NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Last year I gave a presentation to a high school class here on Guam about the way we can understand Guam history, its trends, its tendencies, its cycles through various Chamorro sayings. For some reason, today I have that presentation on my mind. I undertake a similar activity in my World History and Guam History courses. In order to understand what history as a concept is, I don't give students definitions per se, instead I give them 28 - 30 quotes that people have said about history and its characteristics, its importance or its irrelevance. No single quote is meant to encapsulate everything or explain and cover everything, but rather they each provide some texture to aspects, some structural understanding or descriptions to tendencies. History in the mind of one scholar is an essential part of human activity, for another it is an illusion, a means of trying to imagine control over things you have no control over. I find the complicated mess that the quotes crea

The "mad as hell" monologue from the film Network. I'm thinking about translating it into Chamorro this week. This past week I was having my students write letters in Chamorro to politicians and someone mentioned how "mad" they should be in their letter. As mad as you want to be. Na'chilong i siniente-mu yan i tinige'-mu. Sometimes, as the monologue makes very clear, sometimes the fury, the catharsis can be the cleansing of the soul, the clearing of the mind that can allow strategic action. Other times it can be something which ends up being enjoyed as the action itself, rather than the first step to political action. That dangerous step of boldly and angrily declaring yourself out of agency or activity. I remember last year when the elected officials at Adelup and at the Legislature quietly passed for themselves a pay increase. The amount of anger that appeared was significant. For a few days it was everywhere. People would randomly speak out it.

Ya-hu este na mensahi. Gof tahdong na mensahi este. Meggai mamamaisen put taimanu na sina mandana' pat manunu i Chamorro siha. Hu komprende na na'malago' este na guinife, lao i chalan para ayu ti tunas, sen matahlek. Sina ta imahina ayu, lao ti sina ta na'magahet ayu. Achokka' sina manomlat todu i taotao-ta gi unu na palabra "Chamorro" guaha meggai na diversity gi ayu na palabra ha'. Guaha diferentes na dinilitreha. Guaha diferenestes na hinasso put hafa i Chamorro. Guaha ti yan-niha i palabra "Chamorro" sa' maayao ayu ginen i Espanot. Guaha ti yan-niha i Chamorro sa' ga'o-'niha i palabra "Guamanian." Guaha pa'go ma aguguiguiyi i palabra "Taotao Haya" para i mas natibu na na'an-ta. Guaha lokkue' ma propoponi na ta tulaika i na'an - taotao-ta para "taotaomo'na," sa' Hita i manmo'na na taotao guini gi este na patten Pasifiku.  Este na diferensia put

One thing that I often try to impress upon people, especially those who want to become activists and get involved in struggles in Guam against things such as militarization or in favor of things such as decolonization, is the importance of understanding the nature of your fight and what you are up against. One of the key advantages to considering social movements in war terms is that it helps you understand better that feeling right or being right has close to no effect on whether or not you win your battles. The only way in which that feeling of righteousness would carry any significance is if you believe that God is the ultimate judge in terms of who wins and loses on the battlefield and so strategy and planning matters little when all rests in his His hands. Sureness in your cause and the need for your fight can help bring you to the fray and keep you there, but if anything it can actually hurt your ability to strategize perceive the discursive field that awaits your interventions

This week I am in California meeting with Chamorro organizations in Long Beach and San Diego. When I was in graduate school in San Diego, I worked very closely with several of these organizations. It has been nostalgic coming back and catching up with people and learning about what new projects they are working on and what are new ways that diasporic Chamorros are creating community. All of this reminded me of a question that a friend of mine asked me several years ago about what community building is like from a Chamorro perspective. Below is part of my answer tomorrow. *********************** It is important to think of community development not from any neutral or abstract stance, but rather take seriously the context that one intends to develop within, and by context I a huge number of things that must be considered both in the past and present. In conceiving this context, and forming it in a productive way, one must be prepared to bring into the analy

I don't normally go onto websites to read through comments, but I was intrigued by the recent story about Senator Mana Silva Taijeron's husband going ballistic at Unatalan Middle School. After talking to a teacher that works there, it seemed pretty cut and dried as to what happened. The father of the student was clearly angry and upset at the prospect of his daughter being bullied, but his behavior probably shouldn't be excused as aggressive caring. He behaved in a reckless way towards students at the school and towards staff there, and made assumptions about his daughter being mistreated or not being taken care of when he really had no idea what was going on, and didn't want to listen to anyone explain the situation to him. Since its an election year I expected the comments to be pretty divided between Democrats and Republicans. Then I remembered that on Guam the difference between Democrat and Republicans doesn't really exist, and is generally just based on wh

Bluem Pacific will be hosting its first Film Workshop Series on September 2nd 2012! Explore how to write a script, get tips and advice on acting, learn how to choreograph awesome fight scenes, and much more at the UOG Lecture Hall starting at 3pm! All workshops will be intro-styled workshops, so don’t you dare be intimidated about anything! Following the workshops, is a film showcase exhibiting 100% locally produced films that promote culture appreciation, environmental care, and community development! Both the Film Workshop series & the Film Showcase will be FREE!? Wow Wee!!! *IMPORTANT INFO – All workshop participants under 18 years of age must have a parent/legal guardian present to register. Registration begins at 230PM in the UOG Lecture Hall. Event Location: UOG Lecture Hall (between The English and Communications Bldg and The Humanities and Social Sciences Bldg) Workshop Series: 3PM to 6PM Film Showcase: 6PM to 9PM The mission of Bluem Pacific is:

Cleaning Up for an Independent Guam Guam’s Independence Task Force to Clean West Hagåtña Beaches Sat. The Independence Task Force Committee and the Hagåtña Mayor’s Office are working together to clean the beaches along the Liberation Day parade route this Saturday morning. The cleanup will begin at 6 a.m. at the beach across from the GCIC building. It is one of the first community events the recently revived Independence Task Force has organized, and it reflects an important goal of the group – to work toward a sustainable future for Guam. “Our group is concerned about the well-being of our community,” says Jon Guerrero, who organized the cleanup. “This beach cleanup will not only help beautify our community, but it will also be a great opportunity to learn more about our right to self-determination, and to learn what independence for Guahan would look like for our community.”   The Independence Task Force is inviting members of the community to join them in the clea

Naming is necessary in life, but there is always a violence that accompanies is. When you name something you cut it off from something. You give it an identity and also take away a multitude of other possible identities at the same time. The most fundamental way in which we can feel this is through the simple assertion of “I.” To speak, you must presuppose a self who can speak, from which the thoughts, the discourse, the words, the responsibility can originate. But when you do so, you create a barrier that implicitly disconnects you from the world. Language has the interesting quality of both making you feel part of something, but alienating you at the same time. When you speak, you reach out into the word and try to make sense of the person next to you, the things you see around you, but as you, you cannot help but feel as if you actually have no control over things. Language is a terrible lover. He or she can make you feel as if you are truly loved and he or

Check out this article below from KUAM. It deals with meetings that the Federated States of Micronesia Association of Guam had in order to draw up some plans on how to deal with violence and crimes that are being attributed to the Micronesian community of Guam, in particular the Chuukese. They even created an education plan with alot of ideas on how to alleviate the social problems within Micronesian communities and those which spill out into the general public. I don't want to speak to the specific issue of Micronesians in Guam, as the available language and ideas makes it almost impossible to have a productive conversation. The "Micronesian problem" is what it is usually referred to as, and it is a textbook example of how a class or group of people become associated, in a way which becomes too commonsensically and too natural, with the ills of the world. Every society has problems, and every ethnic group has problems or roles in creating those problems. The problem

From We Are Guahan : In order to engage and educate the public on the "Compatibility Sustainability Study" or "CSS", We Are Guåhan is inviting you to join us: at a village meeting on November 16, 2011 at the Yigo Senior Center (next to the Yigo Softball Field) from 6:00pm – 8:00pm The purpose of the CSS is to protect the quality of life for all residents of Guam. The village meeting is an opportunity to learn more about issues discussed in the CSS such as land use, noise, health and affordable housing. For example, according to the CSS, the number of helicopter operations at Andersen Air Force Base will more than double by 2014 to over 100 flights a day. The CSS also states that there will be about 400 airplane operations a day at Andersen. The noise from airplanes and helicopters flying overhead will affect over 2,500 residents in Yigo and Dededo. The CSS gives our leaders an opportunity to proactively address issues such as night-time flights over ou

I often use militarism or militarization as negative terms, concepts which describe things that I don't like or wish to see less of, but in truth, the terms are not inherently wrong. Both are terms which are meant to describe a way of bringing into being aspects of a conversation all societies have, the key points of which deal with security, fear, love, peace, borders and other things which are fundamentally about trust and violence. Every community has to ask itself what will the nature of their "defense" be and what will the nature of their "offense" be to certain contexts, to crimes, to attacks, to threats or just general fear. Militarism and militarization are ways in which that debate manifests usually as responses which lean towards violence, fear, offense, death and so on. Every society creates a way of defending itself, and every society has a conversation about how best to do that. What their values are and whether or not said militarism reflects their