NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

The conventions for both political parties this year have passed. Because of the time difference on Guam, I wasn't able to watch them as much as I'd hoped, because I was usually in class when people were speaking. I followed the coverage as best as I could, even writing about the Guam delegations for both the DNC and RNC and the way they represented the island in their roll call spotlight moment. I have only attended one political convention in my life and that was in 2008 when I got to be the "Blogger from Guam" to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, where Barrack Obama received the nomination for President. I has wanted to go back to another convention or two, and toyed with the idea of attending this year, but my teaching schedule made it impossible. While reflecting on this year's convention and my own experience 8 years ago, I sifted through my digital files and came across this article this article that I written fro AAJA or the Asian American

It is interesting to see the parallels between Chamorro discussions of self-determination and decolonization and the rhetoric of men such as Frederick Douglass and the liberation and equality of African Americans. There are parallels, but also key differences. It is important to talk about equality, rights and justice, but it is important that when speaking about this sort of political progress, we do not assume that inclusion or a greater extension of American rights is the only answer. Would Chamorros being formally incorporated into the United States be the only or best option for our people given our history? Given our geographic and political realities? ************************* Speech of Frederick Douglass at the Republican National Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1876. SPEECH OF MR. DOUGLASS. “Mr. President and Gentlemen of the National Republican Convention: Allow me to express my deep, my heartfelt gratitude to you for the warm, the cordial invitation you have exte

Do you know how ridiculous the United States is when one of its most dominant voices in political discourse today is someone who is too scared to do interviews with human beings who might not worship her, who embodies almost perfectly the Stephen Colbert truthism that truth comes from the gut and the hip and not the mind, and whose interventions boil down to mindless little posts on Facebook and Twitter, but are reported as something far more meaningful and powerful? Gof o'sun yu' nu Si Sarah Palin yan i bida-na. Taihinasso gui', lao sa' hafa meggai na taotao guihi gi lagu muna'fofotte i fino'-na? ********************************* Sarah Palin: The Sound and the Fury Michael Joseph Gross Vanity Fair October 10, 2010 Backstage in the arena, a little girl in Mary Janes pushes her brother in a baby carriage, stopping a few yards shy of a heavy, 100-foot-long black curtain. The curtain splits the arena in two, shielding the children from an audience of 4,000 p

I'm leaving for Guam today, and so I can only post something real quick. The race for President has changed since the Democratic National Convention. The pick of the Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin has energized everybody out there, even those who didn't really need it. Republicans are rabid, foaming at the mouth, since they no longer are stuck with guarding the legacy of a terrible President, but can now this year make their own sort of "history" and to steal a line from Obama's stump speech, "change America, and change the world" by helping Sarah Palin become the first white woman Vice President. The media is almost as rabid, but not unified in its energy, but divided. First there are those who feel compelled to take Palin down and do the vetting the Republicans obviously didn't do, and fight against that ridiculous Republican expectation that if we say Palin is a reformer, no one should look into her past or her record, but they should just acc

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