NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

The Department of the Interior is the closest thing the US has to an explicitly colonial office. It is an office that overseas Native American tribes, the insular territories and also has obligations to deal with the freely associated states in Micronesia. It is for this reason probably the most interesting and exceptional place within the entirety of the US federal government. But this mandate is its least important function and one that matters very little in terms of general US interests or imagining. Overall its role in terms of managing national parks and providing oversight to resource extraction is far more visible. It is for this reason that in the general debate that is taking place within the US over Confederate monuments and attempts to whitewash and minimize racist and immoral parts of America's past, the Department of Interior enters the debate, not in terms of the Confederacy itself, but the way that certain heroes of American history, also participated in projects

Meggai malago' yu' bei sångan put si Donald Trump yan i sinangån-ña (yan håfa ti ha sångan lokkue') put i nina'triste giya Charlottesville.  Fihu ilek-hu na ti hongge'on i bidadå-ña si Trump. Ya siempre ti siña ha ikak este na malabida pat este na eskareng. Lao atan ha', kulang un chatpago yan sen mutong na fafa'tinas milagro este na taotao. Sigi ha' ha na'långga yan na'manman yu', kada simåna.   Meggai malago' yu' na bai hu sångan, lao ti nahong i ora på'go, guaha meggai otro cho'cho'.  Lao este ha' malago' yu' na bei ensima gi kombetsasion.  Gof na'chalek yan "ironic" na i manapå'ka, ko'lo'lo'ña i manracist, fihu ma såsangna na manchenglong i manminorities gi i manma'pos na tiempo. Gi fino' Ingles, "they are stuck in the past." Ma sångan este, sa' i manAfrican Amerikanu par otr ti apå'ka na råsa siha, guaha ma keketulaika gi halom i Estådos Uni

I took this picture of the Hong Kong skyline while atop Victoria Peak, while I was there last week.  Being in Hong Kong I was reminded of Carlton Skinner, who was the first civilian governor of Guam during the time of the passage of the Organic Act.  Skinner is an interesting figure in Guam history, someone who was of critical importance, but who has received little to no attention from the island (save for a plaza that was named for him, that was demolished to make way for the Guam Museum).  He had been a progressive person for his time, helping to racially integrate units for the US Navy during World War II.  He sometimes joked that he must have gotten the job as Governor of Guam because it was an island filled with brown people and he had captained ships fill with black people.  He is known for helping set up the local government, but also facilitating the legalization of the illegal land-takings by the US mili tary during the immediate postwar years.    While se

LEARN MORE ABOUT RECENT THREATS TO CHAMORRO RIGHTS AT INDPENDENT GUÅHAN’S MARCH GENERAL ASSEMBLY THURSDAY Educational Presentations will focus on the Davis vs. Guam case, the Chamorro Land Trust and moving forward towards self-determination For Immediate Release, March 20, 2017 – Independent Guåhan invites the public to its monthly General Assembly (GA) on Thursday, March 23rd from 6 – 7:30 p.m. at the Main Pavilion of the Chamorro Village in Hagåtña. This month’s educational presentations will focus on the need to respect the Chamorro people in their quest to self-determination in light of current actions on behalf of the US Federal Government deeming the decolonization plebiscite and Chamorro Land Trust, “race-based discrimination”. In honor of Mes Chamoru, the meeting will be bilingual in both English and Chamorro. Eartlier this month, Federal Justice France Tydingco-Gatewood ruled that a non-binding decolonization vote for Guam’s native inhabi

The late French philosopher Jacques Derrida referred to “justice” as a term we use for impossible things. It is a word that we use for things that we can’t ever seem to resolve, about the problems of the past and the present. When a wrong is committed, justice is the word we use for things done in the name of fixing the problems that emerge from that violence, from that harm. But there is no precise science to justice, no easy way to agree upon what is the appropriate means of making amends for something. Criminal justice systems, restorative justice, reparations, apologies, these are all ways that we try to channel the trauma of the past. There is no equation for justice equivalence. Whatever happens in the name of justice will either be too much or too little. It cannot replace what was taken away, or those who have to give up something in the name of past wrongs will insist that they shouldn’t have to sacrifice for the sins of others. But the conversation and the process of de

--> Na'fanlilisto hamyo! Esta mamagi i finakpo'. Esta siña ta lili'e'. Tåya' otro siña masukne para este.  ******************* "American and the Abyss" by Andrew Sullivan New York Magazine 11/3/16 The most frustrating aspect of the last 12 months has been the notion that we have been in a normal, if truly ugly, election cycle, with one extremely colorful and unpredictable figure leading the Republican Party in an otherwise conventional political struggle over policy. It has been clear for months now, it seems to me, that this is a delusion. A far more accurate account of the past year is that an openly proto-fascist cult leader has emerged to forge a popular movement that has taken over one of the major political parties, eroded central norms of democratic life, undermined American democratic institutions, and now stands on the brink of seizing power in Washington. I made this argument at length in April , when Donald Trump