NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

For two weeks there has been non-stop discussions of American exceptionalism across the United States. This has been centered in the national conventions for both of the major parties of the United States, the Republicans and the Democrats. They each proposed different forms of American exceptionalism at least on the surface, one immediately more frightening and menacing, while the other more comforting and friendly. Both of them focused on the idea that the United States is exceptional in history and in the present moment, and holds the keys to human progress and security. But as I've written about before, these conventions are interesting because they represent the last chances for people from the colonies of the United States to participate in American democracy. As people who live in Guam, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, the US Virgin Islands and even the CNMI cannot vote for President of the US (and have no electoral college votes), they get to participate up until this point

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