NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Okinawa Activists on Guam to Share Struggles and Support Community’s Request to Halt Construction of Marines’ Range at Northwest Field   FOR IMMEDIATE NEWS RELEASE (October 23,2017 – Hagåtña)   A community collective comprised of members of Independent Guåhan, Prutehi Litekyan: Save Ritidian, the Guåhan Coalition for Peace and Justice, Fuetsan Famalao’an and the University of Guam’s Women and Gender Studies Program are collaborating to host a week-long visit with a group of grassroots activists from Okinawa called No Helipad Takae Resident Society.   The No Helipad Takae Resident Society is committed to protecting their village, which is the location of the Yanbaru Rainforest, the main source for fresh drinking water in Okinawa and home to thousands of endemic species, many of which are listed as critical or endangered.  In 1957, the U.S. military began using the Northern Training Area in the Yanbaru rainforest as a jungle warfare-training site for U.S.

Liberation Day is always proposed as being a day of remembering, but it is the ultimate day when Chamorros forget. When all the realities of militarism, imperialism, colonialism all around them become even more muted and dull and obscured than usual. When so many of the problems that exist around us, about our place or non-place in the world, are drowned out, engulfed within a cascade of red, white and bull. The critiques are choked out of our mouths, as the patriotism deluge fills us up, meant to shut up those who feel like asking questions. This article provides some good reminders. **************** Colonialism and America's Imperial Agenda in the Pacific: US to 'Rebalance" Military in Guam to Counter China and North Korea http://silentcrownews.com/wordpress/?p=3303 Silent Crow News by Timothy Alexander Guzman Guam, an Island nation of 160,000 people has been a victim of Imperialism dating back to the 16th century.  More than 65,000 of the population are

 I'm excited this summer because I'll be a visiting scholar in Japan at Kobe University. I'll be teaching a course on transnational relations that focuses on militarization and militarism in the Asia-Pacific region. I'll be using two books for the course Militarized Currents edited by Setsu Shigematsu and Keith Camacho and The Bases of Empire edited by Catherine Lutz. Catherine Lutz has been a friend of Micronesia for a very long time and last came through Guam a few years ago. Here work is very important in terms of giving a structure to militarization and militarism and not just letting them be things taken for granted as natural parts of life, but being able to drawn them out of the background here and force them to become objects of analysis and critique. Her work when she came through Guam and gave several presentations and even testified in front of the Guam Legislature was very eye-opening to people about the nature of military bases and how they affect the c

One of Chamorro singer K.C. Leon Guerrero’s most famous songs (and he totally has so many) is Guam U.S.A, which features the very catchy and memorable line that Guam is Good/ Guam is hot/ Guam is just such a little spot . Most people, even those who don’t know anything really about Guam would agree that Guam is truly just a little spot, and that in the context of global events and world history, it doesn’t really matter that much. Even for those of us who live on Guam and love Guam, we might be inclined to agree that even if this little spot is great, it’s still just a little spot. The Guam history book Destiny's Landfall for instance has a heavy ideological load to bear in terms of what story it is supposed to tell and what its own historiographical assumptions require. The book is supposed to be about Guam, it is the most comprehensive history book written about Guam up to this day, but it is also a story about Guam and its meeting with its "destiny," which over the co

Earlier this year a group of UOG students started a group called Apathy is Easy. They have a blog titled Do You Care and right now they are looking for submissions . Here's an excerpt the post seeking submissions: For those who have been keeping up with this blog and our budding group "Apathy Is Easy", let us all Thank you for the support and participation. Now, onto business. Our purpose is to provide a forum, a forum for those who have no voice, for those who cower in the shadows as their purpose and intent become blurred. We challenge you, all, the world to show these issues that there are people in the world that care enough about them to defend them. We give a place for these issues to be expressed, to be free of judgment and harsh criticism. So, what are you waiting for? Write, Recite, Draw, Paint, Sketch, Produce a video, Make music, anything that shows YOU out there, CARE. We are asking for submissions, submissions that demonstrate that you actually care abou