NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Back in September, I spent an afternoon with Håle’ Para Agupa’, a Chamoru cultural group based in the Washington D.C. area. It was an enriching and energizing afternoon. The fafa’na’gue of the group Teresita Guevara Smith organized a gathering of young and old, and I gave a presentation about Chamoru language and culture, and even a short language lesson.  Wherever I go, in Guam, the CNMi or even the diaspora, I am always encouraged to see Chamorus wanting to learn more about who they are as a people and want to do more to keep culture and language alive. After all, for a group that numbers perhaps only 200,000 in the world, we always have to ask ourselves, “anggen ti hita, pues håyi?” When it comes to preservation and revitalization of our heritage, if we won’t do it, who else will? This is an issue that Chamorus have to confront sooner rather than later, especially in light of the fact that more Chamorus now live outside of the Marianas. The realities of cultural maintenan

One of the aspects of Chamorro life that has frequently haunted me and frustrated me is the division between Chamorros in the Marianas and those who come from the diaspora, primarily the United States. It is a division that so much is made about in everyday conversation, which amounts to very little when you interrogate it. There is often times a perception that those from the diaspora are stuck-up, more Americanized and are completely disconnected from their culture and their identity. There is some truth to this, because much of what we get in terms of our identity has more to do with proximity and frequently than actual choices. You feel a certain way about yourself or you struggle with your identity in certain ways based on what you see around you, although there is always some element of personal agency or choice. Because of this, if you are born in Guam or the CNMI, chances are good you will generally know more Chamorro words or slang. You may know more Catholic songs. You may

Several years ago this poem was used in the Inacha'igen Fino' CHamoru at the University of Guam as part of the poetry recitation category. This is a Middle School category where students have to memorize and then recite a poem written in the Chamorro language. I was honored that year when the other Chamorro teachers, who were and continue to be far more versed than I am in the Chamorro language, asked me if I would be so kind as to submit something. I had written this poem years earlier, while I was in grad school and working my way through a few books by Indian poets and authors such as Rabindranath Tagore. At that point I was fluent in Chamorro, but constantly feeling alone in the language as I was staying in San Diego and couldn't always make it out to the Guam Club in National City for the senior lunches or the nobenas. During that period I ended up translating hundreds of poems and songs, some of which you can find archived on this blog, in an effort to keep my min

The Chamorro Diaspora Michael Lujan Bevacqua The Marianas Variety April 23, 2016 I spent five years of my life in San Diego while I was attending graduate school there at UCSD. It was an interesting experience that truly helped to shape and deepen my understanding of Chamorros as a people today.    We may see Chamorros as tied to home islands in the Marianas, but the reality is that more than half of the Chamorro people live in the United States in what scholars refer to as “the diaspora.” For most of my life, I have moved back and forth between Guam and this diaspora — spending a few years in Guam and then a few years in Hawai’i, a few more years in Guam, a few more years in California and so on. Although people tend to conceive of Chamorros as being either the “from the island” or “from the states” variety, there has, since the revoking of the military’s postwar security clearance, been a constant back and forth migration of Chamorros. Individuals and fami

Sometimes I get depressed about the state of the Chamorro language. Whenever I am talking to an elderly Chamorro about how our language is dying and the culture is being forgotten and I see them speaking to their grandchildren in English, it makes me want to explode. Everytime I hear elders complain about the young today and how soft and weak and spoiled they are, but who allow their children to be glued to iPads at dinner or in public, it makes me want to run away. When I sit in a meeting where everyone thinks that the solution to the saving of the language lies with an app, or software, but ignores that basic fact that what we really need is just more inter-generational use of Chamorro, the speaking of Chamorro not across a generation, but rather between generations, I want to set something on fire. Whenever I have a conversation with someone who tells me that Chamorro is only supposed to be used like this, or is only meant to talk about this or that, and doesn't want to expan

I will be in the Southern California area at the end of this month for the upcoming Chamorro Cultural Festival in San Marcos (on March 28th). I went out to it last year and did some outreach for UOG and Chamorro Studies and had a wonderful time. Since we are supposed to begin building our online certificate program in Chamorro Studies this summer, I felt it would be good to go back out and keep people up to date of what we've been doing and keep networking. In addition to the Chamorro Cultural Festival I'll also be helping with the FESTPAC diaspora auditions. Next year Guam will become the most important place in the Pacific for two weeks as it hosts the largest arts and culture festival in the region. For this event Guam CAHA is including a group of people from the diaspora as part of the delegation. These auditions and workshops will take place the day after the Chamorro Cultural Festival, the 29th in San Diego. I'll also be doing more UOG/Chamorro Studies outreach

I completely neglected this during the past year, even though I would remember it every once in a while. 2014 was the ten-year anniversary of the starting of this blog, "No Rest for the Awake - Minagahet Chamorro." I first began it in 2004, while I was preparing for graduate school in San Diego, California. At that time I was running several websites with the help of a few other people, some of whom I haven't been in contact with for close to ten years. It was a place for me to vent thoughts, share ideas, get the word out about things. It has been by now something that countless high school, middle school and college students use for their research papers. It is something that even other scholars have used on occasion for theoretical points. I have posted on this blog 2121 times and it has been visited over 900,000 times. Over the course of this blog's life I have had two children, finished a Ph.D., lost both my grandmothers, testified at the United Nation

Eight years ago on my blog, I started a series titled "Paluman Marianas," meant to feature different native birds of the Marianas and my drawings or paintings of them. I only did one, for I Tettot or the Marianas Fruit dove, and never got around to posting another one. I have plenty of drawings and paintings that feature Guam's birds, in fact with my daughter Sumahi, I've added quite a few more. Sumahi loves to draw in general, but I've tried to teach her as much as I can about the native birds of the Marianas. She can name many of them, probably more than most kids nowadays. But sharing this part of our heritage with her reminded me of my long forgotten series of Paluman Marianas. I wanted to add another one today, #2: I sihek, the Micronesian Kingfisher. ************** Micronesian Kingfisher - Guam Information courtesy of http://guamendangeredbirds.com/wst_page4.html The Micronesian kingfisher (Halcyon cinnamomina cinna

I am exhausted right now, but it is the yinafai i gaitininas, the exhaustion of the righteous as one of my friend states. As she likes to joke it is as my blog says, the feeling that there is "no rest for the awake." This weekend I manned a booth at the Chamorro Cultural Festival in San Diego on behalf of Chamorro Studies at the University of Guam. We are in the process of developing an online Chamorro Studies certificate program. UOG President Robert Underwood sent me to California and Hawai'i to network with Chamorros and Guam clubs to gauge the interest in offering a program like this. I expected the response to be positive, but nowhere near as positive and excited as it was today. Nearly every single person who stopped by the booth signed up expressing their interest in what we want to offer. It was a day filled with plenty of interesting moments and stories. Chamorros from all shapes, sizes, colors and levels of consciousness came up to me sharing their opinions

March 29, 2014 Chamorro Cultural Festival San Diego, CA 10 am - 6 pm DIRECTIONS to the Chamorro Cultural Festival - March 29, 2014: Market Creek Plaza is near the corner of Euclid Avenue and Market Street, near the three corners that situate the Tubman-Chavez Multi-Cultural Center, the Malcolm X Library, an d the Elementary Institute of Science. The Plaza's bright and unique architecture is instantly recognizable. Market Street Plaza 310 Euclid Ave., San Diego, CA 92114 (Corner of Market St. and Euclid Ave.) By Car From Downtown, drive east on Market Street and turn right at Euclid Avenue, or go east on the Martin Luther King Freeway (94) and exit at Euclid Avenue going south. Turn right to get to Market Creek Plaza. From Interstate 5, go east on the Martin Luther King Freeway (94) and exit at Euclid Avenue. Turn right to get to Market Creek Plaza. From East County, go west on the Martin Luther King Freeway (94) and exit at Euclid A

Gaige yu' gi Tumblr . I am on Tumblr. Ti ya-hu mureblog. I do not like to reblog. Hu rikokohi gi iyo-ku Tumblr, i fina'tinas-hu I am collecting in my Tumblr, things I have made. I ltratu-hu siha ginen i isla-ku. My pictures of my island. I litratu-hu siha ginen i hinanao-hu siha My pictures of my trips. Infotmasion put i che'cho'-hu gi koleho yan gi kuminidat. Information about my work at UOG yan in the community. Parehu i ison-niha yan este na blog, lao mas ha aguiguiguiya i fina'litratuh siha iyo-ku Tumblr. My tumblr and my blog have the same purpose, lao my Tumblr is primarily for visuals. Ti meggai iyo-ku followers (dadadalaki siha). I don't have that many followers. Lao kada biahi na umafakcha'i ham yan un follower, nina'gof magof yu'. But each time I meet a new follower, it makes me very happy. Ti pinacha' i korason-hu anai ma sangani yu' na ma li'e' yu' gi PDN. It doesn't do much

Published on Sunday, January 12, 2014 by Common Dreams Toll of U.S. Sailors Devastated by Fukushima Radiation Continues to Climb by Harvey Wasserman The roll call of U.S. sailors who say their health was devastated when they were  irradiated while delivering humanitarian help  near the stricken  Fukushima  nuke is continuing to soar. So many have come forward that the progress of their federal class action lawsuit has been delayed.   U.S. sailors irradiated while delivering humanitarian help near the stricken Fukushima nuke say their health has been devastated. Bay area lawyer Charles Bonner says a re-filing will wait until early February to accommodate a constant influx of sailors from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and other American ships. Within a day of Fukushima One’s March 11, 2011, melt-down, American “first responders” were drenched in radioactive fallout. In the midst of a dri