NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Hagas umatungo' ham yan este na taotao, si Siñot Joe "Dågu" Babauta, un ma'estron Chamorro yan gof maolek na titifok yan danderu. Desde i ma'pos na såkkan hu ayuyuda gui' mama'tinas lepblon e'eyak para i ma'estron Chamorro gi GDOE. Hu kekeayuda gui' på'go mama'nå'gue klas gi UOG para i otro semester (Fañomåkan 2018). Halacha nai hu interview gui' para i website Hongga Mo'na , ya debi di bei edit yan na'funhåyan ayu. Estague un tinige' put guiya yan i bidadå-ña ginen i gasetan PDN. **************************** "Chamorro teacher Joe 'Dågu' Babuata keeps weaving tradition alive" by Chloe Babauta Pacific Daily News August 7, 2017 When Joe “Dågu” Babauta saw “Tan Maria” weaving a hat out of coconut leaves at 12 years old, his lifelong love affair with the art of weaving began. “Being that I was so young, I had to ask older friends who drove to take me down there from Agat, to wh

In more than a month the 7th Guam International Film Festival will be taking place at the Guam Museum. I received word this week that my latest Chamorro language nerd collaboration with Kenneth Gofigan Kuper will screened. It's title is "I Sengsong Arkham" and follows in the vein of our previous film "Påkto: I Hinekka" in that it features us playing a game that few would ever associate with the Chamorro language or culture, in the Chamorro language. The game itself is called "Arkham Horror" and is a Dungeons and Dragons style game based on the works of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. There are several other Guam and Micronesian based short films and documentary that will also be featured. Thinking about this has put me in the mood for some Guam movies, of which there aren't many, and most of them are not very good.  The first generation of Guam films, meaning films that were made on Guam in the 1960s and 1970s, didn't feature Guam as Guam, bu

The Guam Museum is open in Hagåtña. Well it is sort of and kind of open. The permanent exhibit text, which I have been helping write for several years now isn't complete, although a temporary exhibit about the history of the Guam Museum has been set up in the meantime. It is strange to have the structure, the physical building finished and mostly ready, but still the museum itself, the story or i hinanao-ta, that it is supposed to represent isn't quite ready. While going through some of my old files on my computer I noted (and was reminded) that Guam didn't have a museum for quite a while. I recall visiting the museum as a young child at the Plaza de Espana and also at Adelup, but for most of my life there has been no national museum on Guam. When my kids were first born, the museum was, interestingly enough just a little annex in the Micronesian Mall that few people even knew existed. The discussion over a museum has been underway for a very long time, although it pains

Every year I do a couple episodes for the local public radio program Beyond the Fence for KPRG. Here is one of mine from earlier this year which focused on the history of the Wusstig family on Guam, who I met through my work at the Guam Museum. The family is donating the headstone that was created for their ancestor while he was a POW in Japan during World War II. To download podcast of this episode and others head to this link.  *********************** Ep. 237 “Sailor, Musician and Forgotten POW: Remembering George Wusstig” (hosted by Dr. Michael Lujan Bevacqua and produced by Tom Maxedon with assistance from Alan Grossman and Robert Wang) aired on 3/11/16. During the Japanese occupation of Guam in World War II, a number of U.S. active duty and retired military men were taken as prisoners of war to Japan. One of those was George Ernest Wusstig who was born in Germany in the 19th century, migrated to the United States where he became a U.S. citizen, and settled

Governor Eddie Calvo's 2016 State of the Island Address Posted: Mar 31, 2016 5:21 PM Updated: Mar 31, 2016 7:21 PM  State of the Island Address 2016 Lt. Gov. Tenorio, Madam Speaker, Mr. Chief Justice, Congresswoman Bordallo, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, but more importantly… Manelu’hu, manaina’hu, yan I man’hoben, Welcome to the Guam Capitol District! Look at how beautiful this city has become. This museum will be open in a few months. Paseo renovations are underway. I can’t wait to deliver next year’s address in the Guam Congress Building next door. And I have to tell you, as a son of Hagatna, a resident of Agana Heights, and a worker in the capital, I’m so happy that some of the best restaurants opened up shop here. We welcome even more business. We welcome artists, performances, tours, and the return of the government of Guam to the seat of government. We have even bigger plans for this place. I received the Hagatna Master Plan for consi

In 2012 I had the honor of traveling to Washington D.C. as part of the Guam delegation for the First Stewards Symposium, a gathering of native peoples associated with the US to discuss climate change. We performed at the National Museum of the American Indian and set up a display there of Chamorro cultural tools and artifacts. One of the highlights of the trip is that I got to spend time with Tony Ramirez, long time curator for the Guam Museum. I had known him primarily as the curator but through talking to him I learned so much more, even about his past as one of Guam's progressive activists and even participated in the Sella Bay protests of the 1970s. Guam has lacked a real museum for too long and it was always Tony's mission to see a new museum built and in use. He passed away earlier this year and it is truly tragic that he didn't get to see the museum he helped sustain for so long finished in Hagatna. While he was waiting for a new museum to be designed and built,

The Guam Bus is the creative team that consists of myself and my two brothers. Over they years we've talk about alot of creative projects, and even started some of them, such as Battle for Kamchatka, but we haven't ever really finished any of them. We made ashcans a few years back when we had a table at WonderCon in San Francisco, and I did write the script for four issues of Battle for Kamchatka and Jack did pencil three of them, but we never actually formally published anything. Jack is back on Guam for the next few months and I am taking advantage of his presence here by making him create for me on my various Chamorro Studies and Guam Museum projects. He is also working on a one-shot comic book script I wrote last year about "Makahnan Mimu" or "Warrior Wizards" in Ancient Chamorro times. If all goes well, he should be done with the pencils by the end of next month. Here's a panel from the comic so far:

For most people in life, the history of your family is something behind you and nowhere near as important as getting to work on time, getting kids through school, or watching to see who will win next on “The Voice.” It is something almost all will say has value, but like so many things, it gains the most value only after it is out of your reach. Stories of your family are always there as you drive on the road of life. You will see signs that hint at how you should ask grandma or grandpa questions about your family, but most people just keep on driving. Only when it is too late and you can’t ask those questions, then do you look into the rear view mirror with longing, wishing that you had stopped and wishing you had heard those stories while they were still alive. For most of my life on Guam, I spent it living in my grandparent’s house in Mangilao. From my grandfather, Joaquin Flores Lujan (Bittot) I have learned about Chamorro blacksmithing and how to make tools like the kamyo,