NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Every September 11th since September 11, 2001 has a surreal quality to it. As if in a world where history repeats and meaning is always muddled, somehow the events of that day achieved a special, extra level of meaning for those that were alive and of age to experience it. At least this is what they say, and how true this seems depends a lot on your relationship to the US and what type of imaginary tissue connects you to it.  9/11 always means another set of memorial or retrospectives. These commemorative acts help us lock in a particular narrative for conceiving what happened that day, what it means, and whether or not we allow any understanding of events that helped led to that attack. At these memorials people recall where they were when they learned of the attacks and reminders of how scared they were, but how America rose again from those ashes.  Mixed into this naturally is a lot of what you might call blind patriotism or shallow patriotism. September 11 th , as the US se

It is strange to study and document the impacts of colonization. There are always incredibly obvious ways that colonization affects a community, but there are always more minute and less perceptible ways it happens. One way that we can see colonialism in very dramatic but almost invisible ways, is how Guam, because of its attachment to the US, often times imagines itself to be somewhere else on the planet and something else entirely, whether it be politically, economically or environmentally. Colonization makes it possible for people on Guam to conceive of this island in the Pacific as not really an island, but an imagined extension of the US, therefore not capable of having its own interests or its own limitations, advantages and so on, but simply accountable or a beneficiary of whatever the US contends with. Just because the US flag flies over the island, doesn't mean that Guam is like California or Wyoming or Nevada or Alabama. It is an island in the Western Pacific and to ima

It has been a while since my last message of this type. To be honest the Commission on Decolonization of which the Independence Task Force is a part hasn't been very active for the past few years. Inertia and lack of motivation seeped into the Commission from a variety of angles making it incapable of doing anything. That period is hopefully at an end however as the Commission has shown some signs of life since the start of this year. Although the Commission has received money since 2011 for salaries, no money has been set aside for public education, which is what the Commission on Decolonization is meant to oversee. This year there is at last a $100,000 budget set specifically for conducting public education. The Independence Task Force will be meeting this month and start to make plans for the coming year. If you are interested in joining the Task Force, please email me at mlbasquiat@hotmail.com or leave a comment below. This past week I saw an interesting piece of news out o

When I first started researching Guam History and writing about contemporary Guam issues, the natural things you'd expect always popped up. If you asked people about the problems on Guam today, they would say the same sorts of things most societies say. Improve the economy. Fix the infrastructure. Fix the educational system. One thing that makes Guam different is that political status issues can be a significant problem that is brought up. One thing that makes the entire discussion over Guam and its problems and possible solutions frustrating is the way in which people don't understand that political status affects everything and is generally tied to everything else. One thing that was always irritating was to hear people go on and on about the problem with our school system as being tied to a lack of textbooks or having "old" textbooks. The lack of money and the decrepit nature of the system is manifested in the fact that students don't have enough textboo

Every few months I remind people to visit No Base Stories of Korea , and get updated on the latest in the South Korean people's struggles against militarization, both from their own government and from the United States as well. This post is yet another reminder to go over there and check the blog, which is run by artist and activist Sung Hee Choi. I recently finished an article where I discussed some of my experiences while I was in South Korea last year on a solidarity research trip. Some of the places which Sung Hee regularly provides updates about are areas that I visited, where I got to learn in detail about the struggles that took place or are taking place against militarism. As I wrote in my article, one of the things which made this trip important was the fact that it wasn't your usual "solidarity trip" where everything is neat and tidy and ready to be wedged into an assume matrix of solidarity formation. There is a formula to how we form solidarity, a simp

This weekend I'll be taking people up to the literal "top of the island," Guam's tallest "peak" Sabanan Lamlam, or Mount Lamlam. It is part of We Are Guahan's "Heritage Hikes." We went to is Pagat two weeks ago, Cetti and Sella Bay last week, and now our third and final hike up to Mount Lamlam. Even though will be the third time to travel up there in the past month, but I'm still excited about it. Here is one of the reasons why. My cognitive map of Guam, the network of images, symbols, ideas, sights, smells, and so on which I use to imagine what Guam is on a daily basis is dominated by my classrooms where I teach in, the apartment complex where I live in, and the things I pass by the side of the roads as I travel. I spend most of my time in the central part of the island bouncing between Chalan Pago, Hagatna, Tamuning, Barrigada and Mangilao. As such, Guam is a pleasant concrete jungle, dotted every once in a while with random clusters

Conferences exists to bring together a large group of people who think and live on the same page, or who would at least like to try and do so. The conference is like a warm, safe blanket around which they can hopefully surround their thoughts, their identities, or at minimum at least something where they can trust the space as safe and will not threaten or antagonize them in certain expected, but unwanted ways. You could all have the same job, be of the same ethnicity or race, or have shared research, political or professional interests, but every conference tends to be a great big bubble. And in that bubble you can hang out, speak jargon, share the feeling of being in your own imagined community and feel safe and secure in the fact that this bubble exists to limit certain potential challenges or critiques. If you are at an Ethnic Studies conference, then it is unlikely that in the middle of your presentation, someone will stand up and defiantly call Ethnic Studies a useless pointless

This article reminds me of the movie and book A Time to Kill... I want to explain more about why, other than the obvious hypothetical racial replacement strategy, whereby you ask someone to hypothetically replace the race of someone in order to reveal the ways in which things are radically different or radically similar to something else. But alas, this week is going to be spent working on a huge project, which unfortunately not only keeps me from blogging, but preparing for my classes and hanging out with Sumahi. I can't wait for this week to be over, but in the meantime, here's an article asking you to think what things would be like if "The Tea Party movement was black?" ************************** What If the Tea Party Were Black? By Tim Wise, AlterNet Posted on April 25, 2010, Printed on July 18, 2010 http://www.alternet.org/story/146616/ Let’s play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple: we’ll envision rec

I’ve been back in Guam now for more than a week since my South Korea trip. I’ll still be back-posting for the new few weeks as there is still so much more to say and blog about. Remember that you can easily access the posts for certain days of my trip by clicking on the appropriate tag. Day 1: Seoul Day 2: Pyeongtaek Day 3: Gangjeong Day 4: Seoul Day 5: Mugeon-ri As I think back on my trip I met so many fantastic people and heard so many tragic and inspiring stories. But when I was thinking back on what part of the trip stayed with me the most, or what is sort of that haunting excess, that sticks out and determines far more meaning now than it probably did then, one exchange constantly pops into my mind. It could be so many things: the beauty of Jeju, and the tinaiprisu of the fight of the villagers of Gangjeong, the tragic marks on the soul and skin of political prisoners, the way a people struggle with the division of their nation and its past history of colonization (and curre