NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

In just 50 days, more than two dozen Pacific Island nations will gather in Guam for the 12th Festival of Pacific Arts or FESTPAC. Although geographically Guam's presence in the Pacific cannot be questioned, culturally and politically due to its history of colonization, the island and its native people, the Chamorros are regularly treated differently. As if they are a part of the Pacific, yet also exist apart from it as well. There’s a great website out there for those who are colonialism and political status geeks such as myself called Overseas Territories Review . It features regular updates on different currently-existing-colonies out there in the world (most of which are small islands like Guam in the Caribbean or the Pacific) and some commentary on what sort of challenges they might face as they try to change their colonial status. The website is run by Dr. Carlyle Corbin, an expert on decolonization and the various remaining colonies in the world, who

The Chamorro Studies Program (Prugraman Inestudian Chamorro) at the University of Guam is located within the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (Kolehon Atson Liberat yan Siensihan Sosiat). It has existed for four years and was officially launched in October of 2013. It was started by a faculty task force consisting of myself, Anne Perez Hattori, Evelyn San Miguel Flores, Rosa Salas Palomo, Sharleen Santos-Bamba, James Perez Viernes and a handful of others. On October 24th, 2013 a launch event was held which featured panels, performances and also the start of a Chamorro language lecture series titled "The Chamorro Experience gi Fino' Chamorro." The late Chamorro Master Blacksmith Joaquin Flores Lujan or Tun Jack was the speaker for the inaugural event. On that day we signed up seven majors and seven minors into the program. Since that time, the Chamorro Studies Program has organized numerous events and programs all meant at promoting Chamorro language, cultur

When I took Chamorro at the University of Guam I was fortunate in that for CM101 and CM102 I had the same professor, Peter Onedera. As I moved from one to the next there was a smooth transition, we picked up in the second semester easily from where we had left off the semester before. Other students however had different experiences. They would take one professor for CM101 and another for CM102 and often times they would find that two faculty from the same institution would start and end up at completely different for their courses. Even now as I teach Chamorro language at the University of Guam I have noticed these gaps. Sometimes they are minor, but sometimes they can be serious. Part of this problem is the lack of any standardized textbooks that instructors can use to help maintain a continuity between various levels of Chamorro. At present instructors use a variety of materials in order to teach their courses. The books created by Donald Topping, most famous for co-a

Mensahi Ginnen I Gehilo’ #4 “Summer Plans” Earlier this month the Independence Task Force for Guam met to make plans for Summer 2012. Although we have no budget and there is much uncertainty in the formal decolonization process at present, we have decided that this won’t derail our efforts at consciousness-raising. We are determined to continue to promote decolonization and independence for Guam even if the actual self-determination has yet to be finalized, as such activities can be important in and of themselves. The more Guam becomes familiar with ideas of decolonization and independence the better off the island is, because both of these concepts are built around ideas of sustainability and empowerment. Our summer planning meeting was a great success. We laid out the following actions for the summer and will be finalizing everything at our next meeting on July 1 st . 1.      We will hold one community service event over the summer. By July 1 st we will choose the

The highlight of today's trip is a visit to the city of Pyeongtaek to visit the Pyeongtaek Peace Center and also hear the latest news of that community's struggle against the expanding US military bases nearby. In 2006 there was a very big conflict between the residents of two villages who were to be displaced to expand the size of two bases, Osan and Humphreys. Over the years I have heard small snippets of information about what has happened there, seen images of violent repression by police, different tactics of resistance employed by the villagers, and the tragic faces of those who eventually lost their fight and their land. I looked forward to learning more about this area and its history. A note on the title of this post. The first image above is the logo for the Pyeongtaek Peace Center, and I find it a very creative variation on the famous Bible verse, now world peace and UN slogan: They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation