NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Paul Zerzan frequently references me in his columns in the Guam Daily Post and also his letters to the editor of the Pacific Daily News. For those of you who don't know who Paul Zerzan is, it isn't truly critical that you know him or what he stands for. He is a white male living on Guam, who constantly takes polemical and often times ignorant positions on things such as Chamorro language and decolonization. It is sometimes difficult to engage with someone like him who seems very willing to impulsively shout loudly about the things that they believe, but doesn't ever seem to investigate or research what they are claiming prior to speaking/writing. Gi Fino' Chamorro ta sångan, "hasso åntes håfa para un sångan, mappot pumañot tåtte." This is something that Paul Zerzan doesn't seem to know much about or take seriously.

Last year I and several others wrote letters and column about his assertion that the Chamorro language is already dead and it is useless to d…

Un apå'ka na taotao, i na'ån-ña si Paul Zerzan, sigi ha' umalok gui' gi gasetan Guåhan na esta måtai pat esta taisetbe i Fino' Chamorro. Esta ha na'bububu meggai na taotao guini giya Guåhan yan gi sanlagu lokkue'. Estague diferentes na kåtta ginen i PDN ni' kumokontra i taihinasso na tinige'-ña.

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Our Language Isn't Dead Yet
by Michael Lujan Bevacqua
Pacific Daily News
11/3/16

My column this week is written in response to Paul Zerzan’s op-ed on Oct. 29 dealing with the death of the Chamorro language.

Men with the same complexion and attitudes as Zerzan have long felt it their right to determine the life or death of things related to indigenous people in the Pacific. For Chamorros, these sorts of pronouncements are common. We have been struggling against them for centuries and only recently realized that just because a man with a flag comes to claim us, it doesn’t mean he discovered us. Just because a man with a d…

I felt like I've written a hundred press releases this year, most of them for the Independence for Guåhan Task Force, but plenty of others for the Chamorro Studies Program at UOG. I've been meaning to post them here just to easily archive them, especially for when I apply for promotion to UOG in the coming year. It is intriguing, because what made me think of this tonight, was a column written today by Paul Zerzan in the Guam Daily Post. It discusses how the Chamorro language is a dead language. It isn't very well-written and its argument is incredibly poor on almost all possible levels. Part of it hinges on him describing an anecdote whereby a Chamorro cultural event planned in 1993 was attended by only himself, therefore clearly proving the language being dead. What struck me as bewildering about this particular portion of his argument, was that on a regular basis I attend and organize (ko'lo'lo'ña gi UOG) Chamorro events that hundreds of people attend. Just…