NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Next Friday,  February  21st, from 4:00 - 5:30 pm, Senators Kelly Marsh-Taitano and Jose "Pedo" Terlaje will be holding the first of their public safety roundtable series called "Håle' Kumunidåt: Social Science Solutions to Drugs, Crime and Other Problems."  Over the past year, the senators have attended many public safety forums and hearings and there has always been a consistent theme from police officers, social workers and others; these issues are complex and have deep roots. To tackle them the island has to use multi-prong well-informed approaches, and the Håle' Kumunidåt roundtable series hopes to provide a space for developing somme of those ideas.  The first roundtable will focus the questions, "How did we get here? What what can we do next?" and we'll be hearing from historians, social workers, political scientists and mental health specialists. The public is invited to attend at the Public Hearing Room of the Guam Congress Buil

I've been lost in Power Point presentations for the past few days. I'll be teaching for the next month at Kobe University in Japan. My course is an accelerated one and so I'm teaching a month-long course in just a week. I don't normally prepare Power Points for any of my lectures in Guam, but since my students here in Japan will be primarily those who did not learn English as a first language, the visuals and potential outline skeleton it provides will help keep them engaged. My course focuses on US militarization in the Asia-Pacific Region, and it will link together US strategic interests from Okinawa, to the Philippines, to Guam, to the Marshall Islands and Hawai'i, while also linking together the popular movements for demilitarization or decolonization against those bases. For me, este kalang un guinife-hu mumagahet. I am been working on this issue as an activist and an academic for many years. In 2011 I published my article "The Gift of Imagination: Sol

The Andrea Smith kao magahet na natibu pat kao mama'natitibu gui', issue has been appearing all over my Facebook lately. I may or may not share much of my thoughts on the issue, but it was interesting how much the issue of Andrea Smith reminded me of Ward Churchill. Both are scholars that have had a huge impact on the representations of Native Americans in scholarly terms. Both of them have have been significant voices that have helped in some ways "mainstream" native American issues or voices. But both are figures who have been challenged in terms of their authenticity. In both cases the issue persists of how questions over their native identity will affect their theories, their legacies and so on. I've included below a series of articles on Ward Churchill's case when he was fired from the University of Colorado. His "Indianness" in terms of his authenticity as a Native American wasn't so much questioned when he came under fire,

What's Going On This Is What It Means For Me To Teach Your White, Privileged Kids Written by Linda Chavers 11/30/2014 http://damemagazine.com/2014/11/30/what-it-means-me-teach-your-white-privileged-kids I'm an educator. I teach English at one of the top independent boarding schools in the world. I'm also a Black woman. With a Masters in English, which qualifies me to teach it, and a Ph.D. in African-American Studies from Harvard University, which, among other things, scares the shit out of everyone. Yet, here I am, in rural New England, teaching the literature of my choice and with an interdisciplinary bent (read: African-American) and how to write the personal essay to a mostly White, upper-class population. And this is a good thing. When applying to grad schools I wrote in my personal statement that my presence in a classroom is a revolutionary act. I fill a space of authority that is still very much White, male and very

Para åpmam na tiempo i hinasson-ña i taotao Guahan gof “colonial” put hafa siña ta ofresi i mundo. Iya Guahan un gof dikike’ yan chågo’ na isla. I Mañamorro un gof dikike’ na taotao, mandåñu nu “colonialism” yan tåya’ esta perfekto puro’ put Guiya yan i kutturå-ña. Tåya’ sibilisaion-ña. Humuyongña, para tiningo’, pi’ot tiningo’ edukasion, siempre tåya’ guini lokkue’. Anggen un hongge este na “colonial” na hinasso, pues edukasion, mismo put i matulaikakå-ña i “local” esta ki i hineggen yan i tiningo’ sanhiyong tumahgue gui’.   I Unibetsedåt Guahan, taiguihi i meggaiña na institusion edukasion gi i estorian Guahan, mafa’tinas ni’ este na klasin hinasso. Gi tinituhun-ña, ha fa’sahnge yan ha hoño’ i tiningo’ i Chamorro ya ha gof representåyi i fuetsan i tiningo’ sanhiyong. Put este, ti mismo membro i unibetsedåt gi kuminidåt, mismo ma’ma’ya gui’ gi hilo’ i taotao guini. I manggaige gi halom i unibetsedåt ma atan papa’ i taotao tano’ ya ti umachetton magåhet i do

In Okinawa, Talk of Break From Japan Turns Serious The New York Times Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence Party, last month. “Independence is an idea whose time has come,” he said. In a windowless room in a corner of a bustling market where stalls displayed severed pigs’ heads and bolts of kimono silk, Okinawans gathered to learn about a political idea that until recently few had dared to take seriously: declaring their island chain’s political independence from Japan. About two dozen people of all ages listened as speakers challenged the official view of Okinawa as inherently part of homogeneous Japan, arguing instead that Okinawans are a different ethnic group whose once-independent tropical islands were forcibly seized by Japan in 1879. Then, to lighten the mood, the organizers showed “Sayonara, Japan!”, a comedy about a fictional Okinawan island that becomes its own little republic. “Until now, you were mocked if you spoke of independence,” said

I have been thinking alot lately about decolonization and the University of Guam. This was one of the primary reasons that I decided to leave island and go off and obtain a Ph.D. So that eventually I could return one day and teach at UOG and help transform the university from an institutional that began with a colonial function, but need not continue to perform it. This is something that is not unique to UOG, but rather something that nearly all educational institutions on Guam participated in for the past few centuries. It is a truism of education today that learning takes place through a movement from that which is familiar to that which is unfamiliar. In order for concepts and ideas to take hold you must first associate it with something familiar and then later can associate with things unfamiliar. This is the most efficient way of learning. To skip the familiar stage can create significant gaps of understanding and also feelings of alienation. UOG in recent years has taken more

"How Do You Like America?" Keiko Matsui Gibson 1994 Taking off from Osaka I saw my mother standing with a handkerchief over her eyes and my father trying to hide a hole in his heart-mind. Then my country blurred. For seven years I have heard: "Where do you come from? China? Korea? Japan? How long have you been in America? Is your family still in Japan? I sure bet they miss you! Did you meet your husband there? Does he speak Japanese? You speak English very well! Where did you learn to speak it? How do you like America?" I pity, fear, and love it. America is huge and sick optimistic and terrifying immature but lovable. Americans' friendly questions dislocated my Japanese bones. I automatically answered like a dog watering its mouth: "I was born in Kyoto, Japan. It is a modern ancient city. I've been in America since Jimmy Carter was President. My parents are still in Osaka. Because I'm an only child we miss eac

Esta måtto ta’lo i tiempo para bei in che’gue ta’lo “Sakkigake Chamorro!” It’s been a while since I did one of these, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it. I never was really an Otaku, but rather an anime dilettante, and so I very rarely go through periods of sleep depriving anima obsession, where I make unwise decisions to stay up for most of the nights reading through back issues of mangas such as MPD Psycho or Gantz (ta'lo !) or start watching an entire season of anime late in the evening, knowing full well that each episode I watch will just make me want to watch one more and the closer I get to the end of the season the more I will be able to convince myself that it is tomtom that I stay awake to finish it. The rest of the time however, my approach to anime is very temperate, ko’lo’lo’ña since I moved back to Guam. While in the states, cheap, sometimes pirated anime on Ebay or at flea markets would constantly feed my habit, on Guam finding titles I’m intere