NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

I want to write a longer post about how I detest the use of the "Third World" trope to try to call attention to how unfortunate or wrong things are in the United States. One of the reasons why I loathe it is because so much of that complaint is secret exceptionalist strain, an assumption that of all the places in the world where bad things should happen, none of it should be in the United States. Whether natural disasters, shootings and violence, social breakdown, government corruption, whenever something which tests the cognitive limits of people in the United States, the Third World trope emerges to provide some sense of what happened. It is a way of letting a bit of chaos into the homeland, some nasty, brutish, dark slivers of discourse get to sneak in and give some color and some understanding to something which is supposed to be beyond the white-picket-fence-comprehension of Americans. The worst part about this citation of the Third World is how it can help to reinforce

You might have noticed some recent changes with my blog, and in the coming weeks there are sure to be a few more. The rate of traffic to my blog has shot up in recent months (in particular since I was chosen to be one of the bloggers for the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Denver), and so I'm trying to improve its look a little bit. The changes are happening slowly because of other commitments, but bare with me I'll have this place gefpago soon enough. I first started this blog in 2004, when, at least for me, nina'gatbo or beautification was difficult. But now, adding all sorts of cool features to your blog is easy and so I've finally decided to upgrade and try them out. I used to have lists of blog posts listed along the side, grouped by different themes such as articles by Naomi Klein, posts on love, posts on decolonization, posts on Famoksaiyan, etc. etc. These lists were cool, and I hope that people found them helpful. But updating them was a pain, beca

I may not post much for the next two weeks, because frankly they look really busy. 1. Finish up helping CHELU Inc . with the writing of their application for an Administration of Native Americans Grant to assess the state of Chamorro language in San Diego. 2. I'll be at UCLA this week as a respondent for a panel that my cousin Alfred Flores is on. 3. Early next week I'll be up at UC Riverside where I'll be giving a guest lecture for Professor Robert Perez in the Ethnic Studies department. My lecture will deal with colonialism, militarization and indigenous rights and struggles through the example of Guam. 4. Then starting Wednesday next week the conference we've been planning for months in our department is finally happening! " Postcolonial" Futures in a Not Yet Postcolonial World: Locating the Intersections of Ethnic, Indigenous and Postcolonial Studies " is almost set to go. Right now, I am literally printing name tags and designing flyers and emailing