NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

My first forays into the world of public discourse and engagement came on the pages of the Pacific Daily News through letters to the editor. For years I conducted research in the Micronesian Area Research Center library and through interviews with politicians, activists and manåmko', but the thoughts and ideas that were spawning in my head didn't have many outlets save for discussions in classes or with trusted elders or friends. In 2004 I gave my first public presentation on the issue of decolonization or critical Chamorro Studies, when I shared a section of my research at a forum titled "World War II is it Over?" organized by the Guam Humanities Council at the Agana Shopping Center. I spoke alongside Dr. Patricia Taimanglo, the late historian Tony Palomo and Guam military historian Jennings Bunn. After that, I spent several years in graduate school presenting at conference around the US, often times to empty rooms, as Guam papers tended to be very low on the prior

The letter to the editor below from Joaquin Perez is very instructive. He discusses possible theories regarding the military buildup as currently proposed, drawing attention to possible connections between elements which people may not be noticing. One suggestion he makes is that perhaps the identifying of Litekyan as the location for a new firing range safety danger zone, could possibly be a tricky ploy to get Pagat, a place once taken off the table, back on the table. Technically Pagat is still on the table and is still a site the DOD designates for their firing range, but the popular opinion feels that it is no longer an option, the movement to save it was successful. Perez's article begs several questions that are important and need to be considered. Key amongst them in terms of resisting or countering or challenging is how should we interpret the military as an institution, in what way, through what level of consistency, efficiency or power should we see it? With Perez'

Like everyone out there I hate haters. Even haters most likely hate haters, and while it is usually better not to think about them, sometimes you just can't help yourself. Este na post hu tuge'i'i i manggaichatli'e' siha! Although I am by no means a celebrity on Guam, or anywhere else, there is something to be said about when your name does become increasingly larger than yourself. No human can control the world of discourse around them anymore than the world of discourse about them. They may seek to try and dominate it, make it follow a certain course, mean what they would wish, and while it can appear to follow your desires, it never actually does. Part of becoming larger than life means being reduced to mean certain things, reduced to certain social/political shortcuts. In my case, there are people out there who I don't know, who know about me. The number of people who know about me in some way seems to be getting larger than the number of people that I c

One of the listservs I'm on had a little bit of a spat recently over the Wikileaks and Julian Assange issue. The debate was over whether the sexual assault charges against Assange should be taken seriously or not. Some felt like the charges were more contrived than anything, while others felt that this was precisely a problem that movements have, is that they tend to look past any clear faults in their heroes and therefore perpetuate gendered systems of oppression. Many seemed to feel that this is one of the those moments where "identity politics" weakens or ruins the Left, because something small, minute and paticularistic, ends up tainting something which is hugely important and universal. For them, the issue is obviously made up by government who want to take Assange down, but the way identity politics has wormed its way into movements has made them susceptible to fake debates like this. From this perspective, even if the charges are true (and they are not rape charges

President Barack Obama is not a liar, and when he isn't as progressive or radical as people would like him to be, its not because he is not living up to his rhetoric, one thing that has always been comforting about Obama and his rhetoric is that he has, since starting to run for office in 2007, always said exactly what he intends to do. Thinking that because Obama's skin color is a certain way, he would therefore be interested in keeping the war machines of the first world from waging war against any more black and brown peoples, is ridiculous. What Obama represents to you or to me, has very little to do with what consciousness he carries and uses to think about the world. Obama was against the Iraq War not on principle, but because it was a stupid war, a tactical/strategic mistake, that distracted the United States and its military from the real threats in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And although Obama was very generous and vague in his rhetoric on ending the war in Iraq, he wa

I am a video game geek. And you can tell this not just by how many times your wallet or bank account is drained because of the deep, craving need to own a certain video game or system, but also by how many time your schedule gets completely thrown out of whack because your mind got lost in playing a video game, or even though you knew you were running late, you convinced yourself that one more level or now in the case of games like Rock Star Band or Guitar Hero , one more song. Since I returned to Guam to start working on my dissertation, there have been many moments where my schedule has gone awry because of the fact that video games are such a tempting distraction. Another way in which you can identify if you are a video game geek is if you use video game metaphors or references to describe the world, sometimes even to non-video game adept audiences. There are some ways in which once arcane video game geek knowledge or fanservice has wormed its way into popular culture. I remember

I haven't posted anything for quite a while and there's some very good reasons for that. One, which I'll have more info on soon is that I spent the weekend helping my grandfather sell and display his tools at the Micronesian Island Fair at Ipao Beach. The other reason is that I finished up my first full draft of my second chapter for my dissertation. This chapter focuses on answering two obvious questions for a dissertation tentatively titled "Guam: Where the Production of America's Sovereignty Begins!", and those are, "Why Guam?" and "Why Sovereignty?" This chapter also is meant to discuss my methods for my dissertation, and how I will use Catherine Lutz's article "Empire is in the Details" as a frame for using jokes, off-hand remarks, mistakes, blog comments and anecdotes as evidence for my points on sovereignty. Two weeks ago I posted the extra, unused, and edited out sections from my first chapter under the post Tiempon