NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

I didn’t grow up singing any Chamorro Christmas songs. There was little to no Chamorro in my house growing up in Mangilao. We celebrated Christmas, but didn’t do it in the way that many Chamorros do it. Where it involves a bilen, the creation of a nativity scene, the making of bunelos dagu, or the singing of Chamorro Christmas songs, the majority of which are Catholic in nature. So learning about Chamorro Christmas experiences, the stereotypical, more general kind is bewildering in a way. I am coming into traditions that people who sometimes know far less Chamorro language than I do and much much less Chamorro knowledge or history than I do, know more intimately than I do. To them these experiences are commonplace, are normal, are kind of boring. For me they are interesting. While for most of my students the idea of gathering material for a bilen is irritating and frustrating, it is intriguing to me. Something I would like to do one day, not because of any affection for the nativity …

The representative from Hawai'i at the Island Language Revitalizaation Forum this week at Ryukyu University is Noelani Iokepa-Guerrero. She is both a professor at University of Hawai'i, Hilo but also Program Director for the Punana Leo Hawaiian Medium preschools. She is very much involved in the training of Native Hawaiian teachers and the perpetuation of the immersion school programs that have been created there over the past 30 years. Her presentation at the conference was "Hawaiian Language Revitalization: 30 Years of Lessons Learned" and it laid out the approach to teaching the language that Native Hawaiians have developed.

In the early days of their revitalization efforts they simply translated materials from other languages and other contexts. This proved ineffective and so efforts were made to create a curriciulum that was rooted in Native Hawaiian language, history adn culture. As a result of this they came to develop 5 key lessons or insights. These 5 simpl…

HISTORICAL DISLOYALTIES
Wednesday, 18 Apr 2012
BY MICHAEL LUJAN BEVACQUA
The Marianas Variety

 IN MY Guam History classes when we discuss the Chamorro-Spanish wars of the 17th century, I always see my students torn. In terms of the history itself, as objectively distanced from the present as possible, it is clear who the good guys and bad guys are of the story. For every Chamorro that readily accepted Catholicism, there were dozens or hundreds who resisted Catholicism and believed they should have the right to live as they wished. Although there were atrocities on both sides, in truth the Spanish were aggressors and the Chamorros were legitimately resisting. One had the right to defend themselves, while the other didn’t.

Students, Chamorros and non-Chamorros alike are torn because what they see in that war is the messy and complicated birth of the present day. They see the foundation being laid for much of what we accept as being Chamorro or an integral part of Guam’s …

Happy Valentine's Day!!!!
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 "You Is All I Want" Michael Lujan Bevacqua 2011
The waitress at Coco’s is happy
I am not.
She sashays to my table as if she has just stolen the sunshine of everyone in the room and beams at me with her conquest
I am not in the mood for anything.
I miss you, and it is the kind of missing that makes you feel like something is pushing your heart through your chest, giving it the sense of being released and set free as it is being choked to death by the bars of your rib cage.
As the song says, there ain’t no sunshine when you’re gone, and every sunny soul makes me wish I was some cartoonish DC universe villain, with a ray-gun that would suck out your happy soul and then stab you in the eye with a spork afterwards.
The waitress leans over and asks me, smile stuck between her teeth,
“What do you want today?”
I look at her wishing I was the protagonist of a movie and so when I glare, extras jump, cameras zoom, the soundtrack smashes onto the…

I have been writing all week about how we can see similarities or connections between Guam and Okinawa, some of which have nothing to do with the transfer of US Marines from one island to the other. While visiting the protest camp for those opposing the construction of new US helipad facilities in Takae Forest in Northern Okinawa, I found yet another connection.


The image above comes from a protest painting that was at the campsite in Takae. Even prior to visiting this area, I had seen this bird all over the place. It was featured in tourist literature, in advertising, and in posters for activist material or protests. For those on Guam, this bird should look somewhat familiar. On Guam we call this type of bird ko'ko, which in English is known as a rail. Ti gekpu este na klasin paluma, ya achokka' estaba meggai na paluma giya Guahan, i trahi-na uniku. Manggekpu i meggaina na klasin paluma guini, lao i ke'ko yan i sasangat i dos mas annok na ti gekpu.

In Okinawa they refer…

I am almost out of graduate school, and almost an alumni from my Ph.D. program, Ethnic Studies at University of California, San Diego. I say almost, because I'm just waiting on word from my committee to submit the final draft of my dissertation to the graduate school. As I've been waiting for their approval, I've been closely following what's been going on on campus there lately.

To say that things have been explosive at my school of UCSD lately would be an understatement. For a campus which I remember for being so large and yet so apathetic, what has been happening there lately has been mind-blowing, in both a positive and negative sense of the word.

While I enjoyed my time at UCSD as a graduate student, the school nonetheless had a reputation amongst both undergraduates and faculty for not being very diverse and not being a great place for people who weren't White or Asian. When I was more active in the department it was almost impossible to get African American st…