NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Last year a graphic story that I wrote titled "I Sindålu" was published in the creative anthology Pacific Monsters edited by Margret Helgadottir. It was a fun story, that I thankfully got to write in the Chamoru language, with English translations. It tells the story of a Chamoru soldier who is dealing with the trauma of what he experienced while being deployed in a foreign land. He comes home to Guam and live in a ranch at the edge of the jungle, and begins to feel menaced by the spirits of his ancestors, the taotaomo'na. I really liked writing this story and was happy to see it in print, but I am terrible at promoting things, especially if I'm the one who created it ( ai lokkue'). Here is an interview that I did with the website The Future Fire.   ************************* Sunday, 6 May 2018 Interview with Michael Lujan Bevacqua The Future Fire http://press.futurefire.net/2018/05/interview-with-michael-lujan-bevacqua.html May 2018 I n th

I have been traveling for the past few weeks and struggling while conducting research and giving a variety of presentations, to also finish up a couple of articles. One of them is based on the research I did for the Guam Humanities Council a few years ago for their exhibit Sindålu: Chamorro Journey Stories in the US Military. It was an exciting and interesting project on a variety of levels. I got to share some interesting stories that I've come across in my archival and oral history research, some of which haven't really ever been publicized before. I also got to tackle some issues in terms of understanding or unpacking contemporary Chamoru identity. The veteran subjectivity is so pervasive and somewhat hegemonic in Chamoru culture today, that it ends up taking a great deal of space, even for those who aren't veterans themselves. How many people when talking about issues of decolonization and demilitarization feel a inner need to curb their potential voice, their potenti

There are days, especially given the buffet of political rhetoric over the past few weeks, where I want to just quit my job and follow the presidential campaign in the United States full time. Normally, campaigns at this level, operate based on familiar assumptions. Very little happens, because both candidates, even if they attempt to demonize each other, accept certain basic principles about how their political positions are to be formed and defended. Bernie Sanders to some extent upset things this time around, by pushing a number of ideas and programs to the center, making the Democratic party as a whole contend with them. Trump however has changed everything, simply because of his refusal or inability to play the political games that politicians normally play. I don't mean that as a compliment, as many of his supporters like to point out. There is something attractive about that in certain candidates, as it seems like they would be able to offer a chance to break

I would never want to be the Ti Mambobota na Kongres para Guahan in the US Congress. First of all, so much in Congress works on seniority, and so by starting off you would be as one elder told me "i mas takpapa' na gå'ga'." Second, your status as a non-voting delegate and not a full member of Congress means that while you get the perks, you do not get the rights. Third, your status depends so much on whichever party controls the US House. When the Democrats have controlled the house for a short period in the 1990s and during the 2000s, the non-voting delegates from Guam and other territories received symbolic voting rights, meaning they could vote as part of the whole, with their vote counting, only if their votes did not affect whether a bill passed or failed. When the Republicans are in power, this symbolic power disappears and all the symbolic excitement associated with it. Fourth, as for most of the Federal government (and much of the US) Guam's

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

I worked last year on a project for the Guam Humanities Council titled Sindalu: Chamorro Journey Stories in the US Military, and that topped off more than a decade of doing research and speaking and writing about the effects of militarization on Chamorros and their lands, and also about the central place that militarism as an ideology has in contemporary Chamorro life. This is why Guam is referred to as "the tip of the spear," and why it has been given a number of other nicknames over the years, such as USS Guam, Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier. It is why Liberation Day is the largest holiday on the island each year. It is why Chamorros are thought of as superpatriots sometimes, internally and externally, and why a documentary came out recently titled "Island of Warriors." This is also why Guam has been in the past 2/3 military bases and is today almost 1/3 military bases. This militarized core is understandable given Guam's history. When we look at the past. Wh

--> 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