NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

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…

My trip to Spain took me through South Korea, where I spent seven hours in the Incheon Airport in Seoul.

In the same way that Guam and Okinawa have been connected for years now because of US military plans, so too have Guam and South Korea become connected as well.

Guam has been a potential target for North Korea for many years now, as it is one of the most prominent US bases in the region.

But over the past year the danger to Guam has become far more pronounced, from both sides of the Pacific.

Late last year, North Korean rhetoric became more focused around Guam, far more than it ever had before.

The year before that, Donald Trump was elected President of the US, and his foreign policy approach hasn't been very ideologically based, but seems to be rooted in impulsive Twitter tirades.

Both of them combined mean that people on Guam have no idea what to think or even worry about next.

North Korea is portrayed as a tin pot regime, simply full of bluster one moment, and then the most…

During the 2016 election, I followed the website FiveThirtyEight on a daily basis.

I found the commentary to be very enlightening, as it wasn't just their reporting about polls, but also their analysis on what makes a poll informative or effective.

The media in general often times picks polls that fit the narrative they are trying to promote, or they have their own internal hierarchy over what makes one poll useful and another less so.

But these critical information points are rarely discussed openly, even if more astute media viewers or consumers can make their own best guesses.

Although after Trump's victory in the election, I stopped consuming that type of poll-focused news.

But as the US mid-term election season is starting up again, and we've ahead a round of very interesting special elections, I've slowly been drawn back to the website.

This type of coverage, in the form of a group chat around the recent apparent Democratic-victory, is what makes it such entertai…

Each March, UOG organizes an Annual Research Conference or ARC. This year is the 39th year there has been a conference such as this. I presented at this conference as an undergraduate student, a graduate student and now I present at it regularly as a professor. For this year's ARC, I am participating in a couple different panels and presentations, most of which are connected to Guam's decolonization or its current political status.

Here are the abstracts for two of the sessions to which I am most looking forward:

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A Decolonial Analysis of Guam’s Media Landscape
The role of media in a society is not simply to report stories and investigate events, but to promote values and norms, usually on behalf of dominant classes or institutions. In a colonial context, such as that of Guam, these roles gain a colonial dimension, as both institutions and individuals will often be compelled to defend and naturalize the colonial status quo. As such, rather than condu…

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…

In genera the website Voxis like a hundred breaths of fresh air each week. The videos that it puts out each week are enjoyable and informative, bumping up against critical political and cultural issues (ranging from borders, to hip hop, to even the infamous worst movie ever The Room). But on a regular basis, the voice that I appreciate the most is that of its co-founder and editor-at-large, Ezra Klein. His articles are well-written and often help bring together my diffuse and disparate thoughts about the new list of scandals from the Trump administration. They help articulate thoughts still fuming and forming in my mind, with a welcome clarity, at a time when it seems so difficult to be politically sane.

His most recent piece on Trump's impromptu interview with The New York Times at his golf club, helps bring together so many troublesome issues about the Trump administration, and connects them to the man at its core, where there is increasing evidence each day, that he may not be…

Travis Coffman, a notable figure in Marianas media over the past few decades passed away recently. He was best known for his role in talk radio in Guam at K57. And as such, he was someone that I would interact with quite frequently. I went on his show several times to be interviewed about various topics. He was always respectful to me in public, and I would sometimes see him at anime, manga and nerd conventions on the island. But for many Chamorro activists, they saw him as someone who could frequently be anti-Chamorro in his statements on the air. I definitely heard elements of that when he would be on the the radio, and I would sometimes get text messages or emails, telling me to listen to what Travis was saying today. When I say anti-Chamorro, what it usually boiled down to was being dismissing of Chamorro issues and Chamorro concerns, but not necessarily someone who would ever say that Chamorro culture sucks. But someone who would use his position to belittle activists fighting f…

For all of the damage that Donald Trump can do, he definitely helps bring about exciting renewals and rediscoveries as well. Much has been made of the competition between major newspapers for "scoops," but I would also like to mention how Trump's behavior and his regular, often mindless assaults on the norms of governance, provide great fodder for columnists and editorial boards as well. I've pasted below an editorial from the editorial board for USA Today. I never thought I would ever save an editorial from that newspaper, but with Trump's behavior, even they ended up making an articulate and impassioned case against his behavior.

One of the downsides to a year of Trumpsanity, is that the news is constantly happening and evolving, whether through strategy, stupidity or insanity, and there just isn't enough time or energy to write about it or comment on it. That is one thing I've found about this blog for instance, is that I would frequently find myself …