NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

 In his book Saina Chamorro poet and scholar Craig Santos Perez does something that really intrigued me. I recently wrote a review essay of his three poetry books hacha, Saina and Guma', and this was one thing that caught my eye. Throughout parts of the book he includes the names of soldiers from Micronesia, who will serving in the US military were killed in the Middle East, in the Horn of Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq. He lists them in the way that is customary for KIA lists, with their age and a hometown. He crosses out however everything except their names.  The tactic of crossing things out can be a beautiful strategy. I used to use it alot before, most notably in my article "The (Un)exceptional Life of a Chamorro Soldier: Tracing the Militarization of Desire in Guam, USA. The act of crossing it out can mean that this doesn't really exist. It can be a way of de-emphasizing something. It can be a way of drawing attention to it, albeit in a circu

My life as the program coordinator for Chamorro Studies means that my life boils down to one exciting project after the next. One thing that I love about Chamorro Studies here at UOG is that while it is an academic program in an academic institution, it is also community driven. So many of the projects that I have taken on over the past year were initiated by people in the community who wanted to have their stories recorded, wanted to have something documented, wanted to see something that is very necessary be created in the community. One project that I am hoping to expand upon in the coming year is the story of the 731st MP Company, which was a National Guard reserve component unit that served in the First Gulf War, Operation Desert Storm. They were the only unit of their type from the Pacific region to be deployed and they served with great distinction. I have been working with their command officer when they were deployed Joseph Hara Salas about telling this story and interviewing

(Note this image is not of the 731st MP Unit I'm discussing in the text below).  The text below is for a project I am working on for Chamorro Studies. Documenting and telling the story of the 731st MP EPW, the only reserve component unit from the Pacific to go to fight in Desert Storm. As you'll read below, they performed very well while there: ******************* People often think of Guam as a small place, and therefore assume that those small places and those who come from those small places are not capable of great deeds. We see this to hardly be true in the work of the 731 st MP Company, started on July 31 st , 1981. Formed soon after the Guam National Guard was created, this company was trained specifically for EPW processing or Enemy Prisoners of War Processing. Their training was tested when they were activated and deployed during the First Gulf War. They were the only reserve component unit from the Asia-Pacific region to be dep

Guam Humanities Council to host Smithsonian Institution Exhibit Journey Stories, Opening June 26, 2014 The Guam Humanities Council is partnering with the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, Museum on Main Street (MoMS) program to bring to Guam the national exhibit, Journey Stories. Many of us have powerful journey stories in our personal heritage. It may be a story of a family uprooting itself in order to stay together, or of sons and daughters moving to another land, or of a distant ancestor. As part of the Guam tour, the Council has developed a local companion exhibit with complimentary programs entitled, Sindålu – Chamorro Journeys in the U.S. Military, to explore the many significant and oftentimes unrecognized journeys of Chamorro men and women who currently serve or have served in the U.S. Military. Chamorro servicemen and women, along with their families, have moved all over the world, some returning home, others resettling perman