NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

I put this together for a Chamoru language curriculum project I was working on a few years ago. It was meant to be an appendix to go along with other cultural components about learning Chamoru. The list started with the work of Malia Ramirez and then I added on a few more here and there. It is by no means meant to be exhaustive or complete. Chamoru family names are still evolving, although perhaps not at the rate they have previously. For every Chamoru, there are a number of names they can claim, but unless they are running for office, tend to only invoke one or two when representing their identity.  I returned to this list recently while discussing the topic in one of my Chamoru language classes. For many Chamorus in the states or who grow up on Guam without much emphasis on their heritage, they assume that their "family name" is their last name. I have had many troubling conversations with young people who assert that their clan name is "Leon Guerrero" or &qu;

For most Chamorros, there is only one religion which gets to be designated as a "Chamorro" religion. That is Catholicism. Even though it has only been a part of Chamorro lives for just a few hundred years, it became intimately connected to so many parts of Chamorro life during that time, that for some scholars and individuals you cannot be Chamorro today unless you are Catholic or participate in Catholic rites. For others the Chamorro religion deals with taotaomo'na or aniti, ancestral spirits, their reverence and worship. We see elements of this in the way that cautious respect for the jungle and other natural areas persisted in a quiet supernatural or spiritual form, even when the overt belief in the spirits of Chamorro ancestors became weakened and almost forgotten. Although positive perceptions and connections to our ancient ancestors are common today, few people accept this as their religion alone. Instead they mix elements that to some might be contradictory toget

Storytelling has long been such a big part of Chamorro culture. When Chamorros were largely shut out of the governing of their islands and their lives during the last few centuries of colonization, often times their stories were their means of fighting back, whether through teasing, through imagining, through remembering. Even when they largely appear to have accepted their colonial realities, the stories persisted, sometimes changing to accommodate new beliefs and new senses of normality, but still the love of storytelling and of using words to create meaning, to incite responses, to give an extra dimension to life did not fade. You can find it in the stories of Juan Mala, where Chamorros expressed their dislike for the Spanish government of the 19th century through a folk hero, who shared their love of joking, laughing and eating. You can find it in the stories of the giant fish who saved Guam, some versions focus on female power, others on explaining the shape of the island and so

People take different approaches the language revitalization and preservation. You can often divide these interventions into either which segment of society they are focusing on, and whether their efforts deal with past, present or future forms of the language. For instance, when designing a language curriculum, which audience are you focusing the structure of your curriculum to satisfy or to appeal to? This is one thing that I have regularly been critical of in terms of how curriculum or language learning materials are created on Guam. As most people creating the curriculum are native speakers for whom Chamorro is their first language, they may struggle in understanding what it is like to learn Chamorro as a second language. Their interests in the language will be very different than someone who does not speak it but wants to learn. Their feel of the language will be drastically different than someone who is very unfamiliar with it. What will appeal to them or make them happy is not

For years Peter Onedera's column gi Fino' Chamoru has been my favorite part of the Pacific Daily News. Many Chamorro speakers are critical of the way that Onedera writes in the Chamorro language and the way that he spells, but often times I feel these criticisms have more to do with people feeling inadequate in terms of their ability to read Chamorro or just feeling plain lazy. Ondera's columns can be difficult to read, and many people simply turn their minds off because they don't like the way he spells certain things. Others make their way through it, but don't like the Chamorro he uses because it is different that the way he speaks or the way most people speak. There is some truth to this, but the far greater truth that people don't want to acknowledge is that while we do have thousands of Chamorro speakers out there, we don't have nearly as many Chamorro readers or writers. Even if there are people who are fluent in the language, it doesn't mean that

I am exhausted right now, but it is the yinafai i gaitininas, the exhaustion of the righteous as one of my friend states. As she likes to joke it is as my blog says, the feeling that there is "no rest for the awake." This weekend I manned a booth at the Chamorro Cultural Festival in San Diego on behalf of Chamorro Studies at the University of Guam. We are in the process of developing an online Chamorro Studies certificate program. UOG President Robert Underwood sent me to California and Hawai'i to network with Chamorros and Guam clubs to gauge the interest in offering a program like this. I expected the response to be positive, but nowhere near as positive and excited as it was today. Nearly every single person who stopped by the booth signed up expressing their interest in what we want to offer. It was a day filled with plenty of interesting moments and stories. Chamorros from all shapes, sizes, colors and levels of consciousness came up to me sharing their opinions

This is the painting of the saddest person I know.  She lives in delusions and fantasies about herself and paints herself up everyday as if she is perfect and beautiful. Many people accept that surface of her not because they believe it to be true, but because they instinctive find that she offers to little to the world, that there isn't really any reason to consider her further.  I tried to paint that surface that she words so hard to pretend is real, to duplicate the sometimes comforting but also draining and taunting shell that she wishes others would accept as real.  But each time I would try to paint her, the sadness,  the loneliness, the insecurity, the self-hate, the pathetic inability to accept the truth of who she is, would come to the surface of the painting.  It is one thing when someone does not realize that they wear masks and live in fantasies, but she knows the truth, but still stubbornly and fearfully clings to lies. As a result she

Mina'sais na Lisayu 12/20/13 You could say that religion was a central part of grandma’s life and a key part of her family’s legacy to this island. Her families, both from her mother and her father, helped build the foundation for two different churches during the 20 th century. The seeds of Protestantism had already been planted in the island during the Spanish period. Whalers from the United States brought it in small doses towards the end of the Spanish period. In fact the first concerted effort to build a non-Catholic community came from two Chamorros who had left as whalers and returned as evangelists, the Custino Brothers. On both her mother’s and her father’s side, grandma’s relatives were among the first Chamorros to convert to Protestantism. Both grandma’s mother’s and father’s family were of the first generation of Chamorros to convert. In fact grandma’s grandfather, my great great grandfather Jose Aguon Flores (Tatan Engko) was th

Mina'singko na Lisayu 12/19/13 It is strange but some of the happiest memories I have of my grandmother were going with her to funerals. These funerals were like my cultural, linguistic and genealogical boot-camp. I didn’t grow up knowing much about Chamorro language, culture or my family relations. When I became interested while attending UOG, it gave an entire new dimension to our relationship. Whenever there was a funeral of a family friend, relative and so on, grandma would tell me, you’re gonna take me to this. “you’ll find lots of Chamorros to talk to there.” I enjoyed riding in the car talking to my grandmother. This would be the briefing, where a genealogical minefield   would be laid out in front of me. My grandmother would trace a convoluted route that would connect so and so with so and so and with us and us. Along the way she would take us into a seemingly infinite number of cul de sacs, providing tangential stories of this family tha

This week I will be writing daily lisayus in honor of my grandmother. She was not Catholic and neither am I, so these are meant to be expressions of my love for her and gratitude that I got to know her and learn from her.  *************** Fine'nina na Lisayu for Elizabeth De Leon Flores Lujan December 15, 2013 You cannot understand who my grandmother was without knowing her mother. So many of the stories that I was told by my grandmother came from this woman, my great-grandmother Rita Pangelinan De Leon who married Guillermo Sablan Flores. My grandmother’s eyes would sparkle when she would share the stories of her mother’s life. For years she would narrate the story of her mother like it was a daily soap opera. The stories usually began with my great-great-great grandfather who was in charge of the kitchen in the Spanish Governor’s palace.  After those in the palace had been fed leftovers would be scraped from huge metal pots onto plates, wrapped and placed into

Este i kannai i dos ni' pumoksai yu. Para i manmofo'na na Chamorro siha, i kannai un gof impottante na simbolu put i guinaiya i saina-mu, ko'lo'lo'na i famalao'an na manaina-mu. Anggen matai un sen presisu yan ti tulaikayon na palao'an put hemplo Si Nana'-mu pat i Nanan Biha-mu, siempre para un chule' i te'lang i kannai-na. Para todu i manmatai un chule' i ha'i'guas, sa' ayu i ankla, ayu muna'chechetton i anten-niha para i tano' i familai. Lao para un sen mangge' na palao'an ni' gumu'ot yan fuma'maolek i meggai na patte gi i familia, i mas takhilo' na simbulo i tel'ang kannai.

For most people in life, the history of your family is something behind you and nowhere near as important as getting to work on time, getting kids through school, or watching to see who will win next on “The Voice.” It is something almost all will say has value, but like so many things, it gains the most value only after it is out of your reach. Stories of your family are always there as you drive on the road of life. You will see signs that hint at how you should ask grandma or grandpa questions about your family, but most people just keep on driving. Only when it is too late and you can’t ask those questions, then do you look into the rear view mirror with longing, wishing that you had stopped and wishing you had heard those stories while they were still alive. For most of my life on Guam, I spent it living in my grandparent’s house in Mangilao. From my grandfather, Joaquin Flores Lujan (Bittot) I have learned about Chamorro blacksmithing and how to make tools like the kamyo,

I'm writing up my 2012 Guam Political Sign Awards. For those who need a reminder about what this entails, I thought I would post below my awards for the last election, in 2010. ******************* 2010 Guam political sign awards Wednesday, 10 Nov 2010 01:22am by Michael Bevacqua |  Marianas Variety News Staff The political signs are slowly getting taken down around island and so before we forget that for close to a year our island was covered in a sea of slogans, promises, and smiling faces, Id like to hand out my 2010 Guam Political Sign Awards. These awards are decided by me and me alone, there is no panel of judges who have debated or voted on them. The categories are neither fair, nor uniform, and they change for each election depending on what signs are out there. These awards are meant to be fun and funny, and rarely serious. These are not meant to attack any candidates, but are instead given to celebrate how invested our island

I remember many years ago hitting a wall in my learning of Chamorro. I had gotten the basics and could carry on conversations with people. I could express myself in a casual and sort of everyday way. The basic topics of how is this person doing, how is this going, weren't any problem at all. But when the conversation would become a little bit more complex, when the subject matter got more detailed or more sophisticated the Chamorro language would politely be set side and English would prevail. Chamorro would make cameo appearances afterwards, but never ever truly gain control over what was being said, until the "adios, esta agupa." For me this would happen because I was still learning the language and there were still plenty of thing I wasn't sure how you were supposed to talk about in the Chamorro language. But what depressed me was that sometimes it would be the other person, the one who was far more fluent than myself in the language, who would switch to Engl