NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

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

Retellings of Guam history focus heavily on the end of the World War II on the island, and de-emphasize the start of the war. It is like this for some obvious and some less-obvious reasons. As I've written about before, where you place the narrative locus for these 32 months of Chamoru history will heavily affect what type of lessons or ideas emerge. If you focus on the end, the triumphant American return, where the Japanese are defeated and Chamorus are liberated from tyranny, the lessons seem pretty clear. American power and benevolence and propensity for liberation and democracy spreading. Chamorus become attached to the US and its history through that ending, as an object of their grandeur or their exceptional excellence and virtue. But if we switch the story's focus to the beginning things get much more complicated. We see at the beginning of war, an island where Chamorus trust the US to tell them the truth, to keep them safe, but they also understand in an important

I first wrote an article "Happy US Imperialism Day Guam!" about 16 years ago. It was published in Minagahet Zine and later on this blog when I began it soon after. The writing of this article originally was a very formative experience. Part of it eventually became my Masters Thesis in Micronesian Studies. But I also wrote it at a time when I was first trying to find a way to become more public about my critiques and writing letters to the editor of the Pacific Daily News and creating websites/blogs were some of the obvious choices. This article was written when the second Iraq War was only eight months old and the War in Afghanistan was over two years old. It was written at a time when I was feeling frustrated over the deaths of the first few Chamorros in Iraq, Christopher Rivera Wesley being the first. As I said, it was also written at a time when I was first working on developing a critical consciousness and a public voice in terms of writing and philosophy. I had been

  I first wrote an article "Happy US Imperialism Day Guam!" about 13 years ago. It was published in Minagahet Zine and later on this blog when I began it soon after. The writing of this article originally was a very formative experience. Part of it eventually became my Masters Thesis in Micronesian Studies. But I also wrote it at a time when I was first trying to find a way to become more public about my critiques and writing letters to the editor of the Pacific Daily News and creating websites/blogs were some of the obvious choices.  This article was written when the second Iraq War was only eight months old and the War in Afghanistan was over two years old. It was written at a time when I was feeling frustrated over the deaths of the first few Chamorros in Iraq, Christopher Rivera Wesley being the first.  As I said, it was also written at a time when I was first working on developing a critical consciousness and a public voice in terms of writing a

It has been weeks now since the US presidential election ended. Recounts are taking place in certain states. Protests are still sparking in certain areas across the US. Basic political conventions continue to be challenged as Trump tweets constantly and thinks rarely. As Guam is often simply subsumed within the flow of American power and politics, it is easy to just sit and watch and imagine ourselves along for the ride. But just as President Trump means a great deal of uncertainty for the US in general, the same goes for Guam, albeit in our own particular ways. This is a great piece by Tom Maxedon from The Sunday Post which covers alot of group in terms of imagining what a Trump administration might look like. Things have changed somewhat since it was written last week, but most of it is still in place. I'm glad that he was able to attend the Trump Teach-In that we had at the University of Guam last month. As much of what I suggested during my presentation already seems to be co

The film American Sniper has been gaining so much attention lately, because of its new blockbuster status, the ethnic and racial hatred that it is stimulating and also the way it is leading to both a challenging and also a lionizing of the American soldier through the figure of sniper Chris Kyle. Bradley Cooper, who plays Kyle in the film recently came out in defense of the film, noting that if you have problems with the political aspects of war, blame the politicians, the ones who make the decisions to send troops into war. Don't blame the troops who suffer because of those fights. This of course makes sense to most people. The politicians are corrupt, they are the ones you can blame, but the soldier, the self-sacrificing warrior should remain untouchable. They didn't choose to go to war, they just obeyed orders and did what their country told them to do. But this defense of the film leads to the natural problem of dealing with the morality of conduct if a war is not justi

--> I'm already quite tired from a long day, but before I go to bed I wanted to post some articles about American Sniper. I tried to watch the film last weekend on a Sunday night when usually theaters are empty on Guam, but to my surprise it was sold out. In just a week it is now a huge blockbuster and seems to be a commercial and critical success. Amidst all the buzz, people have been criticizing the film because of the incredible amount of fabrication that went into creating the movie figure of America's most lethal sniper. The Chris Kyle in the film is very different than the Chris Kyle of history and who published a memoir and loved to exaggerate his history of violence, even to the point of boasting and lying about fights he was never in and murders he never committed, all in the US, not the Middle East. I have written so many times over the years about the way in which national policies become conflated with the soldiers who enact, in some cases illegall