NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

One of the earliest Chamoru translations of an American pop song I ever did.  I came across it recently while I was searching on some old external hard drives.  It is to the tune of the Coldplay song "Clocks"which came out in 2002.  I remember I had started translating the song, working to come up with some basic lyrics.  I was hindered in my translation by the fact that the title frankly, gi minagahet was weird or sucked in Chamoru.  Clocks, didn't make sense in Chamoru. It may barely make sense in English for the song gi minagahet.  "Reloh siha" mungga yu' nu enao lol.  This was very early in my Chamoru learning journey, I was functionally fluent, but still making mistakes all the time and my Chamoru sounded like it was stiff and dry, straight out of a grammar book, because I lacked the basic organic feeling of being part of a language community.  The ways that emerge sometimes for an individual, a family, a village, a people to build off of the rules. To

A few times each year I testify publicly on Guam about something.  Usually it is at the Guam Legislature over a bill or a resolution or as part of a hearing.  Regardless of what the topic is, I try to do it in Chamoru, especially if I have time to prepare my written comments ahead of time, so they go into the public record.  Chamoru is a national language for Guam, which means that it can be used regularly for public activities and public representations.  Official documents can be in both Chamoru and English. Signage around the island can be bilingual.  The fact that Chamoru is an official and national language of Guam is something that many indigenous groups around the world might be envious of, since it provides for a far amount of existing legitimacy and social/political power.  You don't have to fight for recognition, since the law already accepts it. But sadly we don't do more to build off to this.  It could begin in simple ways, such as public signage and go from there. 

No one ever fully knows a language, and that is always an interesting way of reminding people that a language is, first and foremost, a social organism. It connects people. It exists to connect and express connections.  But as no one ever fully knows a language, it means that even those who use it everyday are always still learning in the language. There is always more to know, as a language is always belong what a single person can know or do. One way that I have continued to learn and grow in the language is by translating songs from English, regularly into Chamoru. At this point, I've translated hundreds of pop songs, rock songs, hip hop songs, country, punk, alternative, emo, ska, at this point just about any genre you can imagine, I've probably translated at least one song from it, into the Chamoru language.  Sometimes I try to keep the original intention and metaphor of the song, other times I completely abandon it. Sometimes even the tune of the song itself, its flow get

There is a saying in Chamoru, "mungga masse, anggen ti ya-mu makasse." Don't tease, if you don't like to be teased. It is fairly simple and straightforward, but it is always funny when you find someone who can't handle some of their own medicine, or who has trouble hearing the truth of themselves that their teasing or their negative behavior is meant to hide. That is one of the main reasons that people engage in that type of behavior. Is so that no one will look at me with critical, judging or penetrating eyes, if I keep everyone looking at the faults in someone else.  I have always tried to keep myself very distant from superficial people like that. I don't mind it if people are shallow or superficial in general, but I don't want those types of people close to me by any means. But in my dating life, sometimes people slip through the cracks. Often times there are things that I'll see in someone, or at least think I see in someone, but they may not see

Since 2003 I have had a number of uneven traditions associated with this blog. Many of these have dissipated as I have used this blog less and less, but a few I have continued to hold on to. One of the longest held traditions is "Happy US Imperialism Day!" It started as a thinking piece while I was working on my Master's Thesis in Micronesian Studies at the University of Guam. I had spent a few years reading as much as I could about Guam History. I had interviewed hundreds of elders born prior to World War II, who had experienced Japanese occupation. I had even begun working for Puerto Rican filmmaker Frances Negron-Muntaner on a documentary that would later become War for Guam. I was also spending time with activists of every stripe on Guam, trying to talk to anyone who I could find who had long been critical of the things I was just starting to learn about the historical and contemporary realities of the Chamoru people.  I was encountering the history and the present of

Mad Boy's Love Song (After Mad Girl's Love Song) I close my eyes and the world drops dead The curtain of blackness falls, blanketing a cruel reminder that I think I made you up inside my head You as a thunderbird is all I see roaring, splitting silence Trailing behind you twinkling smiling newborn stars thatform a shower up above In your afterglow, I hear the stars trickle down the blackcurtain of a world dropped dead I feel them fill the lines in my face, finding their way into the strings that tie together my life, dripping along and spiraling deeper and deeper until my every moment becomes bewitched When I lift my lids, all is born again, but now water-colored with you instead  The straining of my grocery bags, is the crinkling of your skirt The scratch on my car hood, follows the curves of your leg   Every bump in the road, is my eyes tracing the tempting lines of your fingertips The red of the shampoo bottle, glistens with the faintness of your lips White sheets of paper,