NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

I first traveled to the United Nations to testify in 2007. I testified along with two other Marie Auyong and Rima Miles before the Fourth Committee on the situation in Guam. We came in the wake of a larger delegation the year before which featured Victoria Leon Guerrero, Julian Aguon, Sabina Perez, Fanai Castro, Tiffany Lacsado and Kerri Ann Borja. That trip represented a big moment in sort of post-nation Chamoru/Angel Santos activism in Guam and the diaspora. The trip first came from a conference in San Diego that I along with a few others had organized in April 2006 about decolonization and Chamoru issues. It was, as far as any of us could tell, the first of its kind in the diaspora. The gathering of so many critical and conscious Chamorus in one place led to a great number of things, one of which was a period of new engagement around the United Nations. Chamorus had been traveling on and off to the UN since 1982. There were high points, usually when the Government of Guam wanted

Gof malago' yu' na bei hanao para este na dinanña' giya New Mexico gi November. Anggen un gof tungo' yu', siempre un komprende esta na este un guinife-hu mumagåhet. Bai hu fanaplika para salåpe' gi che'cho'-hu, sa' gof umaya este yan i che'cho'-hu komo tekngo' na scholar.

It has been a while since my last message of this type. To be honest the Commission on Decolonization of which the Independence Task Force is a part hasn't been very active for the past few years. Inertia and lack of motivation seeped into the Commission from a variety of angles making it incapable of doing anything. That period is hopefully at an end however as the Commission has shown some signs of life since the start of this year. Although the Commission has received money since 2011 for salaries, no money has been set aside for public education, which is what the Commission on Decolonization is meant to oversee. This year there is at last a $100,000 budget set specifically for conducting public education. The Independence Task Force will be meeting this month and start to make plans for the coming year. If you are interested in joining the Task Force, please email me at mlbasquiat@hotmail.com or leave a comment below. This past week I saw an interesting piece of news out o

My previous trips to Okinawa revolved around demilitarism and decolonization in a political sense. This trip, because of my participation in the Island Language Revitalization Symposium at Ryukyu University was focused on decolonization with regards to the language in Okinawa. As people have asked me about my trip to Okinawa and what it was like I have developed a sort of easy to use, easy to understand narrative that I rely upon. Most think of Okinawa and Guam as places that are linked only through the presence of US military bases. Chamorros from Guam know Okinawa primarily through the imaginary of the military, as a place where they once lived, trained or heard stories of how the people there protest the US military. I want to challenge those limited ideas and show that there are more potential connections beyond that, more chances for solidarity. I want to help people see Okinawa from Guam not through the lens that you get by serving in the military, or

Remembering Russell Means October 31, 2012 By Tom Hayden 26 October, 2012 The Nation   Russell Means, who died on Tuesday, kept a place here in Santa Monica in recent years, with his wife, Pearl. Once my wife Barbara and I took our son Liam for a visit to meet this man we described as having fought a real war against the government. Still in good health a couple of years ago, Russell took great interest in our 10-year-old, as he did in all kids trying to understand the actual history of our country. Russell was a strong, imposing figure. It wasn’t only his braided hair or the beads around his neck; his clear eyes gazed as if it was 1873. He had Liam’s attention. When they shook hands, Russell told Liam that his grip needed to be firmer, he should stand up straight, and that he always should look the other person straight in the eye. Our son will not forget the quiet authority this man quietly commanded. Russell had that effect on people, the

For a person of any ethnicity undergoing an identity crisis, there are various stages that you must go through in your search for answers. Some of these stages you may move through quickly, others you may spent more time in, you may find your way to a new space and then decide you don't like it and then turn around and return to a previous point in your journey. For those who feel that they have been deprived of a cultural identity one stage that they must pass through, but which can be fairly dangerous, is the "uniku" stage, or unique stage. Their feelings of loss can come from many sources. They can be from the diaspora and feel like this barrier of oceans or continents stands between them and their identity. It can be an issue of dominant society blocking cultural expression and making them, their parents or their community feel like their cultural has to be neutralized or sterilized before it can be passed on. It can even be a railing and rallying against history

Below is the resolution for the First Stewards Symposium that I attended earlier this year. It was a historic gathering and I am pleased to announce that there will be another First Steward's conference in Summer of 2013. **************** RESOLUTION of the First Stewards Coastal Peoples Address Climate Change Symposium National Museum of the American Indian Washington, DC, on July 20, 2012 Whereas, we, the indigenous peoples, were and are the First Stewards of the lands and waters of North America, Alaska and the Pacific Islands, having lived in these areas millennia before the establishment of the United States; Whereas, about 300 First Stewards and others convened July 17 to 20, 2012, at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Indian, Washington, DC, at the First Stewards: Coastal Peoples Address Climate Change Symposium; Whereas, the Symposium reemphasized the First Stewards’ awareness of the interconnectedness of the clouds, forest, valleys, land, streams, fis

I am a geek and I am a geek about a lot of different things, comics, movies, manga, anime, video games. But the biggest thing that I am a geek about is Chamorro stuff. I love using the Chamorro language, writing in it, singing in it. I love learning all I can about Chamorro things, reading about them, writing about them. So I am un gof dongkalu na geek Chamoru. But as a big fat Chamorro geek, I often find myself frustrated. Although there are plenty of young Chamorros out there that I can speak to about my geek loves, there is practically no one out there who I can speak to about these things in the Chamorro language. I can speak to my grand parents and plenty of older relatives in Chamorro about some things. For instance I can talk to them about the things they regularly discuss, such as the war (World War II), their childhoods, family stuff, or even The Young and the Restless. But if I want to have a discussion about which is the best Star Trek movie, or which English voice actor do

The past month has been gof mappot for writing. The chapter that I'm working on for my dissertation right now is a MONSTER, un mampos dongkalo na birak, pat GATOS. Guaha nai hinassosso-ku na ha kekepuno' yu'! Guaha nai lokkue', na hinasso-ku yu' na esta matai yu', sa' malingu i titanos-hu, humuyong ya sumaga'naihon gi iyo-ku computer screen, ya nina'langga' yu'. The chapter involves too many different things, directions from looking at and critiquing sovereignty, and rather than taking the easy way out and simply using what other people say, I've done my best to develop my own route for looking Guam's ghostly place in relation to the concept of sovereignty. Mind you, what I'm saying isn't ginnen taya' or from scratch, its informed by different things, mainly my experiences and my interactions, anecdotal evidence of Guam's colonial status. But I resisted simply putting my dissertation on other peoples' shoulders,

********************* Published on Monday, October 1, 2007 by CommonDreams.org Bolivia’s Evo Morales Wins Hearts and Minds in US by Deborah James and Medea Benjamin While Iranian President Ahmedinejad stole the headlines during the United Nations meeting last week in New York, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales - a humble coca farmer, former llama herder and union organizer - stole the hearts of the American people. At public events and media appearances, Bolivia’s first-ever indigenous president reached out to the American people to dialogue directly on issues of democracy, environmental sustainability, and social and economic justice. Morales appeared at a public event packed with representatives of New York’s Latino, labor, and other communities, speaking for 90 minutes - without notes - about how he came to power, and about his government’s efforts to de-colonize the nation, the poorest in South America. At first, he said, community organizations did not want to enter the cesspo