NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

One passage that has long stayed with me in terms of understanding ethics is from one of Slavoj Zizek's books, where he mentions the Egyptians being swallowed up by the Red Sea as they trail the escaping Israelites. According to Jewish tradition he writes, when the Israelites celebrate the death of their long-time enemies, God chastises them. He tells them, how dare they celebrate that which he created. Who are they to celebrate the destruction of something that comes from God. Even if they were opposed in the drama of life on earth, they come from the same source and they have right to celebrate something which is equal to them in its origin. This type of repositioning is the basis for many types of ethical engagement. The idea that there is always some deeper level, some deeper intersection of humanity that we can and should appeal to in order to create something that is more just and more moral. But we can become so comfortable in our identities, so stuck in them, that it

When I was writing my dissertation more than 10 years ago, one question that I constantly had, was what is the "Department of Interior" in the United States, especially in relation to the territories. The easy answer is that it is the office to oversees them. It is the office that oversees the natural resource, the parks, the relations with Native Americans, but also the way the US connects to its insular areas and colonies. We can refer to the Department of the Interior as the make-shift colonial office, a colonial office in denial that it is a colonial office. The office manages resources and helps to remind those of us who live in the territories that we are a resource, that our lands, our lives are more explicitly than any other place within the US and its empire, thought of as a commodity. The fact that our strongest link to the federal bureaucracy is the DOI is key in understanding our relationship to the US. We may have a variety of fantasies about what we are to

In Magellan's trip across the Pacific, he passed by thousands of islands, the majority of which they did not see. They noticed a few, but they had no resources to offer and only made the voyagers more distressed. Guam and the Marianas were the first landfall they made after months at sea, where many became ill and more than a dozen died. The interactions between Chamorus and Magellan did not go well, and I'll write more about that later. Because of this contact, Magellan's voyage was able to obtain some supplies to help them eventually reach the Philippines less than two weeks later. As a result, hundreds of years later, Guam still has a small, but secure place in the history of European imperialism and the stories of its mastering of the world. One historian refers to this moment as the first taint of civilization, and if you believe in notions of cultural purity than it is easy to understand or accept that thesis. But even from the general ways these moments of first

"Independence: A Very American Idea" by Michael Lujan Bevacqua Co-Chair, Independence for Guam Task Force April 12, 2016   Recent weeks have been brimming with discussion of decolonization, self-determination and political status change for Guam. Governor Calvo spent a large part of his recent State of the Island Address talking about Guam’s political status and laid out a bold plan to hold a political status vote by the end of the year. Calvo’s proposal created a stir in the community, especially among those who have been fighting for self-determination for decades, as it seemed to open the right to vote in a self-determination plebiscite to all registered voters and not just those who are considered to be “native inhabitants.” Last week Calvo presented his plans to the Commission on Decolonization, of which I am a member, representing the Independence for Guam Task Force. We had some very spirited discussion on the Governor’s plans, sha

A close friend of mine who just started his Ph.D. program has been having trouble with balancing his personal life and academic life, and keeping up with the theoretical workload involved. I sent him some advice, just from my perspective about how to survive in an environment where you are reading so much each week and then expected to speak intelligently on the sheer amount of data and ideas you are expected to absorb. This naturally made me remember my own grad school days, in particular my days of reading multiple theoretical texts a week in my UCSD Ethnic Studies program. I had my own tricks in order to survive, but I was helped by the fact that I read pretty fast and also just loved reading. Not having kids at that time and living away from much of my extended family also helped. The reflection or analytical papers that I wrote in grad school are favorite mementos of mine. They represent a time when my brain was afire with ideas and I was writing and reading constantly. It is

When I hear people discuss nowadays their connections to i manmofo'na or Ancient Chamorros, it is always interesting to see their connections and how they express their similarity, their fidelity or their disaffection. There are things that we can identify as coming from ancient times up until today. Some of them are abstract, coming from the nebulous realm of values and ideas. Others are rooted in the land and those things which remain despite things appearing to be so drastically different.  When people want to draw affinity to those ancient ancestors it is rarely a reciprocal game. People will take up things that fit within their lives today, often times things which are incredibly simple or easy to integrate or provide verbal support for, but actually have little affect on their lives. It is common in all cultures to speak on behalf of our ancestors, to speak to them. But when people praise and pay homage to them it makes me wonder what their responses would be? Would th

The Politics of Thanksgiving Day November 26, 2014 Thanksgiving Day is rooted in a myth of friendly cooperation between Native Americans and European settlers, celebrated a year after the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts and nearly starved. But the reality was more of one-sided generosity and two-faced betrayal, as William Loren Katz explains. By William Loren Katz http://consortiumnews.com/2014/11/26/the-politics-of-thanksgiving-day/ As family excitement builds over Thanksgiving, you would never know November was Native American History Month. President Barack Obama publicly announced the month, but many more Americans will be paying much greater attention to his annual declaration of thanksgiving with the ceremonial pardoning of a turkey. Thanksgiving has a treasured place in the hearts of Americans, established as a national holiday by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 to rouse Northern patriotism for a war that was not going well. Since the

I am presenting next week on the Chamorro creation story, where Puntan and Fu'una create Guam and Chamorros. There are so many different versions of it, most of which follow the same trajectory but focus and leave out certain elements. San Vitores recorded a version of the story. So did other priests. Freciynet did as well. Today there are different theories as to what it means and what the Chamorro relationship to these great spirits was. In some versions Puntan and Fu'una are depicted as equal, while in others they are not and Puntan is firmly in charge with Fu'una his loyal sidekick. For my presentation I will be discussing the way this story was used in the creation of a mural in the village of Humatak and how it can be essential in the project of decolonization. I need to get back to work on it, but I thought I would share real quick one version of the story, written in Chamorro and published by the Department of Education. It is titled "Ha

One of the problems in their fight is that while most of Jeju may know about their resistance, news of this fight has barely reached the mainland of South Korea. This was something which I had heard two days earlier from Mr. Kang Sang-won in Pyeongtaek when he was talking about the difficulties in trying to get people outside of the immediate vicinity to care. One of the problems with the rural struggles in South Korea against US base expansion is that the news of their fight barely reaches the large population centers of South Korea. For instance, while most of Jeju Island may know about the resistance of the villagers of Gangjeong or the city of Pyeongtaek may know about the resistance by local farmers, or even the citizens of Paju might know about the displacement of villagers in order to expand the Mugeon-ri training fields, but this news doesn't travel very far otherwise. I heard this most specifically from Mr. Kang Sang-won in Pyeongtaek when he was talking about the difficu

The article below is one of those frustrating narratives which has the ability to both inspire and activate me and also depress and enrage me. The title alone indicates the given and accepted tragedy involved, when it states with such incredulity, that Native Americans, after losing for much for centuries, actually might be on the verge of winning something. Although I detest the way that the tragedy of Native Americans is so given, and not in a way as to help incite an ethical crisis when it is invoked, and so people can talk about the sadness and depressing nature of how they have been dispossessed and marginalized by the United States, without seeing how they, their identities and their privilege most likely come from that very history of marginalization. This article goes further than most in that it admist that the displacement of Native Americans, was not just some unfortunate thing which racist people who are all dead, did. It states clearly that it is the "original sin&qu;