NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Throughout the year, Independent Guåhan organizes "Håle'-ta Hikes," aimed at bringing the community into the island's historic and culturally sacred sites, in hopes of helping them understand the need to protect them. The last hike happened earlier this year to Litekyan. We had a huge crowd of people show up. Here are some of my pictures from the day. Gefpågo na ha'åni, esta gof annok gi litråtu siha.  *************************************

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

Storytelling has long been such a big part of Chamorro culture. When Chamorros were largely shut out of the governing of their islands and their lives during the last few centuries of colonization, often times their stories were their means of fighting back, whether through teasing, through imagining, through remembering. Even when they largely appear to have accepted their colonial realities, the stories persisted, sometimes changing to accommodate new beliefs and new senses of normality, but still the love of storytelling and of using words to create meaning, to incite responses, to give an extra dimension to life did not fade. You can find it in the stories of Juan Mala, where Chamorros expressed their dislike for the Spanish government of the 19th century through a folk hero, who shared their love of joking, laughing and eating. You can find it in the stories of the giant fish who saved Guam, some versions focus on female power, others on explaining the shape of the island and so

For the past few weeks I've helped organize two public forums at UOG's CLASS Lecture Hall, both of which were completely packed. A forum held in September featuring David Vine talking about Diego Garcia and Leevin Camacho talking about the Pagat lawsuit was attended by well over 200 people. The same was true for a forum on political decolonization featuring expert on the existing Non-Self-Governing Territories Carlyle Corbin from the Virgin Islands and Guam's own human rights attorney Julian Aguon. In both cases, almost every seat was packed, with some lined up watching along the lecture hall's walls. Granted, a good number of those in attendance were students who were there as part of class, but it was still inspiring to see so many people in a single place to learn about issues such as base displacement and decolonization. While Carlyle Corbin was here last month he mentioned how impressed he was with the level of discourse on Guam in terms of decolonization. Compar

Yanggen guaha lugat-mu agupa' gi pupuenge... University of Michigan Associate Professor Vicente Diaz will present, "In the Wake of Matapang's Canoe: Alternative Histories of Chamorro Catholicism and its Opposition" on Tuesday, August 23 at 5:30 p.m. in the University of Guam CLASS Lecture Hall as the featured speaker in Robert Underwood’s Presidential Lecture Series. Vicente M. Diaz, PhD, is Associate Professor of Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies at the University of Michigan. Born and raised on Guam, Diaz taught Pacific History and Micronesian Studies at the University of Guam from 1992 to 2001 until he relocated to his present post at the University of Michigan. Diaz is a co-founder of the Guam Traditional Seafarers, which helped revived traditional canoe building and navigation in Guam, served as the historian for Hale'ta series of Guam history and civics books produced by the Guam Political Status Educational Coordinating Commission in the 1990s.