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Chamorro Studies History

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The Chamorro Studies Program (Prugraman Inestudian Chamorro) at the University of Guam is located within the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (Kolehon Atson Liberat yan Siensihan Sosiat). It has existed for four years and was officially launched in October of 2013. It was started by a faculty task force consisting of myself, Anne Perez Hattori, Evelyn San Miguel Flores, Rosa Salas Palomo, Sharleen Santos-Bamba, James Perez Viernes and a handful of others.

On October 24th, 2013 a launch event was held which featured panels, performances and also the start of a Chamorro language lecture series titled "The Chamorro Experience gi Fino' Chamorro." The late Chamorro Master Blacksmith Joaquin Flores Lujan or Tun Jack was the speaker for the inaugural event. On that day we signed up seven majors and seven minors into the program. Since that time, the Chamorro Studies Program has organized numerous events and programs all meant at promoting Chamorro language, culture …

Interview put Chamorro Studies

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The past week has been crazy and the lack of blog posts reflects that. Between parenting, teaching, writing, film-making, play-writing, endless meetings, interviews, and planning for a summer trip, things have been too exhausting and too hectic.

I'm going to try and get back on track with my blog posts about my Nicaragua trip over the weekend.

In the meantime I wanted to share this interview I did recently for an undergraduate student about the origins of the Chamorro Studies program at UOG, the program I was proud to help create and even more proud to be a part of today.

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How did the Chamoru Studies program come about?
The initial incarnation of the Chamorro Studies program was developed in the School of Education at UOG. The Government of Guam was mandating UOG to train people who were able to teach Chamorro language and culture in schools and the program was developed under Dr. Bernadita Dungca in order to accomplish that. The existing Chamorro Studies program …