NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

People frequently ask me why I'm such a publicly critical person. They assume it is because I am half Chamorro, that I must be trying to compensate for my lack of cultural identity, and even I can acknowledge that there is some truth to that. It could be simply part of my personality, maybe I've always been an oppositional person, who challenged authority in some way. My father says it is because of the way I was forced to confront certain racial realities during my childhood. Some say it is simply because I have an artist temperament and so I am seeking creative ways out of systems, thinking about what could lie ahead on the next horizon of imagination. Hekkua', ti hu tungo'. While searching from some of my early writings on an old laptop, I came across a draft of this letter for the editor pasted below. It remember helping my mother write it about 13 years ago, and it was submitted to the Pacific Daily News. This was a time, when I was first speaking out publicl

When I was younger growing up on Guam I remember my mother being involved in two major issues of the time. Firstly, she was involved in one of the many research projects about the cause of Litiko Bodig on Guam. I didn't understand much at the time, just that my mother was spending time with old Chamorro people and sometimes even taking them on trips to the states to meet with scientists. The other issue was the "abortion muddle" surrounding what became infamous as the most draconian anti-choice anti-abortion law in the United States and its colonies. My mother was the President of the Guam Nurses Association at the time and although it was controversial, they took a stand against the abortion law, since it took away from women the right to choose what happens to their bodies. I remember marching with her at protests and even seeing her in a copy of the history book I used for World History 2 at UOG, from when she participated at a women's rights rally in Washingto