NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

This year's regional seminar for the UN Committee of 24 was different than the three previous ones that I attended in a handful of ways. There was always some debate and some rhetorical conflict at previous seminars, but this one extended to a level I had never seen before. Other participants who have been involved far longer than I have, also acknowledged the conflict and tension reached new heights in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. I’ll be writing about this later, but the conflict created a lot of wasted time and also of waiting around for events to unfold or drama to be sorted out. This led to a lot of conversations that you wouldn’t normally take place, as people anxiously waited for the work of the seminar to move ahead. A lot of these conversations ended up being humorous as people sought ways to ease the tension and also pass the time. I heard a lot of funny stories from across Latin America, to the Caribbean, the Pacific. In this mix there were stories of parliamentary

My position on Martin Luther King Jr. is somewhat similar to my position on Jesus Christ. I have a strong affinity for both of them in their radical dimensions, the way they challenged system of oppression in their time and proposed a powerful message of social change into something that was potentially more equitable. Both of them have of course been edited and watered down significantly in their message, to the point where both of them can be invoked in the name of so many things that they would have violently detested in their lives. Gof ya-hu si Jesus Kristo komo un zealot. Lao anggen un lahen Yu'us, hmmm, ti bali nu Guahu i mensahi-ña. Parehu yan si MLK. Gof annok gi sinangån-ña yan gi bidå-ña na zealot lokkue'. Lao atan ha' på'go, i manracist na taotao, ma u'usa i estoria-ña para u ma puni i tinailayi yan taihustisia gi på'go na tiempo.  Below is a great article that outlines the radical dimensions of Martin Luther King Jr. and his legacy.  ******

"Adios Benit" by Michael Lujan Bevacqua The Guam Daily Post February 24, 2016 Last week the island lost an island icon and a Chamorro pioneer with the passing of Dr. Bernadita Camacho-Dungca or “Benit” as she was known by many. So much of what we take for granted today in terms of Chamorro pride, the Chamorro renaissance or the surge of Chamorro cultural identity is tied to what she helped to created in her life. Her list of accomplishments is numerous and something to marvel at even scanning her biography. For so many of the efforts that have helped build pride amongst Chamorros and raise their consciousness as an indigenous people, who deserve decolonization and need to protect their language and heritage, Benit was there. She assisted Dr. Donald Topping with the development of his Chamorro language trilogy of books and is listed as a co-author on “Chamorro Reference Grammar” and “The Chamorro-English Dictionary.” She helped train the first generation of Chamorro l

TESTIMONY IN THE PRESERVATION OF CHAMORRO MODERN HISTORY: 1950 - 1970 A.D.:The historic Governor Manuel F.L. Guererro Administration Building(DOA), Hagatna by Senator Hope Alvarez Hope Cristobal -OPI(R) Senator Rory J. Respicio, Chairman Committee on Rules, Federal, Foreign & Micronesian Affairs, Human & Natural Resources, Election Reform and Capitol District Mina’ Trentai Tres Na Liheslaturan Guahan 2015 (First) Regular Session March 4, 2015 Reference: Bill No. 32-33 (COR) Hafa adai, Senot Presidente Rory Respicio, Senator Tina Muna-Barnes yan Speaker Judith WonPat: Thank you for this opportunity to present testimony on Bill 32-22(COR)—the demolition of the Gov. Manuel F.L. Guerrero Building in Hagatna also known as the Dept. of Administration Bldg. To those of us who frequented the building in the days of the Department of Education and the Department of Administration for one reason or another. For the record, my name is Hope Alvarez Cristobal. I

For many years I dreamed of Pagat. Para meggai na anos manguiguife yu' put iya Pagat. But last week I dreamt about Litekyan. Lao gi i ma'pos na simana manguife yu' put iya Litekyan. These two places are very important and you could say they are sacred to Chamorros. Este na dos na lugat siha gof impottante ya sina un alok sagradu para i Chamorro siha. But their stories are complicated. Lao i estoria gof kumplikao yan matahlek. The majority of people on Guam believe that Pagat is an important place that must be protected. I meggaina na taotao giya Guahan, ma hohongge na gaibali iya Pagat ya debi di u ma prutehi. But for a very long time, that was not what our people felt.  Lao para un sen apmam na tiempo ti taiguihi i hinasson i taotao-ta. For a while they forgot put its sacredness, and when the military first tried to take it, they almost let it go. Manmaleffanaihon put i sinagradu, ya anai fine'nina i militat ha keganye', kana' ma sot

A question that more people should ask themselves on island, "Are you down for the movement?" You shouldn't downgrade this question to simply asking are you on the side of the people singing, or are you a part of an activist group or a chant group. Although the people who will ask you those things may be avowed members of groups, and may be the one to assert very forcefully and openly that they belong to something, este na kinalamten, ti iyon-niha ha'. This movement is larger than them alone. It is something that has been so long in coming, and has always been here as long as Guam has been a colony. It has taken so many forms, but it is always nurtured forth by the discontent of being ruled by another, being lied to by another, being taken advantage by another, and not getting the basic respect or dignity you deserve. Colonization comes with fictions, it comes with dichicheng na mames na dinagi, it comes with so many sweet little lies. When your house is on fire

"What is Normal?" Simon Critchley Adbusters Dec. 14, 2011 We are living through a dramatic and ever-widening separation between normal state politics and power. Many citizens still believe that state politics has power. They believe that governments, elected through a parliamentary system, represent the interests of those who elect them and that governments have the power to create effective, progressive change. But they don't and they can't. We do not live in democracies. We inhabit plutocracies: government by the rich. The corporate elites have overwhelming economic power with no political accountability. In the past decades, with the complicity and connivance of the political class, the Western world has become a kind of college of corporations linked together by money and serving only the interests of their business leaders and shareholders. This situation has led to the disgusting and ever-growing gulf that separates the superrich from the rest of us. St

Kao hoben yu’? Hekkua’. Anggen un kompara ham yan i manestudiante-ku siha, ahe’. Esta bihu yu’. Lao kao hohoben ha’ yu’? Lao yanggen un kompara ham yan i otro na manactivists siha giya Guahan, hunggan hohoben ha’ yu’. The conference in Okinawa is an Asia-Pacific conference, but in the International Forum, 10% of the delegates come from the Pacific. In the general Japan Peace Conference around 0.01% of the delegates come from the Pacific. We were incredibly small in terms of presence, yet we had a huge impact on the proceedings. Part of the reason why the Japanese were impressed and enamored with us is because or our youth. Looking around the conference, you might imagine that the average age of a peace-activist in Japan is somewhere around 50. This conference many many times felt like a Japanese version of the movie Cocoon . It was surreal to see so many friendly old Japanese men, talking about peace and love in such ways that you might expect them to be a hippie girl working

Texas has made my teaching a lot easier lately for a variety of reasons. When trying to talk about Guam's political status, it's experience of the colonial difference, or to use the imagery of Du Bois, its own personal veil, the story of a Chamorro woman who recently attempted to apply for a Federal childcare program for her children, but was rejected on the basis being born on Guam made them not U.S. Citizens. When she confronted the agency about this "mistake," this was the conversation she had with a supervisor. "He laughed about it and said the letter is true and he actually had gone to college and he has never been taught or never had heard anything about Guam existing or even being a territory of the U.S." She later received an apology. Where did this most recent example of the everyday manifestations of Guam's unequal political status in the lives of those who call it home take place? Texas. The rhetoric of Texas Governor Rick Perry in the f

From Close the Base : More than a week after the country’s worst natural disaster in a hundred years, the Japanese government has not been able to resolve a long-predicted nuclear catastrophe. Millions of people are living without running water or power in temperatures that fall below freezing at night. Half a million homes are without power in northern Japan and 2.5 million have no access to water. Food is critically short and bottled water is running low in many cities. Gasoline is scarce and homes are running out of kerosene to power heaters. Yet, Tokyo is still using monetary and military construction labor resources to forcibly build a U.S. mega-base at Henoko, an environmentally sensitive coastal area in northern Okinawa, despite the prefecture’s unanimous democratic opposition. The base’s ostensible purpose to protect Japan from an attack from North Korea. However the long-feared nuclear attack on Japan has already come—accidentally, but predictably from within. The resulti