NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

One of the aspects of Chamorro life that has frequently haunted me and frustrated me is the division between Chamorros in the Marianas and those who come from the diaspora, primarily the United States. It is a division that so much is made about in everyday conversation, which amounts to very little when you interrogate it. There is often times a perception that those from the diaspora are stuck-up, more Americanized and are completely disconnected from their culture and their identity. There is some truth to this, because much of what we get in terms of our identity has more to do with proximity and frequently than actual choices. You feel a certain way about yourself or you struggle with your identity in certain ways based on what you see around you, although there is always some element of personal agency or choice. Because of this, if you are born in Guam or the CNMI, chances are good you will generally know more Chamorro words or slang. You may know more Catholic songs. You may

One of the most irritating things about life on Guam is that the island is incredibly multilingual as well as multicultural, but because of our colonial past and present, we tend to force everything into very unfortunate monolingual frameworks. It is important to be able to see past the colonial examples presented by the United States and look at the rest of the world, especially where small language communities, who are in similar situations as Chamorros, are struggling to promote and preserve their indigenous tongues. Here are some articles to consider in this regard. *************************** Bilingual Street Signs Herald a New Era of Language Revitalization by Frank Hopper 2/29/16 Indian Country Today Media Network In 1990, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe estimates only eight people knew how to speak the Klallam language. Now they’re putting it on street signs. Earlier this month, the city of Port Angeles, on the north end of Washington State’s Olympic

I was reading recently a book on "Native American Wisdom." It to be truthful a beautiful book even if it was very simplistic at times. There was a beauty and a power to some of the words, which were quoted from leaders of Native American tribes over the past 300 years. There were ways that in their wisdom I saw the cosmology, the culture of so many other native peoples, Chamorros included. There were ways that they made sense of their tragedies, railed against it, accepted it. The book didn't promote one perspective for Native American identity or world-view, even though it do at some points argue for a harmony or unity amongst the people, and made claims to the way all the different types of Native Americans see the world. There were some who continued to challenge the authority of the US over Native Americans and there were some who accepted it. Some drew a line and argued their spirituality was different than the kind that came with colonization, others argued that t

For "Sindalu" the Guam Humanities Council Exhibit that I am working on, one of the tasks I did was to collect as many of the articles about Chamorros that have died in Afghanistan and Iraq as possible. Part of the problem with collecting these articles is that many of the Chamorro soldiers who have died lived elsewhere and were recruited outside of the Marianas. Sometimes these soldiers will show up in lists of dead from the Marianas, sometimes they don't. These lists are also more complicated by the fact that some of them will include the deaths of soldiers who were deployed but not killed in combat and others will exclude them. What makes it even more convoluted is that the metrics for counting the dead has changed as well. During Vietnam, the number was strictly Chamorros, even though there were a handful of soldiers from other islands in Micronesia who did serve. But in the Wars on Terror, the fights in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Horn of Africa, more and more non-C

Published on Tuesday, January 7, 2014 by The Nation Seattle Swears In a Socialist by John Nichols   Kshama Sawant was sworn in as a City Councilor of Seattle on News Years Day. (AP Photo/Ted Warren) Across the United States this week, new mayors and city council members are being sworn in as the leaders of the cities that elected them in November. The inaugurations of mayors draw local attention—and, in cases like that of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio , a good measure of national attention—but there is generally less focus on the city council members. Except in Seattle. Monday afternoon’s inauguration of City Council member Kshama Sawant , arguably the most prominent socialist elected to local office since Bernie Sanders became mayor of Burlington, Vermont, thirty-three years ago, has inspired a striking level of excitement. As officials moved the swearing in for Sawant and Mayor Ed Murray —Seat