NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Ti siguro yu' håyi tumuge' este, lao interesånte. Guaha meggai na hestoria put i Chamorro gi Islas Sangkattan gi este na ti gof anakko' na tinige'. Hu sodda' este na tinige' ginen i gasetan Saipan, annai manespipiha yu' infotmasion put Fino' Chamorro gi halom i kottre gi Islas Sangkattan. Ti meggai na infotmasion humuyong, lao hu fakcha'i este. Ti hu tungo' i kilisyanu na fulånu ni' tumuge', lao ya-hu i milalåk-ña i hinasso-ña siha. Frihon yan botlon.

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The Death of Chamorro Language
March 31, 1999
The Saipan Tribune

For many years, we were active participants in the death of our local vernacular. It started with the golden days in grammar school when speaking your language lands you some corporal punishment, a fine of five cents, scribbling several pages of “I will not speak Chamorro”; picking up trash outside the classroom after school, among others.

Well into high school, there’s the student monitors or JPOs who wer…

Since the start of the year I have been working on an article about militarization in the Marianas Islands. It is for a special edition of Micronesian Educator edited by Tiara Na'puti and Lisa Natividad. I'm excited at the prospect of writing it, but my schedule over the past year has been tough, in addition to family drama and other setbacks. I've been coming back and forth to it in my notebooks every month, but until now I haven't been able to really try to finish it. I spent Christmas Day typing up my scattered notes and drafts.

The article is an attempt to talk about militarization, military increases, military strategy in a Marianas wide context, and the ways it divides, unities, takes and stimulates. One of the most interesting sections is on the CIA training that took place in Saipan from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. The facility was known as the Naval Technical Training Unit or NTTU and it trained anti-communist operatives to destabilize and sabotage reg…

When I am writing or working, I like to have MSNBC playing in the background. Although definitely not on weekends, as I don't find their barrage of prison reality TV shows very appealing. On weekends I watch clips on Youtube and recently they started a new show with longtime foreign affairs and war correspondent Richard Engel called On Assignment with Richard Engel. 

I've enjoyed the first few pieces released on Youtube on his show. They've both been critical of Trump and talked about the international dimensions to his business connections. This is one of the things that makes Trump different from previous Presidents, even those who were also wealthy, his international business empire that he is absolutely using the powers and privileges of the off to enrich and enhance. Here's a few of the clips from On Assignment:

What a strange moment we live in, where political loyalties and alliances are reforming and even crossing national and ideological boundaries in ways difficult to comprehend. When Obama says that Ronald Reagan is turning over in his grave right now because of the behavior of Republicans today and their new party leader Donald Trump, he is right in a very troubling sense. Having two main political parties is supposed to neutralize a lot of potential conflict, but also requires that the two factions ultimately hold above all partisan politics, the nation itself. In essence, like all political systems, a two-party one still requires that both parties but country first, and that be willing to accept losses for the betterment of the country and not seek all international or foreign means of achieving victory. What we see today however, is that the Republican party has been taken over by those who are willing to side with those who want to weaken American power and its place in the world, …

Recently some people started sharing some articles on Facebook from old websites that I used to run such as The Chamorro Information Activists and Minagahet Zine. When I went back to read over some of what they shared, I could feel waves of nostalgia washing over me. These were the days when I was first starting as an activist and working with others for the first time, organizing things and trying to develop our ideas. I cringe when I read some of it because my positions have changed or I have learned more about certain topics.

I've decided to start up a new recurring post series on this blog called "Fanhokkayan" or "Collection." Since these websites are no longer active, no longer being actively updated, they sit there online, and are occasionally visited by students conducting research for their papers. I worry sometimes that at some point they will disappear and they provide an interesting snapshot of Chamorro issues at a particular moment in my life and …