NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Sometimes I get depressed about the state of the Chamorro language. Whenever I am talking to an elderly Chamorro about how our language is dying and the culture is being forgotten and I see them speaking to their grandchildren in English, it makes me want to explode. Everytime I hear elders complain about the young today and how soft and weak and spoiled they are, but who allow their children to be glued to iPads at dinner or in public, it makes me want to run away. When I sit in a meeting where everyone thinks that the solution to the saving of the language lies with an app, or software, but ignores that basic fact that what we really need is just more inter-generational use of Chamorro, the speaking of Chamorro not across a generation, but rather between generations, I want to set something on fire. Whenever I have a conversation with someone who tells me that Chamorro is only supposed to be used like this, or is only meant to talk about this or that, and doesn't want to expan

I interviewed so many cool people over the last week in Okinawa and Ishigaki Islands. I did so with the help of Okinawan activist Shinako Oyakawa who I first met in 2010 during a demilitarization study tour to South Korea. I was fortunate enough to join her, Bruce Gagnon and Corazon Fabros on on a trip to South Korea where we visited areas affected by US military facilities and training. Later I met Shinako in the context of solidarity activism in connection with Okinawa. She is a member of an academic association which is pushing for Okinawan, Ryukyu or LewChu independence from Japan. Her group has invited me to several conferences in Okinawa over the years and she is usually stuck translating the mindless things I say into Japanese. Another connection I have to Shinako is that she is a language revitalization activist. She is from Okinawa, one of many islands in what most people consider to be "Okinawa" or the Ryukyu Islands. Most people in Okinawa speak Japanese, but t