NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

There are good parents and there are bad parents, but there are no perfect parents. What I find intriguing from talking to public school teachers around the island, is the way in which they see many parents unable to deal with the reality of their children or their level of parenting. The students that are the most problematic are usually those where the family is hardly involved in their education. The parents are absent in the home life, discipline isn't taught and order and structure aren't laid down and so those kids become problem students in school. Kids misbehave, kids make mistakes, families become busy, attention is divided, these are all normal things. But when some parents are confronted with the misbehavior of their children, rather than recognizing the realities of life, they choose to throw up a facade of being perfect parents. Perfect parents are always blameless and so are their children. The school system is the problem. Other kids are the problem. The te

If you were to do a poll of Chamorros either today or even 100 years ago, and ask them to choose who in the entirety of Guam's history is the person who they think is the most important, I can guarantee you that most people would choose or would have chosen the same stupid person. Ferdinand Magellan. For most people this choice seems natural. After all Magellan was the first European to visit Guam, and was credited for a long time with "discovering" it. Snot nosed kids around the world have to learn about him whenever the "Age of Discovery" is discussed in school. So in every corner of the globe students learning history may or may not learn about Guam simply because Magellan stumbled upon it. It is easy to forget that Chamorros have been in Guam and the Marianas in one form or another for close to 4,000 years. Magellan only arrived close to 500 years ago. The period of colonization that we still live in today is only around 350 years old. In all this tim

When I was younger living on Guam I fished regularly for a couple of months. I would go fishing with some guys from Yap or Chuuk with Hawaiian slings. I was never that great at it compared to my companions, but I also had fun. Sitting on a rock watching the sunrise, with a boat full of fish representing your efforts was always a meaningful moment. As I got more serious about UOG I stopped fishing and other than simple rod and reel with my dad, didn't think about fishing much. Since I moved back to Guam in 2008 I haven't fished at all, but fishing, most particularly native fishing rights for Chamorros and issues of sustainability have been part of my thinking and activism. I helped draft the rules and regulations for the native fishing rights a few years back. They were submitted to the Department of Agriculture who promptly did nothing with them. Other than callers to the Buzz in the morning, no one seems to consider it a big issue anymore. In the p

I don't normally go onto websites to read through comments, but I was intrigued by the recent story about Senator Mana Silva Taijeron's husband going ballistic at Unatalan Middle School. After talking to a teacher that works there, it seemed pretty cut and dried as to what happened. The father of the student was clearly angry and upset at the prospect of his daughter being bullied, but his behavior probably shouldn't be excused as aggressive caring. He behaved in a reckless way towards students at the school and towards staff there, and made assumptions about his daughter being mistreated or not being taken care of when he really had no idea what was going on, and didn't want to listen to anyone explain the situation to him. Since its an election year I expected the comments to be pretty divided between Democrats and Republicans. Then I remembered that on Guam the difference between Democrat and Republicans doesn't really exist, and is generally just based on wh

During the month of March, my phone rings more than usual. It is Chamorro Month, and so every government agency, school, organization and most businesses look for some way to honor this month and display their support for Chamorro language and culture. Considering how Chamorro culture was stripped of much of its value after World War II because of a rush to Americanize; the renewed interest in protecting and promoting Chamorro culture is a very good thing.  When I ask my students at UOG, what their culture is, or what their cultures are, I always receive interesting responses. For some students, they feel like they are very cultural because they know certain practices, such as fishing, weaving, dancing or can speak the language. For most however, they feel like they don’t know their culture or don’t have it. They see the ways their parents or grandparents are and see them as having so much culture, and they see themselves as having little to nothing. For some thi

Published on Friday, December 30, 2011 by CultureStrike Ethnic Studies Ruling Escalates Arizona Schools Struggle by Michelle Chen While students were on their holiday break, Arizona issued a disturbing wake-up call to anyone who thought the education system had evolved to reflect America’s diversity. In a legal challenge to a controversial law passed in 2010, an administrative law judge pummeled a flagship educational initiative by supporting restrictions on programs based on Latino history and culture. Tucson students occupy a school board meeting  The judge decided that the curriculum used in Tucson’s Mexican American studies programs was biased against white people, apparently because it advocates critical historical perspectives and emphasizes struggles of indigenous and Latino communities, as well as the links between that legacy and contemporary politics. The ruling comes as no surprise, as the struggle between the school district and school superintendent