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

My Pacific Daily News columns from the past two weeks focused on Chamorro music and how to determine what makes a great Chamorro song. It didn't pick any favorite Chamorro song, but it was fun thinking about the issues and how one might go about it. Here are the two columns. ******************* The decades since World War II have brought a great number of changes to Chamorro culture and Chamorro life. Practices and trades once considered essential to life have disappeared or been adapted to societal and technological changes. The decline of the Chamorro language is one of the clearest ways you can perceive these changes. But there is one way in which the Chamorro language, even as it was banned in schools and not taught to children in many homes, remained alive and well, and that was in Chamorro music. During a time of rapid Americanization, where Chamorros were actively giving up and tossing away things that had once defined them proudly as Chamorro

If you were to ask me what type of music is my favorite, I will always say Chamorro music. It isn't really that I like every single Chamorro song, but I will purchase every single Chamorro CD or record I can get my hands on, in order to support one of the main ways that the Chamorro language persisted even during the generations which were quietly trying to silence it by not teaching it to their children. Chamorro musicians deserve far more support and credit than most people give them. They are, within recent Chamorro history, the ones who played the most significant, but unheralded role in keeping the language spoken and alive. While most families did not speak it to their children, collections of singers decided to keep using the language to make music, despite immense pressure to simply sing in English and Americanize the way everything else seemed to be going. Within that collection of musicians a few names stand out more than others. There are those who had their names on t

This year for the Inachaigen Fino' CHamoru or Chamorro Language Competition we tried out a new category, Kantan Chamorrita. This style is something unfamiliar to most on Guam today, but was an integral, constant and always oppan part of Chamorro life before the war and even for a few years afterwards. Kantan Chamorrita or Chamorrita refers to a style of social improvisational singing. A verse is started with a familiar tune, and another takes up the song by adding on a verse of their own. Each verse is supposed to be four lines. The tune is simple and doesn't move to fast, but each singer is expected to rhyme the last part of the 2nd and 4th line. In the days before radio was commonplace and stereos, walkmans or iPods existed, this was how people filled the gaps in the air and in time. Singing familiar songs, but making up your own songs with others was something you did while fishing, weaving, farming, partying and so on. But as audio distractions and diversions became eas

I've had a Youtube account for many years now, I think 8 or 9, lao ti siguru yu'. I didn't post many videos for a while, and I'm not sure why, perhaps because I got a better camera a few years ago and with the not that great internet in the various apartments I've lived in, it takes several hours to post videos nowadays. I recently started publishing videos again, after starting a number of video projects and being inspired to engage in this media form. My Youtube videos are frequently shaking and suffer from very bad audio and never edited in anyway. But still they can provide an interesting view into certain events on island and elsewhere. Every once in a while I get a message from someone who couldn't be at an event or who was looking for information on something that has happened in Guam and they thank me for my shaky almost avant garde looking movie. Here are some recent videos that I've posted. A video from the 2011 Inachaigen Fino' CHamor

Bota Fino’ Chamoru! Michael Lujan Bevacqua The Marianas Variety 10/29/14 During the summer, the Hurao Language Camp at the Chamorro Village in Hagatna held several waves along Marine Drive. This is un såkkan botasion, an election year and so waves are about as common as Japanese tourists, with candidates sometimes standing in the early morning and the twilight hours, hoping to make eye contact with you as you speed by. Hurao’s wave was somewhat different. It wasn’t for any particular candidate, instead it was for “Fino’ Chamoru” or the Chamorro language. Children held up signs with “Håyi hao?” and “Hu tungo’ håyi yu’” on them, and shouted out “Bota Fino’ Chamoru!” to those driving by. Johnny’s Sablan’s immortal classic “Mungga Yu’ Mafino’ Inglesi” or “Don’t Speak English to Me” blared in the background. It is that time of the year, when young 18, 19 and 20 year old in my classes, who will be voting for the first time start to wonder about this new ri

The exhibit I worked on for the Guam Humanities Council titled Sindalu: Chamorro Journey Stories in the US Military is currently on display at the Isla Center for the Arts at UOG. As part of the exhibit I've given several scholarly tours to students, teachers and veterans. Although the exhibit itself features so many stories, the interaction with these groups often yields even more stories. Sometimes people will find themselves or their ancestors in the photos. They will offer up another perspective or another facet of someone's anecdote. Sometimes they challenge things and sometimes they express their gratefulness that an exhibit like this has been put together. I teach many aspects of the exhibit in my own classes, but I have appreciated the way the research and writing for the exhibit and then the way I have developed my talk for the tours has led me to really think about the progression of Chamorros and their relationship to the United States, through their military servi

--> English is my mother tongue, in the sense that it is the language that I grew up with and speak most comfortably. It is my first language. It is however not my favorite language, not the best language and certainly not i mas takhilo' para Guahu. I am a non-native speaker of the Chamorro language as I learned to speak it when I was 20 years old. It is natural for me in some ways, but still unnatural in others, primarily when talking about things that are difficult in general to express in a Chamorro lexicon. This is not only something that I struggle with, but as the Chamorro language has become more and more limited in how and where it is used, many people find themselves constantly switching to English since a potential part of their conversation is something few people have actually used the Chamorro language to convey. For example, on the rare occasions that I've tried to discuss Foucault or Derrida in Chamorro, when speaking in general about it, there

It is almost time for Chamorro Month. I'm getting in the mood for it by stretching myself too thin with a sakman-load of projects and presentations. I've also spent the day listening to Chamorro music. Not the usual cha cha style, which has its own merits, but the more conscious Chamorro music. There are so many songs out there that for me have a far greater and deeper message than most Chamorros allows themselves to think about. Those are the songs that fill my soul and keep me going. Johnny Sablan has so many of them. The group Chamorro had half an album filled with them. J.D. Crutch has a couple. K.C. Leon Guerrero one or two. One group which isn't as well known as a group, but is comprised of many famous local musicians is Native Sun, which released the CD "New Horizons." Although most of the songs on the CD are in English it has a definite island feel to it.  The song that stuck out the most for me was "Ko Gaige Hamyo?" o

This past Thursday, the Chamorro Studies Program was proud to feature a lecture by the Queen of Chamorro Music, Flora Baza Quan. She provided the second lecture for the Chamorro Experience gi Fino' Chamorro series. She spoke on topics ranging from her mentors, the stories behind some of her famous songs, what it takes to be a musician on Guam and how Chamorros need to take a stand and start to truly value their own cultural and creative artists in order to sustain them. It was such an incredible honor to have someone like her who has done so much for the Chamorro community to come and share her experience gi Fino' Chamorro.  Below is a short bio about her and her accomplishments. Photos and excerpts from her talk will be shared on the Chamorro Studies Facebook page. Head there to see them. ********************* Flora Baza Quan is a renowned Chamorro singer and songwriter who has been performing and recording for more than thirty years. Known affe

A friend of mine Jesse is planning on creating a blog for collecting Chamorro song lyrics. I fully support her in this endeavor. Creating something like this would be a huge public service for the Chamorro community, not just on Guam, but everywhere. One of the main reasons that brings people to my blog is the presence of lyrics for some Chamorro songs here. There aren't many and they have been posted in scattered ways over the years. Everyday a Chamorro somewhere in the world searches for the lyrics to one of the most famous contemporary Chamorro songs "Apo Magi" by J.D. Crutch. As a result they tend to end up somewhere on this blog. I have some Johnny Sablan lyrics here as well. Music is the key way the Chamorro language has survived, even if it has started to die out in so many other facets of Guam life. It is something that even those don't speak the language enjoy and appreciate. It has helped keep the language as something you hear around the island. You c

Six years ago my grandparents celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary.  We had a large gathering at the Westin Hotel in Tumon. All of my siblings flew in, as did most of my cousins and my grandparents' still living children. The party was lots of fun. I got to meet more family than I can remember. The highlight was the stage where grandma and grandpa sat in their chairs of honor, beaming as friends, family and even a few politicians would come to greet them and pay their respects.  One of the duties I had for the party was to coordinate some singing with the grandkids and great-grandkids. As most songs that grandma and grandpa like are Chamorro songs and everyone except for me could not speak or sing in Chamorro we had to find some songs that were lighthearted, merry and easy to remember, with words easy to pronounce.  One of grandma's favorite songs is "Nobia Kahulo'" and the words for that are simple enough. I taught everyone that

When you look at the pantheon of Chamorro legends and epic stories, there is quite a bit of love there. Unfortunately much of the love is of the tragic variety. All of the various versions of I Puntan Dos Amantes or The Two Lovers all end badly with a lovers suicide taking place in Tumon. Guam's own version of Romeo and Juliet that tells us how the Atbot det Fuego got its red leaves. Even the story of the white lady in Ma'ina has versions about true love gone awry. It makes me wonder sometimes if Ancient Chamorros truly had such a dim and depressing view of love, or if the tragic effects of young love is something that comes after the Spanish and their attacks on Chamorro sexuality and culture? The Spanish accounts talk about the deep love that Chamorros of opposite sexes would have for each other. How they would put that affection into beautiful songs and poems. Once Catholicism dominates Guam and Chamorro life this changes. The love is still there, but now an incredible

Hu sen guaiya dandan Chamoru. Whenever I'm asked what kind of music I enjoy, I can't really name many artists or styles that I really actually like that much, with the exception of Chamorro music. It doesn't really matter what kind of Chamorro music, so long as it uses the Chamorro language I always give it a chance. For instance I tend not to like country music, but I really enjoy Chamorro country music. One of the saddest things about the direction of the Chamorro  language is that since it is declining in use and basically ceasing to be a living language, that means that its chances at adapting and taking of new life are limited. For example, there are Chamorro musicians out there making every type of possible music. But as they branch out and expand their interests and abilities, chances are very slim that they know the language and even slimmer that they have any interest in using the Chamorro language in the new styles that they are playing or composing in. Th