NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

So far this year Independent Guåhan has organized two Hale'-ta Hikes; the first to Laso' Fouha or Fouha Rock, and the second to Hila'an. Our third hike is set for later this month to Pågat. I have written in several articles recently about how important this type of outreach has been in terms of developing community resistance to US military plans in Guam. Taking people into the areas that may be affected, contaminated or closed off to the public, and allowing them to forge their own personal and eventually, hopefully, political connections was essential, especially in the case of Pågat. This is one reason why things have been different recently with regards to Litekyan. The fact that when you take people on hikes there, you are walking not through "public" or "local" lands, but instead federal property makes it difficult for people to imagine a strong connection to the lands and their meaning. Instead it feels like more of the stolen lands, stolen

5,000 days of protest in northern Okinawa. In truth, the protests there go much further back, but 5,000 is a nice, big, profound number. It represents 5,000 days of continuous protest, of daily, symbolic and direct resistance to US militarism and militarization in the island. I have been fortunate enough to visit the protest camps in Okinawa on several occasions since 2011. I have spoken to scholars, to activists, to students, to elders, to farmers, to fishermen and even to paddlers and scuba divers. It does make me wonder, at one point the level of militarization or of consciousness about militarization in Guam will come to a similar point. There have been outbursts, periods of direct action, protest, there has been a great deal of counter-hegemonic activity, trying to make it more possible for the community to engage in critical discussions about Guam's military presence or purpose. But nothing similar to what we see in Okinawa. Will the plans for a firing range at Litekyan

Given recent developments in North Korea, new missile systems out of China and the Trump administration trying to both disengage from the world militarily and bomb the hell out of it, I would love to see an update of this article, which is from 2015. The resistance continues, scattered across many islands. ******************* Islander Unite to Resist a New Pacific War by Koohan Paik Common Dreams November 4, 2015 Last September, I attended a remarkable gathering in Okinawa of impassioned young people from all over the Asia-Pacific. They convened at a critical moment to urgently discuss ramped-up militarism in their region. Thousands of hectares of exquisitely wild marine environments, peaceful communities and local democracy are now under extreme threat. Participants hailed from: Taiwan; Jeju (South Korea); the Japanese Ryukyu islands; Indonesia; New Zealand; and the Japanese Ogasawara islands. I was invited to represent Hawaii, where the headquarters for t

I am staying up all night tonight to finish an article on environmental discourses surrounding the US military buildup to Guam as it was proposed in the 2009 Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) and later formalized in their Record of Decision (ROD). This buildup as it was proposed never happened, as financial problems in both the United States and Japan as well as local resistance efforts, including a lawsuit ended up stalling and delaying the process for years. The buildup looks and sounds so much different today than it did five or six years ago. There is a greater emphasis on environmental stewardship and also constant reminders that the Department of Defense (who currently control 28-29% of Guam) plan to control less total land once the buildup is over. Part of the change in tone is due to the fact that the island of Guam changed in the buildup debate process. This is a key feature of my article. When the buildup was first announced, public opinion on the buildup was op

This article is interesting. On the one hand, you could argue that it isn't necessarily talking about sovereignty in a overt political sense and so the title or the thesis is very overstated. It deals with an exchange over surfing and a sports article. But on the other hand, the article is a good reminder about the way that sovereignty can be woven into everything, and is something that can be fought at multiple levels, even the most basic of conversations. That it can begin with an idea, with a community formed simply by shared memories or shared desires and that it can grow from there. As I once wrote many year ago, "kada mumon linahyan ha tutuhon ni' un sinangan ha'." ***********************   Surfing as Sovereignty: How Native Hawaiians Resisted Colonialism by Dina Gilio-Whitaker Indian Country Today Media Network 11/14/14   In Hawaiian culture, surfing has always been more than a sport. So important was it that prayers and chants

The Great California Genocide by gjohnsit DailyKos 8/14/2008 What do you think of when someone says "California"? Beaches? Sunshine? Hollywood?   How about the largest act of genocide in American history? "The idea, strange as it may appear, never occurred to them (the Indians) that they were suffering for the great cause of civilization, which, in the natural course of things, must exterminate Indians."  - Special Agent J. Ross Browne, Indian Affairs  California was one of the last areas of the New World to be colonized. It wasn't until 1769 that the first mission, Mission San Diego de Alcalá, was built in California at present-day San Diego. It was the first of 21 missions, which would become the primary means for the Spaniards to subjugate the natives. The leader of this effort was Franciscan friar Junípero Serra .  Despite whatever the movies portray, the missions were coercive religious, forced l

I spent a year working on getting the book "Massacre at Atate" by Jose M. Torres published. It is a first hand account of one of the few times during the Japanese occupation of Guam that the Chamorro people openly resisted and fought back. There are countless instances of Chamorros passively resisting, but this was one of the few moments that I've been able to collect where you can point to Chamorros using violent resistance to protect themselves. There are only a few men left who took up arms against the Japanese in July 1944 and Mr. Torres was one of the youngest at that time. We had a reading in Malesso' a few weeks ago in the historic Merlyn G. Cook school. This was a followup to the large book launch that we had in February which was attended by close to 300 people. I came across this account of the book launch, that I wanted to share here: *********************** http://micronesianmission.blogspot.com/2015/02/wwii-historical-lecture-more-than-w