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

There has been a small but determined movement to push Chamorros towards tribal/Native American status for a few years now. There are those who believe it to be the best or only path forward for the Chamorro people given the colonial frameworks they are ensnared by. The statement below is from The Chamorro Tribe itself, which has been advocating this in various forms for about a decade (as far as I can tell). This idea resurfaces every couple of years, usually when a politician decides to take up the cause as a way of providing a seemingly simple solution to a very complicated problem, namely decolonization. A few years ago Senator Judith Gutherz was advocating for it. This past year Felix Camacho in his race for non-voting delegate advocated the same thing. I am getting ready to catch a flight and so I can't talk much about this now. But in time I plan to write more. For now here is the statement of the Chairman of the Chamorro Tribe, Frank Schacher. It can be found on their web

The United Nations is a strange beast in Guam in turns of its place in the movement for decolonization. Prior to the failure of Commonwealth in 1997, the UN was always a quiet force in the background, but held little authority or played a very minor role in the consistency of arguments or political positions. Even when Chamorro activists were successful in getting people on Guam to recognize the Chamorro people as being indigenous, even though activists were successful in defeating a Constitutional movement on Guam, which would have trapped the island within an American framework, and both of these things rely heavily on discourses which find great potency in the UN and its history, they were not strongly international movements. The UN itself, although still a quiet presence on Guam, is still interpreted in a very American framework, and so regardless of how Guam's relationship to the UN is fundamentally different (it is a non-self-governing territory), people here tend to see

2016 World Conference against A & H Bombs Declaration of the International Meeting Seventy one years ago, the USA used nuclear bombs for the first time against humanity by releasing atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. With tremendous destructive power and radiation, the two bombs burned out the cities and claimed the lives of about 210,000 people by the end of the year. It was a hell on earth. The Hibakusha who survived then had to suffer from latent effects and social discrimination for many subsequent years. Such inhumane weapons should not be used again in any circumstances whatsoever. The nuclear powers still maintain more than 15,000 nuclear warheads. Not a small number of them are on alert for launch. The concern for the outbreak of nuclear war due to deteriorating regional tensions is real. A recent study shows that even if only a small percentage of existing nuclear weapons are used, it would cause serious climate change and would bring the huma

You'll find a number of different articles about Agent Orange on this blog, that I've posted over the years. This one was published in the Guam Daily Post recently and didn't get much attention. Thought I'd post it here as a reminder about the dangers and poisons of militarization. It is one of the many American legacies in Guam that most people refuse to admit to or do anything about. Check out this page Guam & Agent Orange for more information. ******************** Study finds link between Agent Orange and infant mortality on Guam by Mar-Vic Cagurangan Guam Daily Post January 19, 2016 Infants born to mothers who lived in Agent Orange-sprayed areas were at an increased risk of infant mortality due to congenital anomalies, according to scientists who recently released the first study that examined the link between herbicides and infant mortality on Guam. The study, published in the December 2015 issue of the Hawaii Journal of Medicine and Publi

This article represents an important reminder about the consequences of militarism and militarization. It is easy to become enamored by the spiffiness, the shininess of the US military. The advertisements are so sleek and so inspiring. They hit people from so many angles. They appeal to the patriotism, the training, the education, the travel, the need to protect the homeland and one's family. These ads are bolstered by the surface of the US military. The cleanliness, the immaculate surface. Nicely cute lawns. Sharply painted houses. Pressed uniforms, young people and not so young people standing at attention. There is so much clean order. It is no wonder than that in Guam, militarism is such a strong force. Militarism deals with the way that a society relates to military institutions and military force. Do societies see military force, military outposts, military service as being ideal, essential, a last resort? Do they see the military as the ultimate opportunity or an unfortuna

April 22, 2010 TO: President Barack Obama Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) Cecilia Munoz, Director of White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs Michael Block, White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs ********* On Earth Day, April 22, 2010, we—the undersigned environmentalists, scholars, clergy and community leaders—call attention to the severe long-term impacts of preparations for war on the physical environment and, in turn, on human health. We are extremely concerned about the environmental impacts of the proposed military expansion and build-up in the U.S. territory of Guam , noting the following points: History of US Militarism in Guam : Ø The people of Guam have lived under U.S. administration since 1898. Guam remains a U.S. colony, one of 16 non-self-governing territories listed by the United Nations, and represented by one non-voting delegate in the U.S. Congress. Local communities are highly constrained in thei

After watching Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen last week, and just a little over a year until my 30th birthday, I eventually ended up finding a creative way of taking stock of the long road that I've traveled to this point, and how the mythology of Transformers has followed me there. As I walked out of the film I said to my sleeping daughter Sumåhi, "Gof suette yu', kao un tungo' sa' hafa? Sa' gi este lina'la'-hu, "privileged" yu' na hu egga' na mapuno' Si Optimus Prime dos biahi, ya hu egga' na mana'la'la' ta'lo dos biahi." For those who don't speak Chamorro my message was "I'm so lucky and do you know why? Because in my life, I've been privileged enough to watch Optimus Prime die twice and come back to life twice." And for those of you who don't speak the language of Transformers, Optimus Prime is the leader of the Autobots, the good half of the Transformers world, with the

Gaige yu' ta'lo giya San Diego. Gi este yan i otro na simana para bei in asodda' yan iyo-ku "department" put i dissertation-hu. Magof-hu na gaige gui' guini, sa' esta kana' maleleffa i "fino' academic" put i gaige-ku giya Guahan. My department at UCSD, Ethnic Studies is in the midst of rebuilding itself after losing several faculty over the past few years. So last week and this week the department is being visited by several candidates, each of whom is meeting with faculty, students and giving jobs talks. I went to the one this morning, and also got to have lunch with the job candidate with other students. It was a good chance to catch up with other students, find out what is going on with their work, whether it be a thesis, a qualifying exam or a dissertation. At the lunch, I heard updates from one student whose thesis and soon her dissertation will be on Agent Orange use in the Vietnam War. I'm not sure yet what approach she