NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Independent Guåhan October General Assembly will commemorate the history of Chamoru petitions for self-determination For Immediate Release, October 21, 2019-  Independent Guåhan (IG) invites the public to attend their upcoming General Assembly (GA) to take place on Thursday, October 24 th from 6:00-7:30 pm at the Main Pavilion of the Chamorro Village in Hagåtña. This month’s GA will commemorate the more than a century of petitions by the Chamoru people for improvements in their political status. In this spirit, the group will honor as  Maga’taotao  the late Senator Francisco R. Santos, a long-serving local leader. Within months of the US takeover of Guam in 1898, the Chamoru people were already politely requesting improvements in their political status. Dozens of petitions were sent to the US Congress and the US Navy prior to World War II, some bearing thousands of signatures asking that the US improve the political status of the Chamoru people, whether by granting US citize

Citizenship Questions and Honoring the Late Speaker Carlos Taitano are the focus for Independent Guåhan’s September General Assembly For Immediate Release, September 17, 2018  Independent Guåhan (IG) invites the public to attend our September General Assembly (GA) on Thursday, September 27th, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. at the Main Pavilion of the Chamorro Village in Hagåtña. These assemblies are part of IG’s efforts to educate the community on the need for Guåhan’s decolonization and the potentials for our independence. This month’s GA will focus on what form citizenship might take in an independent Guåhan.  At each GA , Independent Guåhan honors a   maga’taotao : a notable figure that has helped guide the island and the Chamoru people on their quest for self-determination. For September, IG will be honoring the late Carlos Pangelinan Taitano, who was a World War II veteran, Speaker for I Liheslaturan Guåhan and an instrumental figure in helping get the Organic Act passed for Guåh

2000 was the last time that Guam had a significant and focused conversation around political status. There had been campaigns, big and small, around commonwealth or constitutions. Each time there were discussions, community events and also sometime of plebiscite. 2000 was the last time that there was a big community push around the issue, as that was the year a plebiscite was scheduled and some funds made available for public education. This came after commonwealth had died or stalled in the US Congress, and it was decided to start the process over by having a new plebiscite to help determine the direction of future political status negotiations. This new start to the process never really came. The 2000 plebiscite was delayed several times and never took place. I recently went through more than a year of the Pacific Daily News to get a sense of that time, and came across dozens of letters to the editor and articles dealing with the plebiscite and the three sta

One of the things that I take pride in, is that this blog has been around for a while and that I've been able to maintain it continuously for 12 years now. Most of the Chamorro related or Guam related websites that existed when I first started this blog are no longer around. They have been taken down, lost, morphed into something else. Many of the people are still around, but they have moved on to other social media platforms. At one point the Free Association for Guam Task Force had a website. Nasion Chamoru had a website on an AOL platform, although it is now on Blogger (like this blog). The Statehood for Guam Task Force still has a website. A number of social websites or personal blogs have disappeared, and every once in a while I wonder what has become of those people. Below is a short article written by former Senator Mark Charfauros, who was an active member of Nasion Chamoru in the 1990s. This was published 16 years ago on the website "Dialogue Between Nations"

For the past few years, two legal cases have overshadowed the quest for decolonization in Guam. One of them is the infamous Davis case or Arnold Dave Davis v. the Government of Guam, over the alleged violation of his constitutional rights, that a decolonization plebiscite would entail. Taya' ganas-hu para bei pacha este na suheto pa'go. Buente bei fangge' put este gi otro biahi pat tinige'. The other case is Tuaua v. The United States, which represents a challenge to the Insular Cases, or the century's worth of legal cases in the United States that formalize their colonial control over their territories such as Guam, American Samoa and Puerto Rico.  American Samoa's relationship to the United States is perhaps even more interesting than Guam's. Although they are a territory and a colony as well, because of the particularity of their history, they are less intimately connected to the US than Guam is. They are technically an "unorganized unincorpo

They say that what makes humans different than most other living creatures is their ability to visualize. To act not based on instinct or need or reaction to stimuli, but to hold within their mental processing an amalgamation of temporal moments, some of which have already happened and some of which could or never will happen. Humans therefore have the ability to strategize and adapt better than others, potentially. It also means they have a greater ability than any other species to lie to itself, to trick itself out of seeing obvious things and believing obvious things. To form intensely and exhaustively convoluted explanations for things, in order to keep them from being realized or understood, to suppress truth, to find ways to twist and neuter it. People become so attached to the current moment, in the same way the white at the crest of a wave feels dependent upon the particular form of the wave in order for it to exist. This attachment makes them see everything they can behind

 A very comprehensive article about the history of the United States focusing on the way in which so many have sought to legitimize its existence even though it is clearly based on violence and lies. While for many attached to the US, this history is unimportant or irritating, for Native peoples it is essential, it cannot and should not be forgotten. It is a story of genocide and stolen sovereignty. It is the formation of a great net of lies which others use to trap you and your existence, to keep you small, to keep you away, to try to neutralize your past, present and potential future. The writer is Mark Charles, a Navajo. Link to his blog is also included below. ********************* "The Doctrine of Discovery: A Buried Apology and an Empty Chair" By Mark Charles Reflections From the Hogan 12/22/14  http://wirelesshogan.blogspot.com/2014/12/doctrine-of-discovery.html Picture a chair, an empty chair. There are dozens, even hundreds, of them sitting on the stage

Published on Wednesday, July 3, 2013 by The Guardian Edward Snowden: A Whistleblower, Not a Spy by Guardian Editorial It is now 10 days since the former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden , source of the Guardian's NSA bugging revelations, flew out of Hong Kong, apparently en route to Ecuador. For 10 days he has been stalled at Moscow airport, while his passport has been annulled and repeated attempts to continue his journey to sympathetic jurisdictions have failed or been foiled. Over the weekend, Ecuador aborted the idea that he might find sanctuary in Quito. Mr Snowden submitted a request for political asylum in Russia, later withdrawn. Several other asylum bids also faltered at the start of this week. On Tuesday, Mr Snowden remained in Moscow, still dependent on the Russians while waiting on the apparently diminishing chance of being welcomed elsewhere around the wo