the past by recounting how Chamorros have been hurt by colonizers, that is a common interpassive point. In truth, we need to recount it and we need to understand it, most importantly so that we can change things today, so that we can reshape the …

For those of you who don’t know, my dissertation in Ethnic Studies dealt with sovereignty, most specifically Guam’s role in producing America’s sovereignty, or what role its invisibility or nothingness plays in producing America as sovereign. This may sound confusing, but what makes it difficult for most to wrap their heads around, is the simple fact of saying that something which has been for hundreds of years produced discursively as being “small” or “faraway” or “faint” or “owned by the US” as somehow creating something as great and grand and mighty as the United States of America.

One frustrating aspect of writing my dissertation was the preparing of a literature review, which is a sometimes helpful, sometimes useless review of what others have written about your topic of choice and how you will either use and build on them or defy them. If you are familiar with the bulk of work on sovereignty it all basically says the same thing nowadays, drawing mildly different co…

Each semester I have my higher level Chamorro major classes write letters to the editor of the local newspapers, gi fino' Chamorro. They write these about pertinent issues affecting the island. Once they are finished, I encourage them to submit them to either the Pacific Daily New or the Guam Daily Post. They are rarely published. Even though there are supposed to be two official languages for Guam, Chamorro and English, in practice this is rarely the case. Chamorro is scarcely given the support or the recognition in public, private or commercial spheres per its status as the indigenous or native language of the land.

Still I was happy last December (12/22/16) when the Pacific Daily News published these two letters from my students and did not require the publication of English translations as if common.

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Chamorros can keep our language alive Preba na ti Chamorro i sumåsangan na måtai esta i lengguåhi-ta. Ginen ma na’ påra ma na’setbe i fino’-ta gi tiempon mann…

Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood recently ruled in favor of Dave Davis in his lawsuit alleging that his constitutional right to vote is being violated by him not being able to register for Guam's decolonization plebiscite. The past few weeks have been difficult with plenty of debate and discussion about what to do next and how something like this could have happened. How a country supposed based on ideas of freedom and liberty could care so little about such ideas when it comes to the very people it has colonized for more than a century?
A decolonization plebiscite is not the same as voting for senators, mayors or presidents. It is a vote that comes once in a lifetime and is about righting a historical wrong. In a decolonization plebiscite those who have long been denied basic human rights in their own lands, are given the chance to express their preference for what future political status they want to pursue. Most plebiscites feature three basic options for a future political st…

LEARN MORE ABOUT RECENT THREATS TO CHAMORRO RIGHTS AT INDPENDENT GUÅHAN’S MARCH GENERAL ASSEMBLY THURSDAY
Educational Presentations will focus on the Davis vs. Guam case, the Chamorro Land Trust and moving forward towards self-determination
For Immediate Release, March 20, 2017 – Independent Guåhan invites the public to its monthly General Assembly (GA) on Thursday, March 23rd from 6 – 7:30 p.m. at the Main Pavilion of the Chamorro Village in Hagåtña.
This month’s educational presentations will focus on the need to respect the Chamorro people in their quest to self-determination in light of current actions on behalf of the US Federal Government deeming the decolonization plebiscite and Chamorro Land Trust, “race-based discrimination”. In honor of Mes Chamoru, the meeting will be bilingual in both English and Chamorro.
Eartlier this month, Federal Justice France Tydingco-Gatewood ruled that a non-binding decolonization vote for Guam’s native inhabitants is unconstitutional and c…

For several years I have been assisting Siñora Rosa Palomo and Professor Gerhard Schwab who are my colleagues at the University of Guam with the development of an amazing, new, free language learning website built around the learning of the Chamorro language.

Humuyongña i na'ån-ña "Learning Chamorro." 

After years of tirelessly working on building the site, it was launched last week. A Pacific Daily News article about it, was picked up by USA Today and shared several thousand times on social media. The website would not be possible without the love labor of GuamWebz and Rhaj Sharma. Some media on the launch can be found below.

Sen magof hu na put fin in baba este na website.

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Date: March 12, 2017

We take this opportunity to thank everyone of you for registering and continuously visiting our website. All of us together have visited our website more than 1.7 million times. It is your continuous encouragement and support that has kept us going. T…