NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

On February 16 th the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at UOG will be holding a forum titled “Tip of the Spear? Or Tip of a Nuclear Bomb?” The forum will feature a panel discussion on nuclear issues related to Guam and take place from 6 – 7:30 pm in the CLASS Lecture Hall. The event is free and the public is invited to come and learn more about a topic that is largely under-analyzed in our daily lives on Guam, but is in desperate need of more awareness.    Last year I conducted a study with my colleague at UOG Dr. Isa Kelley Bowman on local perceptions of risk, safety and security. We passed out surveys to 100 UOG undergraduate students in order to get a sense of what they felt the major and likely threats were to life on Guam. The surveys featured a list of 10 natural or manmade disasters that might affect the island. They were asked to rate on a scale of 1 – 10 how likely or unlikely they felt each was occur in our corner of the Western Pacific, someti

One of the articles I am working on this Fanuchan'an is about language revitalization in Guam and the "beautiful lie" or "gefpago na dinagi" that hinders our ability to protect and revitalize our endangered languages. What I refer to as the beautiful lie stage is the point at which language attitudes that once naturalized the uselessness of a native language have been reversed and that a once maligned language is now celebrated, but that the celebration of the language does not necessarily lead to any revitalization. It can lead to commemoration, promotion, to preservation but the beautiful lie is that while the beauty of the language is now an accepted truth, this does not meant that people will actually use it, teach it or see it as something viable and necessary to keep alive. I first got to present this idea at an Endangered Island Language Forum last year at Ryukyu University in Okinawa. I have a couple more months until I have to take my presentation a

It's election year and so the ideological landscape of the island becomes far more vibrant than usual. When I say vibrant I don't mean that ideas are exchanged in a more honest and open way or that ideological transformations will take place in an easier way. I mean instead that the mentioning and invoking of ideology becomes more open and comfortable. The calling of people out. The feeling that certain things that may not normally matter much to you, all of a sudden do. The focusing in on certain details in order to make an argument for what sort of citizen and civil subject you are. When its not an election year do people care that much about where politicians stand on issues? They probably should, but do they really? When an election comes around they probably still don't really care, but now there is a feeling that you are supposed to show you care. You are supposed to pretend that you care. You wouldn't want people to think that you are a pointless lump of fl

I'm on Guam now, but I'm not registered to vote on Guam ( lao giya California). There's an election coming up and this is the first time I've been on island for one since I voted for Robert Underwood and Tom Ada in 2002 (lao ti manggana siha). I've been following the campaigns here closely, and even last week gave out different awards last week for Guam's politicians and their roadside signs. The battle over Proposition A has been hard not to follow since each Pacific Daily News edition for the past week is completely full of ads both for and against, which sometimes featuring local political celebrities. I had hope to write something about Prop A before the election, but with a dissertation to write, and classes that I'm teaching next week to prepare for, I don't have much time to blog ( ai na'triste!). I guess you'll have to settle for this video that I took of a big Prop A rally held last week at Chief Kephua circle in Hagatna. The thing I