NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

I wrote a column for the Marianas Variety titled "Sympathy for the Taotaomo'na" a while back, it provided an overview of different beliefs about Guam's particular brand of spiritual phenomena and how most people may need to expand their understanding of them. For most on the island, taotaomo'na are ghost stories. When you start talking about them, people begin to get intrigued, to get frightened, hairs on their body begin to stand up. For me it is very interesting that when Destination Truth visited Guam years ago almost everyone hated the show they produced. They were here for a few days, met with people, filmed in the jungles, at beaches, in Tumon. While they were here they seemed to those I spoke to friendly, nice and understanding. People were almost universally irritated and appalled when they saw the Guam Zombie episode they created. The idea that taotaomo'na were somehow zombies made sense to people. It was disrespectful and ignorant. We watched the

Last Thursday night, I was speaking on a panel at the University of Guam Lecture Hall, as part of a public forum/discussion on the planned military buildup for Guam. I'll be writing more about my thoughts on it later, because there is plenty to consider. I got to listen to and talk to some members of the Government of Guam Civilian Military Task Force, which is in charge of "preparing" Guam to deal with the typhoon of military presence that it will soon be forced to endure. Also, there is the fact that hundreds of people came to attend the forum, and students were even standing lined up along the hall's sides and sitting on the floor. Here's two article from the Marianas Variety and the Pacific Daily News that covered the event. The PDN article in particular is interesting, since it almost completely ignores the spirit of my comments (which could be considered to be controversial, were viciously anti-colonial and pushing for the island's declonization, but

Ginnen i atungo'-hu Ahimsa: Dear friends, loved ones, and colleagues, I am writing this email to straight allied and queer people of color to economically and democratically stand in anti-racist solidarity with marriage equality and family equality movements in the U.S., as our rights as brown folk in this country are under attack. As many of you know, this November's election is very important. For the first time, I have donated massively to political campaigns. I earn less than $13,000 a year and this year, over a series of months, I have donated $500 to the Obama campaign. His presidency, to me and to many of us, represents hope for significant positive change in the economy, civil rights, the environment, and the ending of war. I hope we can continue to actively and economically support his candidacy and engage in an electoral turnaround on the Congressional and more local fronts. I am writing today because, as some of you know, there are amendments in three states --

First time I've ever tried this, but I always see other bloggers doing it, and I want to try it out. I'm going to list some posts that I've come across lately on other blogs, which have caught my eye, and are insightful, creative or at least interesting. I'm usually not much for peer pressure, but I'll take this one, because I'm working on a grant right now for CHELU Inc . and so I don't have much time for writing. Didide' malangu yu' lokkue', ya kulang ti tunanas i hinasso-ku. Yanggen bai hu kefangge', siempre machalapon yan ti komprendeyon. In case the links below don't sate your thirst for good blog posts, here's a picture of me presenting at the Pacific Worlds and America West Conference a few weeks ago at the University of Utah. Thanks to Trangdai Tranguyen for the photo: Seeing this photo has actually made me freak out and realize that in three years I will be 30 years old. Lana, kulang bibihu i siniente-ku pa'go, ei adai. *

The next few days will be busy, as you can see from my last couple of posts. I've got an action packed couple of next days ahead of me. Here's my list of to do things (off the top of my head): 1. Attend a educational policy meeting at UCLA tomorrow morning for Pacific Islanders. 2. Supervise a college networking workshop Saturday morning at the 6th Annual National Pacific Islander Education Network Conference ( NPIEN ) at Paramount High School. 3. Have my brother Jack record another " Guam Talk " with my friend Josette Saturday afternoon. 4. Meet with other grad students in the department on Sunday to help finalize plans for an Indigenous and Postcolonial Studies Conference we're organizing next year at UCSD. 5. Finish by the 20th, my first column that I've been asked to write for the Guam magazine GU . The column will tenatively be titled "In Search of a Slingstone." 6. Write two lectures on Pacific Islanders and their contempora

Sovereignty Matters Conference Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, Columbi a University 424 Hamilton Hall, between Broadway and Amsterdam Manhattan, NY Date(s): Apr 15 to Apr 16 Time(s): various Price: GRATIS! Phone: (212) 854-0507 Güebsite: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cser Subway: 1/9 to 116th St Q:What do a resident of a San Juan, Samoa and Cheyenne River Indian Reservation have in common? A: they all live in a territory of the United States of America. Native American, Pacific Islander and Puerto Rican sovereignty matters are rarely the subject of public discourse and are severely understudied in most U.S. universities. Research across groups and disciplines is also alarmingly infrequent. Sponsored by Columbia University's Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, and the Institute for Research in African-American Studies, and organized by Columbia professor Frances Negrón-Muntaner, “Sovereignty Matters” hopes to spur debate regarding the multiple meanings an