NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

For decades Guam has been used to being a joke. Generations of comedians have used it, such as Johnny Carson, David Lettermen and even Conan O'Brien. Robert Underwood has invoked the comedy specter of Rodney Dangerfield in order to explain Guam's situation, saying it is an island that gets no respect! The mere mention of Guam in this way stems from the fact that it is a signifier that floats around, it is always out there, especially for those in the US, but there often isn't any actual knowledge attached to it. That means that you can deploy it in ridiculous ways, a familiar, but empty signifier that can create laughter as the listener confronts that awkward gap between their knowledge and whatever might lie beyond the horizon of their understanding. That's why when you would say something random like "I'm headed to Guam!" it would elicit laughter, because of the way the audience would slip on the banana peel shaped gap between their knowledge and rea

This year's regional seminar for the UN Committee of 24 was different than the three previous ones that I attended in a handful of ways. There was always some debate and some rhetorical conflict at previous seminars, but this one extended to a level I had never seen before. Other participants who have been involved far longer than I have, also acknowledged the conflict and tension reached new heights in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. I’ll be writing about this later, but the conflict created a lot of wasted time and also of waiting around for events to unfold or drama to be sorted out. This led to a lot of conversations that you wouldn’t normally take place, as people anxiously waited for the work of the seminar to move ahead. A lot of these conversations ended up being humorous as people sought ways to ease the tension and also pass the time. I heard a lot of funny stories from across Latin America, to the Caribbean, the Pacific. In this mix there were stories of parliamentary

Some updates on ongoing Chamorro language related efforts. Most promising is the fact that there are two groups that are actively pushing now for Chamorro language (one full Chamorro, the other bilingual English/Chamorro) immersion schools. I have my own ongoing efforts, but as usual life, teaching and other obligations get in the way. Over the summer, I can at least thankfully report that my good friend in Chamorro language revitalization Ken Kuper (who is currently getting his Ph.D. in Hawai'i) organized a number of important events and got some media projects started. Look forward to those coming out soon over social media and in local events. ********** Chamorro immersion program ensures Guam's language isn't lost by Isa Baza 8/15/16 KUAM News With fewer and fewer children speaking the Chamorro language every year, the Guam Department of Education is stepping up to create a Chamorro immersion program that may help keep our island's native tongue fres

Last month I spent an afternoon working with Sinot Louie Wabol, un ma'estron Chamoru giya Guahan and a major in the Chamorro Studies program at UOG. Over the Christmas break we worked on a project together titled "Ossitan Chamorro Marianas" and with the help of my TA Nathan Topasna, we recorded two hours of Chamorro jokes and humorous stories. ( I nobia-hu Isa provided hanom yan fina'mames na sinapotte). At first I tried my best to keep myself from cracking up after each joke, but eventually gave up as his performance d eserved a laugh track. In all he shared more than 50 jokes, some of which I'll be using in future research. For now, though I'm glad one joke that he included is the Juan Malimanga standard about public urination. (Juan Malimanga is peeing against the wall in an alley) Polisia: Hoi! Para! Kao un tungo' na kontra i lai enao i bidada-mu? Juan: Ahe', ti kontra i lai Sinot! Kontra i liga! *************** Esta mas ki 40 n

After hearing for weeks about how the "terrorists" or North Koreans were winning the war against and for freedom, due to the decision of Sony not to distribute the film "The Interview," the company has decided to release the film on a limited basis. It can be streamed online and can be bought. Eventually it may be released through iTunes. It was interesting to see how a film which most people would probably not want to watch because of the abundance of jokes dealing with human genitalia, becomes an artifact over which freedom not on a national scale, but an international scale is fought. Screenings of The Interview have been filled with patriotic discourse and singing, in order to make that important argument that, this may be crap and it may be garbage, but I should have the right to eat crap and copulate with garbage if  I want to! Speaking of freedom, people in Guam attempting to watch the Interview online soon found that they were prevented by most sites

When I was in graduate school I spent years collecting Guam mentions. I would hunt for them everywhere. In every database I could find. In every archive. In every index for every book. I would search through websites, through blogs, on Youtube videos. As I was writing my dissertation these Guam mentions represented a significant part of my "data." These were the things I wanted to analyze. These were the things I wanted to find some underlying structure for. It was difficult not in terms of articulating my thoughts, but articulating them in such a way that other people might care. When you are writing about "small" cultures or "small" islands, there is always the burden that your smallness puts on you. There is always a need to force you next to something larger so you can feel more relevant or more familiar. There is a need to put Chamorros next to another group, Native Hawaiians, Puerto Ricans, Filipinos, Okinawans, any other group that might be more

I just finished watching The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. I had worried that the film would drag on due to the fact that they were taking a relatively short book and transforming it into 3 films, totaling as much as 9 hours of screen time. The book Breaking Dawn was not worthy of two films, and this was blisteringly apparent when both Part 1 and Part 2 seemed to drag on forever during certain sections. I was worried about a similar fate for the first Hobbit film. While I did cringe during certain parts, I did have to admire the way they extended the film, but still kept it entertaining. I recently reread the Hobbit and found that so much of the richness of it was in my head. The writing is very sparse and not very detailed. Even fact it seems that Tolkien's true passion was writing songs, since the books are littered with ballads from every race in Middle Earth. But this is one of the hallmarks of fantasy writing. The writing itself may not be the most lyrical or

In the film The Matrix, the Agent Smith played by Hugo Weaving holds a short, but memorable philosophical session with his captive, resistance fighter Morpheus. He tells him about the first versions of the Matrix that were created in order to keep the imprisoned human population occupied while their energies were siphoned from them like batteries. In the early versions of the Matrix everything was perfect. It was like paradise, free of conflict and problems. It was a perfect world. That perfection is what made it impossible for humans to accept, and so when confronted with this perfect world humans rejected it wholesale and so those early versions of the Matrix were total failures. So instead of having the Matrix make people happy and give them a perfect world, the machines decided to give them a world similar to what they already knew. Imperfect, full of struggle, pain, loneliness, doubt and rejection. People accepted this and the Matrix continued to functi