NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

There are certain things in Guam and Chamoru life and history that exist as such potent and powerful symbols to illustrate reality, whether negatively or positively. You could argue the Karabao is one such positive image. Even the latte or the såkman/galaide'.  But when it comes to these types of negative symbols, you have the old standard, the vague image of island thieves or ladrones. But you also have two very powerful and obfuscating symbols that are more recent, from just the past century, that of SPAM and the brown tree snake.  I was in a virtual symposium last week where I talked about Spam as a way of talking about islanders and their relationship to everything from militarization to colonialism to the impact of capitalism and consumerism on everything from the land, the culture to the body itself.  The brown tree snake possess a similar sort of potential in talking about the impact on the island of Guam or the Chamoru people, their natural resources, by invasive species. I

Hami, i Taotao Guahan by Michael Lujan Bevacqua The Marianas Variety July 29, 2015   On December 17 th , 1901 a group of more than thirty men, primarily Chamorros gathered in Hagatna. Most prominent on their minds was the political status of their island Guam, which had been taken by the United States during the Spanish American War three years earlier. Since the transfer of power, confusion over Guam’s future hung like dark foreboding clouds. Although the American flag flew over Guam, the United States had not set up a government in which Chamorros would now enjoy the glories of American democracy. They had established a military regime which the US Navy total control over the lives and lands of Chamorros. The group that gathered in Hagåtña represented some of the largest landholders, the wealthiest families and some of the most educated Chamorros of the day. They carried last names familiar to us today, such as Perez, Torres, Dungca, Quitugua, Martinez

For the past year I've been working under Dr. Faye Untalan on the I Ma'adahen Fino' Chamorro gi Koleho project, a grant funded by the Administration of Native Americans to create a standardized curriculum for teaching Chamorro at the college level. I've been working with Chamorro teachers from the Marianas and Hawai'i to put together a draft curriculum and we are currently pilot testing it at GCC, NMC and GCC. With the drafting of this curriculum we've gone through months of editing and polishing. Hundreds and perhaps more than a thousand potential pages were produced for the curriculum thus far, and the majority of it has been edited and erased. These pages contained exercises, activities, drills, vocabulary lists, grammar lessons and of course dialogues. Alot of these materials I've been holding on to since it can always be used somewhere else, even if it doesn't make it into this particular project. Below is one of the dialogues that was cut. It w

Sakman Chamorro Project to take journey to the past Thursday, 05 Sep 2013 03:00am BY MAR-VIC CAGURANGAN | VARIETY NEWS STAFF WITH a nine-man all-Chamorro crew, an outrigger canoe built in San Diego will set sail on the first week of January 2016 and take a 40-day and 40-night journey to a native past. Master Carver Mario Borja said the 47-foot-long sakman, christened “Che’lu,” will travel 7,600 nautical miles from San Diego, to Acapulco, to the Marshall Islands, and finally to Guam. “We are looking for a meaningful expedition,” Borja said in an interview after his presentation of the Sakman Chamorro Project before the Rotary Club of Northern Guam, during the group’s meeting yesterday at the Hyatt Regency Guam. While the idea of taking the Hawaii route “sounds very nice,” Borja said, the navigating group is not keen on doing a luau. He said the canoe will be following the Spanish Galleon route and take the first port stop in Acapulco to ret

On my last full day in South Korea, after traveling north to hear about the struggles against the expansion of the Mugeon-ri training areas, I had a few hours to myself, to do whatever I wanted with. After five days of tightly scheduled trips, visits, meals and transportation adventure, I really appreciated being able to explore on my own for a bit, the area I was staying in Seoul. I did not know my way around Seoul at the start of the trip and I still don’t know much about its geography, except for the little area near downtown that I was staying in. In my little area I could tell you where almost anything was (so long as its signage contained some English letters or images which indicated what was inside). I could tell you how many Dunkin Donuts were in the area and lead you to all of them, and could show you were the three music stores that I had found were, and even the chick place, which has a sign where a friendly looking chicken invites you to come in and partake of the flesh o

I didn't even realize it, but my name was mentioned in both The Marianas Variety and The Pacific Daily News this week. This Saturday, October 24th from 1 - 3 pm, my grandfather, Tun Jack Lujan and myself will be presenting on the history of Chamorro blacksmithing and traditional tools, at the T. Stell Newman Center outside of Big Navy. Our presentation is part of the exhibit Transitional Table: Guam's Shifting Food Traditions During and After World War II. The exhibit opened at the museum on October 13th and will remain open until November 21st. As I wrote about earlier on this blog, I helped with the researching and the writing of this exhibit, and I'm very pleased with how it turned out. In his presentation, grandpa will talk about his experiences growing up and being taught to be a blacksmith by his father Tun Marianao L.G. Lujan, and also his experiences blacksmithing during World War II, and how him and his father helped provide necessary tools for Chamorro farmers w

The first full draft of my dissertation was completed almost a month ago and in the time since I've been editing and fixing up my chapters in preparation for my defense in June. As I've done with my previous chapters, I'm pasting in this post, all the tetehnan or leftovers from my writing of the fourth chapter of my dissertation. To read the tetehnan of my other chapters, click the links below: Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 In this chapter I was discussing sovereignty and decolonization from a more local perspective, writing about and sometimes critiquing the ideas of sovereignty that Chamorros, activists or not, everyday use to articulate their existences, and how a lot of times they set themselves up for failure, dependency, non-existence or eternal colonization through their ideas. You might recognize some of the names in this chapter, and in fact, there might even be a chance that you might be mentioned in this chapter. Read through if you dare, its all over the plac

Liberation Day stories about ecstatic and jubilant crowds of tattered and pathetic looking Chamorros are common in Liberation Day specials and political speeches. So are stories about Marines handing out candy bars, cigarettes, powdered milk and cans of Spam to eager young boys or suffering old women. These stories always end with throngs of smiling Chamorros peering dutifully into a tall Marine’s eyes, who of course represent the benevolent and ever-loving Uncle Sam who had at last returned. Whenever critiques of Liberation Day (or even the US in general) take place, these crowds and these Marines are always invoked in order to dispel such attempts. The imagery holds much power in emotionally disabling dissidents, especially from Chamorros. But despite this seeming power, the story always goes on, even when the celebratory telling stops. And as with most public, colonial mythology, that which is editted out, is vastly more revealing about the nature of the world, then that which is h