NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

A special presentation by Chamorro Studies student at UOG as part of the 2019 MARC Seminar Series. Sen gefpågo este na dinanña'. Ya-hu taiguihi na fina'pos, sa' ta na'fåmta' i lengguahi ya ta na'gof oppan gui' lokkue'! It featured presentations by students at the CM102, 202 and 302 levels. It also featured some very special presentations by my CM340 of Chamoru Culture students. One of whom Joe "Dågu" Babauta is included below in a video with his original song that he shared.

Ever since we created the Chamorro Studies Program at UOG, there has been an expected tension within the university over what should or should not constitute the program offerings. While there isn't much debate over whether the Chamorro Studies program should offer courses in Chamoru language, Chamoru history or that discuss Chamoru culture from a theoretical perspective, there are regular disagreements over whether or not the program should offer "culture" courses. As someone who went off to grad school with the intent of helping to "decolonize" the University of Guam, a place where I had received my BA and my first MA, this conflict is usually very personal. Most everyone can agree that academia should make room for "indigenous knowledge" in a trendy or fad-like sense. In the same way in which everyone might want to connect something about climate change to their work to be aligned with prevailing intellectual currents, we find something similar in

Hagas umatungo' ham yan este na taotao, si Siñot Joe "Dågu" Babauta, un ma'estron Chamorro yan gof maolek na titifok yan danderu. Desde i ma'pos na såkkan hu ayuyuda gui' mama'tinas lepblon e'eyak para i ma'estron Chamorro gi GDOE. Hu kekeayuda gui' på'go mama'nå'gue klas gi UOG para i otro semester (Fañomåkan 2018). Halacha nai hu interview gui' para i website Hongga Mo'na , ya debi di bei edit yan na'funhåyan ayu. Estague un tinige' put guiya yan i bidadå-ña ginen i gasetan PDN. **************************** "Chamorro teacher Joe 'Dågu' Babuata keeps weaving tradition alive" by Chloe Babauta Pacific Daily News August 7, 2017 When Joe “Dågu” Babauta saw “Tan Maria” weaving a hat out of coconut leaves at 12 years old, his lifelong love affair with the art of weaving began. “Being that I was so young, I had to ask older friends who drove to take me down there from Agat, to wh

Last year I gave a presentation to a high school class here on Guam about the way we can understand Guam history, its trends, its tendencies, its cycles through various Chamorro sayings. For some reason, today I have that presentation on my mind. I undertake a similar activity in my World History and Guam History courses. In order to understand what history as a concept is, I don't give students definitions per se, instead I give them 28 - 30 quotes that people have said about history and its characteristics, its importance or its irrelevance. No single quote is meant to encapsulate everything or explain and cover everything, but rather they each provide some texture to aspects, some structural understanding or descriptions to tendencies. History in the mind of one scholar is an essential part of human activity, for another it is an illusion, a means of trying to imagine control over things you have no control over. I find the complicated mess that the quotes crea

It is now almost 200 days til Guam hosts FESTPAC or the largest cultural festival in the Pacific. I am involved in FESTPAC in a number of forms and there are some ways that we are clearly ready and on course and others where ai adai it seems like it'll take a miracle for us to make it on time.  Para i taotao ni' muna'la'la'la' yan chumochonnek mo'na i kuttura-ta (gi meggai na manera) este na dinana' i mas takhilo', i mas sagradu na tiempo. Kada kuatro na sakkan mandadana' i taotaogues i Pasifiku gi unu na isla, ya manafa'nu'i yan manapatte i kutturan-niha. Un sen dangkolu na onra este na para ta kombida taotao ginen kana trenta diferentes na isla siha magi para i tano'-ta.  For those of you who would like to receive regular updates about FESTPAC, its planning and organizing go on Facebook and LIKE the official FESTPAC page. Here is the link: https://www.facebook.com/guamfestpac2016 Or, each Friday the Pacific Daily N

I've had a Youtube account for many years now, I think 8 or 9, lao ti siguru yu'. I didn't post many videos for a while, and I'm not sure why, perhaps because I got a better camera a few years ago and with the not that great internet in the various apartments I've lived in, it takes several hours to post videos nowadays. I recently started publishing videos again, after starting a number of video projects and being inspired to engage in this media form. My Youtube videos are frequently shaking and suffer from very bad audio and never edited in anyway. But still they can provide an interesting view into certain events on island and elsewhere. Every once in a while I get a message from someone who couldn't be at an event or who was looking for information on something that has happened in Guam and they thank me for my shaky almost avant garde looking movie. Here are some recent videos that I've posted. A video from the 2011 Inachaigen Fino' CHamor

This semester I was very excited to offer a new course, Tiningo' Tinifok at UOG, which focused on teaching the basics for weaving. We had 12 students for the class, who learned how to weave a variety of objects in both hagon niyok (coconut leaf) and akgak (pandanus). I look forward to offering more courses like this in the future, which focus on material culture and traditional knowledge and make academic connections between the two. Here are some images from the class:

I'll be here tonight at University of Hawai'i, Manoa.