NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Everytime Trump mentions Guam, it is like we get to walk on to some national reality TV show. It is always interesting, sometimes funny, sometimes scary, sometimes saddening. Here are some articles around our most recent mention, when Trump talked about statehood being off the table and not an option for Guam and other US territories.  *******************   Decolonization Commission: Trump comments superficial and selfish Steve Limtiaco Pacific Daily News USA TODAY NETWORK Oct 19, 2020  The government of Guam’s Commission on Decolonization on Monday responded to recent comments by President Donald Trump about the political status of Guam and other U.S. territories.   Trump, during an Oct. 1 phone interview with Sean Hannity on the Fox News Channel, accused Democrats of trying to add three new states to the union, including Guam, in an effort to get more power in the House and Senate.   “That would give them six automatic Senate seats,” Trump said. “It would be very unfair, and 20-somet

Litråtu siha ginen i Fanhita Conference, September 11-12, 2019. *********************************

2000 was the last time that Guam had a significant and focused conversation around political status. There had been campaigns, big and small, around commonwealth or constitutions. Each time there were discussions, community events and also sometime of plebiscite. 2000 was the last time that there was a big community push around the issue, as that was the year a plebiscite was scheduled and some funds made available for public education. This came after commonwealth had died or stalled in the US Congress, and it was decided to start the process over by having a new plebiscite to help determine the direction of future political status negotiations. This new start to the process never really came. The 2000 plebiscite was delayed several times and never took place. I recently went through more than a year of the Pacific Daily News to get a sense of that time, and came across dozens of letters to the editor and articles dealing with the plebiscite and the three sta

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Decolonization gi Fino' CHamoru: Future Status Options for Guam Discussed in UOG CHamoru-Language Panel Mangilao, GU - On Thursday, March 1, 2018, 6:00-7:30 p.m., the Dean of the School of Business and Public Administration at the University of Guam will host a CHamoru-language panel from the Commission on Decolonization to discuss the status options for Guam/Guåhan: Statehood, Free Association, and Independence.       The event is called "Decolonization gi Fino' CHamoru" (in the CHamoru language).   It will be held in Room 131.   It is free and all are welcome and encouraged to attend.   The panel, co-organized with Commission Director Amanda Blas from the Office of the Governor of Guam, will include special presentations gi Fino' CHamoru (in the indigenous CHamoru language) from representatives of the Taskforces on Statehood, Free Association, and Independence.   Handouts and ot

In December of last year, I met with a friend for breakfast at Shirley's in Hagåtña. The central topic of our meeting with current pushes for Guam's decolonization. This breakfast was happening at the start of a two-week period of activity around educating the island around the issue. The Commission on Decolonization and the Office of the Governor was about to start a series of three village meetings to help educate the island community about political status change. After not meeting since July, the Commission itself was set to meet earlier that week. Through my own political status task force, the Independence for Guåhan Task Force, we started a podcast series named Fanachu! and also held one of our monthly General Assembly meetings. Despite the flurry of recent activity around the issue, my friend wasn’t convinced that anything had really changed. That all of these activities whether they be teach-ins, coffee shop conversations, debates or for

Earlier this month I was on a panel discussion at UOG about the prospect of Guam holding a new constitutional convention and writing a new constitution. I was by far the youngest person on the panel, as I hadn't been born yet when the last Guam Constitutional Convention was held, but I was honored to have my voice included amongst other notable island figures such as Speaker of the Guam Legislature BJ Cruz, Public Auditor Doris Flores Brooks, Guam Attorney General Elizabeth Barrett-Anderson and former Senator Marilyn Manibusan. The discussion ended up being quite rich, with three out of the five panelists (myself included) speaking out against the writing of a Guam constitution. It is not so much that I or the others were against the exercise of writing a constitution, but the issue was, why write a constitution now, while Guam remains a colony of the US? Every once in a while this topic will emerge, usually proposed as an easier path for dealing with Guam's political s

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

Two letters to the editor on recent and not so recent activities related to Guam's decolonization. For those who don't know, there are three political status options that are outlined per local and international law for Guam's future, integration (statehood), free association and independence. Each of these status has a task force that is mandated to educate the community about their status. These task forces are volunteer and have always been, although public law does indicate that the Commission on Decolonization is supposed to provide funding and support for their outreach. But there is little written into the law about the structure of these task forces or details about their obligations. They are supposed to have a certain amount of members and they each have a chairperson who gets to serve and vote on the Commission itself, but other than that, they are amorphous and nebulous non-governmental organizations. The business of government usually moves slowly, unless

One of the things that I take pride in, is that this blog has been around for a while and that I've been able to maintain it continuously for 12 years now. Most of the Chamorro related or Guam related websites that existed when I first started this blog are no longer around. They have been taken down, lost, morphed into something else. Many of the people are still around, but they have moved on to other social media platforms. At one point the Free Association for Guam Task Force had a website. Nasion Chamoru had a website on an AOL platform, although it is now on Blogger (like this blog). The Statehood for Guam Task Force still has a website. A number of social websites or personal blogs have disappeared, and every once in a while I wonder what has become of those people. Below is a short article written by former Senator Mark Charfauros, who was an active member of Nasion Chamoru in the 1990s. This was published 16 years ago on the website "Dialogue Between Nations"