NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

I just finished reading a collection of poems by Simon Ortiz titled "Sand Creek." I've read quite a bit of Native American poetry, but this collection felt the most relevant to me and to the Chamorro experience. There are some ways that the Native American experience in all its variations connects to those of Chamorros. The ecological spirituality can be nice, but also feels very abstract and very disconnected from the present at times. The family ties and closeness to the land carries the same beautiful, but sometimes abstract weight. The centuries and layer of oppression and injustice also hit home, so do contemporary feelings of loss and cultural erosion. What made the difference in Simon Ortiz's volume was the scattered mentions of militarism and its role in Native American culture today. Military service has married itself to Chamorro culture over the past century, but the same can be said for different tribes across the US. From marganilized, i

The exhibit I worked on for the Guam Humanities Council titled Sindalu: Chamorro Journey Stories in the US Military is currently on display at the Isla Center for the Arts at UOG. As part of the exhibit I've given several scholarly tours to students, teachers and veterans. Although the exhibit itself features so many stories, the interaction with these groups often yields even more stories. Sometimes people will find themselves or their ancestors in the photos. They will offer up another perspective or another facet of someone's anecdote. Sometimes they challenge things and sometimes they express their gratefulness that an exhibit like this has been put together. I teach many aspects of the exhibit in my own classes, but I have appreciated the way the research and writing for the exhibit and then the way I have developed my talk for the tours has led me to really think about the progression of Chamorros and their relationship to the United States, through their military servi