NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Last week I wrote my column in the Guam Daily Post about the comfort women issue in South Korea and how the governments of Japan and South Korea are working towards a process of restitution over the use of South Korean women as sex slaves during World War II. The issue of the comfort women extends far beyond just South Korea, and is something that affected cultures across Asia and the Pacific. I have been talking more intensely about the comfort women issue over the past year as i nobia-hu Dr. Isa Kelley Bowman has been conducting research into it. It has been difficult for her, as the issue is one shrouded in so many different forms of silence. The lack of writing around the issue in Guam is often thought to be simply a matter of stigma and social shame, with women and their families seeking to keep the issue quiet and not be reminded of what happened. But it is far more complicated than that, and it can be frustrating, how people will accept one level of silence as being the truth

This image is taken from the play Pågat, written by myself and Victoria Leon Guerrero and directed by Michelle Blas. The play was performed at UOG in the Spring of 2014 and received a great deal of attention from the local community. The choreography for the play came from Master of Chamorro Dance Vince Reyes, who has been touring the world recently as a prominent Chamorro folk artist with his group Inetnon Gefpago. This image in particular comes from what he calls the silhouette dance, which was performed to the tune of "Safe and Sound" by Taylor Swift, except sung in Chamorro. It portrays a Chamorro woman during World War II being beaten and raped by a Japanese soldier. She is able to endure however through the help of other women, who support her. The issue of comfort women and sexual violence on Guam has always been something on the edge of my academic consciousness, as during my oral history research it would also pop up, albeit in vague and impossible to pursue ways.

I came across this article while looking for examples about the way American media frames Okinawa, its history, its relationship to the United States, and the "problem" that it presents to US interests. The usual way in which the United States relates to places where it has bases, is through gratitude or lack of gratitude. If the people support the presence of the bases, then the media represents them as appreciative and understanding about how the US, as the greatest country in the history of the world, has helped protect them, develop them, given them freedom and democracy and capitalism. This is the case, even when those countries were former enemies of the United States and the bases were placed there during or after times of war. Even then, the US media and scholarly class has a way of making it seem as if the people there should appreciate the lesson they were taught about the world and global power. Hami i Yu'us, Hamyo taotao ha'.  But if the governments ar

I've been in Japan for two weeks now and things have been quite busy, I haven't had as much time as I would like for blogging or writing. I have been swimming in a sea of small and large differences from my life on Guam. The things each day which strike me slowly or suddenly and remind me that I am in a different part of the world, and that my level of knowledge about Japan, barely scratches the surface of the surface for existence here. Transitioning from Guam, which is very car-centered to life here in Kobe where my life, my cognitive and temporal geography is all dictated by public transportation is a massive shift. One thing caught my eye the other day while I was riding the train. Some trains would have cars with pink signs on them such as the one in the image above. These trains would only for female users of public transportation. When I asked my friend why they had these and were these common throughout Japan, she stated that they were created in response to the fre

At first I was going to put "revisionist history news" as the title for this post, but the more I thought about it, Japan and Germany, those villains of World War II, are cited the most frequently as being the most forgetful and the nations most likely to erase or whitewash their histories. This is a very seductive discursive proposition, because by focusing on the way other nations wish to hide their shameful violent and inhuman past, it can easily make you righteously oblivious to your own nation's terrifying past. The United States certainly shouldn't treat Japan as some terrible white-washer of history, especially when the United States itself is built on genocide and has several national holidays that perpetuate pathetic myths about the origin of the US, rather than acknowledging that genocidal genesis. ********************   Japanese crown prince says country must not rewrite history of WW2 Naruhito makes rare statement on importance of ‘correctly