NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

The one the reasons why so many scholars, activists and often times community members feel the need to rethink or rearticulate or reimagine "Liberation Day" is because of a recognition of hope integral it is or has been to our relationship to the US. World War II changed dramatically the relationship between the Chamorus of Guam and the US. It changed it somewhat from the US perspective, but it was dramatically altered from the Chamoru side of the equation. Chamorus who felt a clear distance to their colonizer, even if some were eager to be patriotic, prior to the war, emerged from the war eager to find whatever way possible to express their loyalty, their newfound attachment to America. But as I've written many times before, what Liberation Day does as the basis for Chamoru identity in an American context, is create the Chamoru as a subordinate subject, a minor footnote, that must always be superpatriotic for fear that America will withdraw funds, support, recognition an

Esta kana' bente años na taigue i Kumision i Fino' CHamoru. Ma'establesi gui' fine'nina gi 1964. Lao mas sen matungo' gui' gi duranten i 1990s', pi'ot annai ha ketulaika i dinilitreha para i palåbra "Chamorro" asta "Chamoru" pat "CHamoru." I yinaoyao put i dinilitreha muna'påra i che'cho'-ña i kumision. Maolek na i ma'pos na Liheslaturan Guåhan yan ma na'lå'la' gui' ta'lo gi lai. Lao ta li'e' kao diferentes i tano' på'go pat parerehu ha'? Kao para u ma'aksepta i kumunidåt i tinago'-ña yan i disision-ña i kumision, pat kao para u ma'embeste ta'lo? *********************** CHamoru Language Commission re-established by Manny Cruz The Guam Daily Post May 9, 2017 For the first time in nearly 20 years, the CHamoru Language Commission became a functioning body once more on Monday. The commission's first order of business: Establish an explic

My two PDN columns on the need to protect language learning at UOG. If you aren't familiar with the issue, please head to this website UOG Language Drive , to learn more and sign the petition. If we combine both online and paper signatures, we have collected over 1500 and are still working on getting more! ************************* Protect Language Learning at UOG Michael Lujan Bevacqua Pacific Daily News December 30, 2016 At present at the University of Guam, each undergraduate student is required to take two language classes (eight credits total) as part of their General Education or GE requirements. UOG offers courses regularly for Chamorro, Japanese, Tagalong, Spanish, Mandarin, French and can also offer courses in Chuukese and other Micronesian languages upon request. UOG is also home to the Chamorro Studies Program, of which I am a faculty member and this program is unique in the world in terms of focusing its courses on the history, language and culture of t

For the Importance of Second Language Learning Forum that I helped organize a few weeks ago, we were honored to have a very diverse and exciting panel. Coming at it from different angles, they covered a number of way, some more philosophical and others more practical, as to how learning a second language can be important and as a result, something that should be required at UOG.  The panel featured the following guests: Kenneth Gofigan Kuper, a Ph.D. student in Political Science at UH Manoa and former student of mine. He is a young activist who has taken up both the banner of decolonization and language revitalization. I've been working with him on a number of projects such as Ha'anen Fino' Chamoru Ha' and the upcoming Lalahen Sinahi project. He took Chamorro as his second language requirement at UOG and it changed the course of his life.  Ronald T. Laguana, the current director of the Division of Chamorro Studies in the Guam Department of Education. He i

The Forum on the Importance of Second Language Learning that I helped organize last week at UOG was a huge success. We had a massive crowd of students and members of the community. The comments that were made came from all types of people. Some students spoke about how important it is to requires students to take second languages because it will provide them so many long term benefits that they may not be able to perceive yet. Some community members spoke about how this idea of English-only or focusing the education at UOG on a single language was like a slap in the face to the dozens of languages that are spoken daily in Guam. Some business owners talked about the need for more languages to be taught at UOG and that more languages make you more intelligent and marketable. Some teachers talked about how students who know more than one language perform better in school than those who are monolingual. The conversation was fantastic, we stayed an hour and fifteen minutes beyond our sche

University of Guam Mangilao, GU April 26, 2015 Press Release For immediate release Forum on Changes to UOG General Education Curriculum UOG Professors to Lead Community Discussion on Removal of Second-Language Requirement Is “ENGLISH ONLY” Good Enough for the University of Guam and Our Students? A public discussion on keeping second-language-learning requirements in the University of Guam general education curriculum will be held on Thursday, April 30, at 6 p.m., at the CLASS Lecture Hall on the UOG campus.  The event is free and open to all concerned members of the public. Recently faculty endorsed and approved changes to the General Education curriculum at the University of Guam to remove second-language learning from the undergraduate requirements.  Learning a second language will become optional.  Until now, all students have been required to take two courses (8 credits total) in a language other than English.  Chamorro, Japanese, T

"Famalao'an" Michael Lujan Bevacqua May 2, 2012 The Marianas Variety When the Spanish first began their colonization of Guam, there must have been so many things that disgusted and bewildered them. When contact through colonization takes place, this sort of disgust isn’t simply because of two alien cultures interacting, it serves a much more central purpose. It is not a mere byproduct of contact, but something essential to the process of colonization. When the colonizer finds things that are so different and so alien to itself, it doesn’t see them as merely different, it sees them as being inhuman, abnormal, savage. These traits are what become the basis for justifying colonization and the colonizer’s presence. The savagery of the natives is the reason why they should be there, in order to help them and get rid of their pagan and backward ways. Everything from the nakedness of Chamorro to their more open nature of sexuality to their use of human skulls in anc