NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Film-making was something I never really imagined myself doing, even though I've always been drawn to films as a media. Gof ya-hu manegga' mubi siha. Lao gi minagahet taya' nai hu konsidera na sina mama'titinas yu' mubi siha. Over the past few years I've been able to work on several projects, sometimes as just a consultant, sometimes as a supporter and a few times as one of the primary filmmakers. It has been exciting and naturally time-consuming. Here is one film that I did a small amount of consulting for, with the help of Ken Gofigan Kuper who is attending graduate school at UH Manoa. ****************** Q&A with Filmmaker Hiroshi Katagiri by Ben Salas II The Sunday Post November 6, 2016 Throughout the years, Saipan has long been associated with many things: World War II, tourism, garment factories, commonwealth politics, Chamorro and Carolinian culture, and as a Pacific island paradise. And while various media entities have used Saipan as a

  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

War reparations is something that hardly receives much attention anymore. It used to be the issue that could make or break a candidate for delegate in Guam. It was something that people pushed for, and always seemed likely to get in some form, but never materialized. War reparations in the Chamorro context, is about compensation for the atrocities, suffering and destruction that Chamorros experienced during World War II at the hands of occupying Japanese forces. Chamorros did receive some compensation for what had happened in the immediate postwar era, but a commission later determined that they were not given enough information or access to those channels of redress and that further compensation should be awarded. This issue is waning in political importance due to the fact that the war generation is dying out. The number of people who would be eligible for compensation decreases with each year. The impetus is slowly being quashed as time ravages our elders and making the issue ap

My column for the Guam Daily Post about my most recent visit to Okinawa. There were some serious questions about the nature of Okinawan struggle for decolonization and their place in the global order as a people that were being discussed. I got to participate as much as I could in these talks, all adding more content to my research on their independence movement. ****************** --> “The Indigenous Idea” by Michael Lujan Bevacqua The Guam Daily Post March 16, 2016 Over the weekend I attended a symposium at Okinawa International University on the topic of whether or not the Okinawan people are “indigenous.” For some, this may seem like a strange question, as on the surface Okinawans seem to simply be Japanese. They look like Japanese, sound like Japanese, how could they be indigenous? A few decades ago, the idea of even considering Okinawans to be indigenous would have ranged from being ludicrous to heretical. This was due to a long period of coercive ass

5 Bad Ass Japanese American Women Activists You Probably Didn't Learn About in History Class Densho Blog by Nina Wallace March 15, 2016 Since history tends to sideline the central role so many women played in the major social movements of the 20th century, here’s a little herstory lesson about five women warriors whose incarceration during World War II inspired them to fight back–some more widely known than others, all supremely talented and fierce activists who nuh care if them hurt hurt hurting your stereotypes about quiet, submissive Asian women. 1. Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga The redress movement owes a lot to Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga. A hardworking single mom, after the war she resettled in New York, where she became assistant director of a public health organization providing, as she put it, “education about venereal diseases.” (They had to call it “social health” though, cuz, you know, think of the children!) In the 1960s, she joined

I've left Okinawa for Taiwan, but the stories I heard and learned still stay with me. The violence of war on the land and the people. So similar to Guam, a great conflagration between empires built and fed on war takes place over an island and the people are trapped, caught in between. They get erased in the process in so many ways. Their lives are obliterated. Their memories wiped away. Their claims to the land vanish beneath bases. Even their stories are cast aside. When they fit the heroic and sacrificial narratives of the two great powers, they are brought forth as moments of patriotism, loyalty and power. But if they don't, they are forgotten. I finished reading the English translation of former Okinawa Governor Masahide Ota's book on the battle of Okinawa. Even though Ota himself is Okinawan and a big critic of the way both America and Japan have treated his people, his book still follows the narrative above, focuses on the tales of the two great empires locked in

Both Okinawans and Chamorros had the experience of being caught between empires in World War II. Chamorros leaned towards the United States in terms of their patriotism and affinity and suffered at the hands of the Japanese because of it. Okinawans leaned towards the Japanese and suffered at the hands of the United States and Japanese because of it. Both peoples were not fully accounted for in either nation. Chamorros were not US citizens and were discriminated against in so many ways at the start of the war. Okinawa had been forcibly annexed in the 19th century and later became a prefecture, but Okinawans were treated as if they were inferior and found their language and culture attacked by the Japanese. Each felt closer to one colonizer over the other, but that didn't spare them during the war. It has been particularly difficult reading and hearing more stories from Okinawans about the terrifying and violent place they were in during the Battle of Okinawa. It was bad enough

On Guam the issue of "the constitution" is always looming. Chamorro activists sometimes bring it up. Plenty of non-Chamorros, such as Ron McNinch like to bring it up. Politicians from the US and from Guam bring it up. In the imaginings of decolonization it is a type of panacea, an incredibly dangerous and problematic one, and like all forms of snake or toad oil like this, it is incredibly seductive. And like these sort of talismans, no matter how many times you tell people they don't work, they aren't enough, or its just wrong, generations of people will still find it and "discover" it, and feel like it solves all problems, has all the answers. Every two weeks or so it seems, someone approaches me via email in public and wants to know why Guam, instead of decolonizing, why doesn't it just write a Constitution. This is exactly what the United States Federal government has wanted Guam to do. And if something fits within the Americanized framework of

Yesterday I spent the day at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. It was a very surreal experience. On the surface it appears like many other shrines or places or worship or reflection in Japan, but it was an incredibly militaristic space. It featured museums dedicated to a whitewashed military history of Japan, thousands of letters from soldiers writing home about how happy they were to die for Japan, and statues for the courage of war widows. The shrine is meant to serve the more than two million souls who have died as soldiers for Japan over the past century, so the militaristic and warmongering tone makes sense, but given what I know of Japanese history it was still shocking to see the way things were twisted in order to create a sense of sinlessness and honor in the midst of a very blatantly imperial period of their history. The shrine reminded me that if you win your wars, you can always explain and justify the deaths involved as heroic, as necessary, as part of a teleology of g