NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Each month Independent Guåhan honors a Maga'taotao or an elite, pioneering or noble person, who has fought hard in some way for the rights of the Chamorro people, especially in terms of self-determination. This month we are honoring the late Clotilde "Ding" Castro Gould who was a war-survivor, an educator, author, song-writer and a master story-teller. She is best known for her creation of the Chamorro language comic strip Juan Malimanga, which appears in the Pacific Daily News six times a week and her role in helping develop the bilingual and bicultural education program in Guam’s public school system. Tan Gould was also a member of PARA (People's Alliance for Responsible Alternatives) and OPI-R (Organization of People for Indigenous Rights), and as a political activist fought hard for the right to self-determination of the Chamorro people.  Para Guahu, there is an extra dimension to this honor, as I, through my work in the Chamorro Studies Program

Earlier this year, as part of the annual Guam International Film Festival or GIFF festivities, longtime juror and supporter of the festival Tom Brislin, who is a professor of film at University of Hawai'i, Manoa gave a presentation on the need for Chamorros to join the larger conversation in the Pacific about preserving cultural intellectual property and also developing an infrastructure to help make future film project in the region more accountable to the lands and the lives of which they are making use. He referred to a number of issues in Hawai'i, New Zealand and Australia, where traditional culture was being snatched up and copyrighted by corporations such as Disney, and how the cultures of the Pacific continued to be portrayed in racist and orientalist ways, which can end up teaching those inside and outside of the Pacific terrible lessons. I really enjoyed his presentation and I'm hoping some students caught onto the conversation he was attempting to start locally

I started a website five years ago titled " Fino' Chamoru na Inadaggao " meaning a forum for debating or discussing the Chamorro language. This was initially mean to be a website that would support a series of Chamoru Language Senatorial forums held during the 2010 Guam election. From October 19th - 21st that year, all the Guam Legislature hopefuls were invited to a forum where they would be asked questions in the Chamorro language and be encouraged to respond in the Chamorro language. Now as you might imagine/know, in 2010 and 2015 the overwhelming majority of local politicians, including those who are Chamorro, cannot speak the Chamorro language. Because of this, each participant was given the question ahead of time, so as to allow them time to translate the questions and prepare their answers in either English or Chamorro. Candidate were also allowed to have interpreters on stage with them, sitting behind them in case they had trouble following along or remembering w

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

When I was doing oral histories on Guam, not too long ago, some of the most interesting stories were those of courtship and "dating" in pre-World War II Guam. As many manamko' state, there was no dating before the war, and this is no exaggeration. Young men and women were closely watched and restricted in their movements and activities. Men were given more freedom than women, but both were not allowed to freely associated with any person of the opposite sex to whom they were not closely related. With any such social prohibition there are plenty of sagas of the exceptions. These exceptions for the most part can be found in the tales of mythical others. People who bravely went against the times or were victimized by the times or who seemed to not belong in the time to which they were born. These people always exist, and are spoken about sometimes in disgust/distaste, sometimes with jealous admiration. But even if the person you are talking to may have had s

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

In my Guam History classes last week I gave my students the lyrics to a number of different Chamorro songs, each of which said something important about post-war Guam. The songs were An Gumupu Si Paluma by Johnny Sablan, Binenu by J.D. Crutch, Green Revolution by Johnny Sablan and lastly Guam USA by K.C. Leon Guerrero. For An Gumupu Si Paluma , I talked about changes from pre-war to post-war Guam, the disappearance of the Chamorro language, Chamorro birds, the Chamoritta style of singing, and so on, and how Johnny Sablan's song ends with a powerful call for Chamorros to come together and stop these changes, to reverse them. For Binenu, I talked about the shifting public perspectives on the US military presence on Guam and in the minds of Chamorros. How those who returned from Vietnam, died, alive, addicted to drugs, suffering from diseases or nightmares and mental trauma, all helped shift the view of the military on Guam, tarnishing the clean, white liberating image that it gained

At the Guma'famoksaiyan conference last month, I organized a session on Learning Chamorro Language Through Songs, which went very well. Songs is one of the most fun ways through which you can learn a language, and so while most Chamorros who don't speak the language, might have some knowledge about Chamorro music and songs and may even enjoy listening to it, its unfortunate that there isn't more effort being put into using music as a medium through which we can revitalize the language. For this session all those present divided into three groups, and each group had a song leader who would teach one Chamorro song to those in their group over about forty minutes. When time was up, all the groups would gather together and present the the rest of the conference their song. It was decided during the session that there should be judges too in order to select which group was the best. The session went very well and people incorporated different performaces and dancing into their