NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Six years ago under the guidance of Peter Onedera, the Chamorro language program at UOG held a Chamorro Language Forum, in which senatorial and gubernatorial candidates were asked questions in Chamorro about pertinent island issues. It was on one hand a great success. Students asked hundreds of questions to the candidates in the Chamorro language. But on the other hand, the format of the forum made it so that candidates didn't have to speak in Chamorro, they could just respond in English. I assisted Peter Onedera with these forums both as a student and a professor at UOG, and so I found it on the one hand inspiring to see a place where the Chamorro language was the focus for political discourse. But it was also so depressing to see so many leaders and would-be leaders not even trying to speak Chamorro, even though they were given the questions ahead of time and could have prepared answers. Fast forward six years and through my Chamoru Culture class at UOG, we have decided to br

When I hear people discuss nowadays their connections to i manmofo'na or Ancient Chamorros, it is always interesting to see their connections and how they express their similarity, their fidelity or their disaffection. There are things that we can identify as coming from ancient times up until today. Some of them are abstract, coming from the nebulous realm of values and ideas. Others are rooted in the land and those things which remain despite things appearing to be so drastically different.  When people want to draw affinity to those ancient ancestors it is rarely a reciprocal game. People will take up things that fit within their lives today, often times things which are incredibly simple or easy to integrate or provide verbal support for, but actually have little affect on their lives. It is common in all cultures to speak on behalf of our ancestors, to speak to them. But when people praise and pay homage to them it makes me wonder what their responses would be? Would th

--> Last week I helped organize an informational meeting at the University of Guam for those wanting to learn more about the potential negative impacts of planned military buildups to Guam. We had a pretty good turnout with around 150 people showing up to hear presentations from the groups We Are Guahan and Our Islands Are Sacred. Help and information was given to those who wanted to submit comments. Although some might criticize the event as being “biased,” in truth all details that were discussed and made available were all produced by the United States Department of Defense through their environmental impact assessments. For those who take issues with what these groups are saying, their critiques all come from things the military itself is stating and claiming. The DEIS, EIS, ROD SEIS are all dense books published by the Department of Defense outlining what their plans are for Guam and what negative or positive impacts are foreseen. If you don’t like the contents of

The movie Battleship is critically reviled and if I were a critic of film I would definitely join the party in hating it. It is a children's game that was blown up Jerry Bruckheimer style into a massive, special-effects laden, clunky, chunky and funky action flick. It lacks any delicate touches or even nuances, unless of course you count slow motion shots of epic faced characters with over-saturated color as a nuance. The story itself should be familiar. Aliens attack the world and they are fought off. One unique aspect of the film is that it takes place in Hawai'i, usually known as a setting for fantasy-paradise jaunts of the Western, American-centered world. Or Hawai'i as a locale is often invisibly inserted into films provided the scenery for ancient jungles, humid alien worlds or lost islands. Many of these films attempt to hide the contemporary nature of Hawai'i and instead film, edit and crop the place into becoming something majestically camera ready for wast