NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Several years ago, there was a small but significant spike in Guam/Chamorro based activism around the announcement that rather than Pågat, the US military not intended to build their firing range complex for their military buildup near Litekyan or Ritidian as many know it on Guam. For those unfamiliar with the long, winding road for this the US military buildup to Guam, they created a DEIS around their intent to build the firing range complex in Pågat. After push-back from the community, lawsuits and also problems at the US federal level, this was withdrawn and a SEIS or supplementary environmental impact statement was conducted, identifying the area above Litekyan in Northern Guam as the new location. I attended the public comment meetings, participated in protests and demonstrations and also helped organize teach-ins and forums to educate the public about the military's intended use of this very important cultural and historic area for Chamorros. The level of public outrage nev

Mina'kuatro na Lisayu 12/18/13 My grandfather has a memory that would put elephants to shame. I imagine that he must have spent his youth eating elephant brains in order to develop his uncanny ability to remember what seems like every negative thing that has happened in his life. Good things fade and fizzle in his mind, they drip down his frame and never sink in, but a mistake, a slight, an insult, a lie, when someone has wronged him, those things become etched in his mind. My grandfather can recall people who didn’t pay their fares when he drove a cab for a short period after World War II. He can remember people who cheated playing volleyball before the war. His memory is filled with family scandals over land, gifts that were never reciprocated and loans that were never paid back. Part of the reason grandpa has this personality is because he was the oldest of his siblings and has felt like he has given so much to his family over the years and not

Dipotsi sa' este i kustrumbre-ku.  In all my classes I teach at the University of Guam, whether it be English, Chamorro or History the issue of decolonization and independence for Guam always arises. Part of this is because of who I am and what I believe in. This affects how I teach and what I teach. Part of it is also how students see me and how many of them know that if you google Guam and Decolonization or Guam and a wide range of other topics you will end up with something involving me or written by me. I do not necessarily force this issue on students, but always remind them of the importance of this topic as they live on this island and in this world. Part of the difficulty though in discussing these two topics is that while Guam is a colony and has been such for more than a century, the Chamorro experience of colonialism has changed so much since 1898, 1941, even 1968. The colonial difference between Guam and the United States is not as wide or as daunting or as disgu

History has a way of reminding you that what you take for granted today did not exist in the past, and worse yet, there may have been a point in the past when what you take for granted today was unimaginable. There is one quote from Robert Underwood that sums of this strange way that history can haunt people and deprive them of a feeling of essentialness with the present. It comes from his essay "Teaching Guam History in Guam High Schools" and it talks about the position of Chamorros from 1898-1941 in relation to the United States. The Chamorro people were not Americans, did not see themselves as Americans-in-waiting, and probably did not care much about being Americans. The US relationship during that period was unapologetically colonial. The US didn't have a colonial office as other countries did, but instead just colonized Guam through the US Navy and racist and paternalistic rhetoric/policies. The US Navy preached the glories of its nation in Guam, but Chamor

The past few days have involved alot of very interesting discussion about the possibilities for Okinawa to become an independent country or seek greater autonomy from Japan. While at the conference that I attended most people were sympathetic in some ways to an independent Okinawa, some were still very resistant. If you are from Guam, then you may not think that Guam is very close to becoming independent. You may think of it as being an idea that only a few people take seriously. You would be right for the most part, but you would also be diminishing the fact that over the past 40 years Guam has come to accept the possibility of the idea being independent. The majority of people may not like it or may be afraid of it, but they can imagine it, albeit in very rudimentary and crude ways. In Okinawa people seem not to be able to accept this yet. There is an independent past, but like Guam, the present seems so intimately connected to the colonizer and so independence seems

“The Fourth Kind” Michael Lujan Bevacqua 10/26/2011 The Marianas Variety For those who follow the local decolonization conversation, you know that there are three options for Guam in terms of its future political status; statehood, free association and independence. These options are part of an internationally recognized United Nations’ process for taking territories or colonies and getting them to become self-determined entities. You could call these the Holy Trinity of status options. These three options were not created arbitrarily, and are not perfect, but are meant to reflect the most basic ways in which a colonized people can reassess their relationship to their colonizer and get rid of the colonial elements of it. At this level, decolonization is about ridding your relationship to the colonizer of its unilateral and unequal aspects; you can do so by splitting them off entirely, by integrating into them, or by creating a new agreement through which your relationship is ma

A great post below from The Drowning Mermaid , titled " Desiree, Be a Lady ." My favorite line is this one: "The "melting pot," the "my land is your land, from California to blah blah blah blah" (I never bothered to learn that song) is only fun, positive, or happy when you are not the one losing yourself, or if you are not the one acting as the gracious host for someone rich and powerful enough to hit you over the head for not being enthusiastic about "sharing." It's not fun or easy to accept if the brand of "unity" they are pushing always forces you to "accept," while they "come together." The problem with decolonization in today's "multicultural" world is that there is so much pressure to give in, to let the prevailing powers, prevail. To give in and let the way things are continue as they are, since to challenge things or try to change things would mean making people feel uncomfortable,

Just finished up at the Realizing Our Destiny Rally held at Adelup today and organized by We Are Guahan. Mampos yafai yu', lao mampos malulok yu' lokkue'. It was tiring, stressful, chaotic, lao sen gaibali, absolutely worth it. At least 500 people showed up (by my quick counts) to hear the music of Biggah and Bettah and Rockbottom, to take literature from the Guahan Coalition for Peace and Justice, and also sign up for the decolonization registry. The highlight of the rally was when we formed a human chain around the Adelup field, with more than 300 people, and screamed at the top of our lungs that we would defend this island and that the DOD must hear and pay attention to and act according to what the people of Guam want. Hunggan, esta ma fitme i ROD, lao taya' guaha. Esta hu tuge' gi este na blog, na achokka' ma sangan na makpo' este, a'annok ha' na ti makpo'. Ma diseseha i militat, na yanggen ma fitma este, fitma ayu, fitma enao, para ta f

One of the speakers on the first day, Hiroshi Taka, the Secretary General of the group Gensuikyo, which is the main group who organized this conference, made a remark which has been a running theme throughout this conference, but the way that he said it ended up staying with me. Part of the World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs is solidarity with hibakusha or those affected by nuclear radiation, primarily in Japan, but also people the Marshall Islands, Tahiti, Christmas Island or even the Western United States. …with the passing of 65 years since the A-bombings, it is as especially important task for us to share the experiences and struggles of the Hibakusha as a common knowledge of the human race. Here, in Hiroshima, hundreds of young people participating in this conference will visit Hibakusha and listen to their messages, to inherit their struggle for the survival of humanity. Their testimonies of the tragedies are themselves a powerful refutation of the “nuclear det

“…let Japan be the core of the pencil…” I heard this via an interpreter via my headset and immediately looked up from my notebook. The speaker was an elderly Japanese woman, who had been speaking already for several minutes and had touched upon a huge number of issues which drive the work of Japanese progressive; peace, Article 9, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Hibakusha, nuclear war, economic. Her statement by that time had gone from being inspiring to overwhelming to too far-reaching, and so she made this statement in an attempt to sum up her message, by asking the Japanese people present on the first day of the 2010 World Conference Against A and H Bombs, that they work to make their country the “core of the pencil.” She did not take the metaphor any further than this, either because she dropped it or because the interpreter didn’t pick up on it. In my mind though, I kept rolling and kumilili mo’na ayu na idea esta ki mana’kabåles gui’ gi hinasso-ku. Two things came to mind after hearing