NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Recently at the Fanhita: Our Continuing Quests for Decolonization, I and the several hundred other attendees received updates on Puerto Rico from Wilma Reveron-Collazo. Her presentation "Puerto Rico Actually" provided a powerful genealogy of Puerto Rico's movement for decolonization, as well as American attempts to keep the island colonized or to hide its continuing colonization.  Puerto Rico occupies an interesting place in the imaginary of Guam. It is a place very distant from us in geographic terms, but we nonetheless share a similar history of Spanish colonialism and a similar present of American colonialism. At a time when Puerto Rico and Cuba were developing their own nationalist and revolutionary movements, the same movements, albeit on a smaller level, were also developing on Guam. Both Guam and Puerto Rico exist in territorial/colonial relationships with the US, although they have different names. Puerto Rico is referred to as a commonwealth, although you wo

The start of each UN Committee of 24 Regional Seminar usually begins with a type of plenary or keynote speech/statement. This is usually a prominent political leader or activist from the country or region that is hosting the seminar or a high-ranking elected official of the host government. As this year's seminar is in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, attendees were treated to a speech by the country's Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves. His speech moved in and out of a variety of different topics, although there was one part that struck closest to home for me. Early on in his remarks he discussed his country achieving their independence almost 40 years earlier. He said that while he was a child raised in colonialism, he had grown into maturity through fighting for independence. For many countries, the birth of their nationhood is far in the past and so those who invoke it, do so across great temporal and rhetorical distance. But for a variety of former colonies, your independence

Achokka' matai si Frantz Fanon kana' bente años åntes di mafañågu yu', Guahu un påtgon Fanon. Gof annok taimanu pinacha yu' nu guiya gi meggai na tinige'-hu, ko'lo'lo'ña gi tinige'-hu para "academia" yan put "decolonization." Hu fine'nina tumaitai gui' anai kumolelehu yu' gi UOG. Gi ayu na tiempo mabababa i hinasso-ku put håfa mismo i estorian i taotao Chamorro yan håfa mismo i estao-ta gi halom i Estådos Unidos. Lao ti gof klåru i hinasso-ku, meggai lumelebok, meggai ti hu gof komprende, ko'lo'lo'ña gi entre i taotao-ta ya sa' håfa na ti ma chachanda i ti gof maolek na estao-ta. Annai hu taitai "The Wretched of the Earth" ha ayuda yu' meggai. Ha nå'i yu' siniente, animu, palabras siha, todu enao, ya ma chonnek yu' mo'na gi este na chalån-hu. Estague un article put si Fanon yan i irensia-ña gi mundon på'go. *********************** Frantz Fanon's

  In my continuing efforts to ensure that I destroy myself I have started up yet another blog. This blog on the website Team Liquid, which is the largest community site for things related to the game Starcraft, will be naturally dedicated to things dealing with the limited amount of time I get to spend gaming every week. This blog will join the scattered and rag tag band of social online media that I try to run. I have this blog that I do not update as frequently as I used to. I have 3 tumblrs. A Twitter account I don't use much anymore. I have a Chamorro email sentence list I send out every day or so. I also have a weekly column in the Marianas Variety. In addition to all of this I am also doing National Novel Writing Month this month and although I already have 3000 words, I feel like I am behind. The title of my Starcraft blog is " The Bamboo Spear. " I love writing about nerd-related things because I like to combine that aspect of my life, with my love fo

Since the earthquake and tsunami in Japan two weeks ago, Guam has been worried about the possibility of nuclear radiation getting into Guam from either the water or from cargo from Japan. People are even concerned about swimming in the water in Tumon or on the western side of the island out of fear that the water might be contaminated. Although almost everyone seems to say that Guam will most likely not be affected by the reactor problems in Fukushima, the issue is still an important once because it strikes at the core of whether or not nuclear energy can be considered a "safe" or "clean" technology. The fact that Japan developed nuclear power has always been somewhat controversial, because of how how radiation and nuclear weapons were used against them in World War II. But Japanese governments for decades have always been very clear that nuclear power was safe and clean and that there was nothing to worry about. That rhetoric has been sorely tested in the past tw

One of my favorite lectures to give in my World History 2 class is the one on Haiti. Especially since the earthquake there earlier this year, I find it truly important to break the silence that surrounds Haiti and its revolutionary history. I was appalled at how through months of coverage over Haiti by media in the United States, the narrative was always the same, tragedy in a third world country. Collapse in a place where collapse and disaster is a way of life. The valiant efforts by the first world in recognizing that suffering and taking steps to alleviate it, to help those helpless souls. Given the scent of human suffering its understandable that they take this angle, but what was left out of their coverage, the historical aspects was also expected but still nonetheless horrifying to watch (or rather to not watch). The media's purpose in this case was to help the people of the US "discover" Haiti. the concept of discovery is always interesting. It has the aura of lea