NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

It is intriguing the way that so many people assume something to be impossible and frightening in a particularly local or familiar context, but then completely miss the way that they accept such things in other contexts without even a hint of fear or apprehension. In Guam, a colony of the US for more than a century, and a colony of Spain for several centuries prior to that, this is frustratingly true and real in terms of the people of the island, both indigenous and non-indigenous, living in terror of Guam becoming independent. For other nations and other locations, independence is something to celebrate, a key moment in terms of a nation's development or evolution, something to look back on pride, even if your country has serious problems past or present. But it is intriguing how for example, Filipinos, Chinese or Koreans and others on Guam can celebrate the nationhood and the independence of their own nations, whether it be from colonialism, from imperialism or from their own s

My column for the Guam Daily Post about my most recent visit to Okinawa. There were some serious questions about the nature of Okinawan struggle for decolonization and their place in the global order as a people that were being discussed. I got to participate as much as I could in these talks, all adding more content to my research on their independence movement. ****************** --> “The Indigenous Idea” by Michael Lujan Bevacqua The Guam Daily Post March 16, 2016 Over the weekend I attended a symposium at Okinawa International University on the topic of whether or not the Okinawan people are “indigenous.” For some, this may seem like a strange question, as on the surface Okinawans seem to simply be Japanese. They look like Japanese, sound like Japanese, how could they be indigenous? A few decades ago, the idea of even considering Okinawans to be indigenous would have ranged from being ludicrous to heretical. This was due to a long period of coercive ass

I would have loved to have talked to Martin Luther King Jr. And when I say that, I don't mean the fiction that is often trotted out each year by governments and educational systems. That MLK Jr. is a neutralized version of the man I've read about. That figure is one who has been shorn of all his radical content, and becomes a middleman for the American nation, allowing it to bury its racist past and present, without having to adequately deal with either. The MLK that I've studied was eloquent and fiery, but his targets were much higher and much more difficult to strike. He wasn't just seeking white and black children to play together on playgrounds. He wanted some fundamental changes to American society which would ease the terrible systems of economic and social inequality, which continue to disproportionately affect non-whites. I'm looking forward to getting a copy of this book Death of a King: The Real Story of Martin Luther King Jr's Final Year

One of the drawbacks to seeing your country as the most powerful in the world, or the greatest in the world, or even worse the greatest country in history, is that it makes changing yourself almost impossible. Your country will change, all countries are changing, often times whether the people want it to or not. But the larger your national ego is, the more difficult  it is to organize the chaotic coalition that is your national innards in order to solve basic problems. A smaller country, a less nationally narcissistic nation, which is less enamored with its own overblown and self-aggrandized image can have difficulties as well. But the "greatness" doesn't get in the way as much. Part of the problem if you think far too highly of yourself in this way is that your problems go from being unsolvable or impossible, to irrelevant, especially from those who may be standing in the way of any change, large or small, that could take place. The "greatness" of the countr

A close friend of mine who just started his Ph.D. program has been having trouble with balancing his personal life and academic life, and keeping up with the theoretical workload involved. I sent him some advice, just from my perspective about how to survive in an environment where you are reading so much each week and then expected to speak intelligently on the sheer amount of data and ideas you are expected to absorb. This naturally made me remember my own grad school days, in particular my days of reading multiple theoretical texts a week in my UCSD Ethnic Studies program. I had my own tricks in order to survive, but I was helped by the fact that I read pretty fast and also just loved reading. Not having kids at that time and living away from much of my extended family also helped. The reflection or analytical papers that I wrote in grad school are favorite mementos of mine. They represent a time when my brain was afire with ideas and I was writing and reading constantly. It is

Both Okinawans and Chamorros had the experience of being caught between empires in World War II. Chamorros leaned towards the United States in terms of their patriotism and affinity and suffered at the hands of the Japanese because of it. Okinawans leaned towards the Japanese and suffered at the hands of the United States and Japanese because of it. Both peoples were not fully accounted for in either nation. Chamorros were not US citizens and were discriminated against in so many ways at the start of the war. Okinawa had been forcibly annexed in the 19th century and later became a prefecture, but Okinawans were treated as if they were inferior and found their language and culture attacked by the Japanese. Each felt closer to one colonizer over the other, but that didn't spare them during the war. It has been particularly difficult reading and hearing more stories from Okinawans about the terrifying and violent place they were in during the Battle of Okinawa. It was bad enough

On Guam the issue of "the constitution" is always looming. Chamorro activists sometimes bring it up. Plenty of non-Chamorros, such as Ron McNinch like to bring it up. Politicians from the US and from Guam bring it up. In the imaginings of decolonization it is a type of panacea, an incredibly dangerous and problematic one, and like all forms of snake or toad oil like this, it is incredibly seductive. And like these sort of talismans, no matter how many times you tell people they don't work, they aren't enough, or its just wrong, generations of people will still find it and "discover" it, and feel like it solves all problems, has all the answers. Every two weeks or so it seems, someone approaches me via email in public and wants to know why Guam, instead of decolonizing, why doesn't it just write a Constitution. This is exactly what the United States Federal government has wanted Guam to do. And if something fits within the Americanized framework of

One issue that constantly appears while traveling in Japan and speaking to people, is Guam's political status. I am not saying in any way that people here are knowledgeable about it or that they understand it. But there are constant, irritating reminders about Guam being a colony and how that means to much of the world you simply belong to another country and that is the extent of your existence. The first time I traveled to Japan, I met with a large number of antiwar, demilitarization and peace activists. This was at a time when the transfer of US Marines from Okinawa to Guam was considered to be a hot issue, and somewhat controversial. Japan had agreed to pay more than half of the cost of the move, which had caused an uproar throughout Japan, because of the strange surreal fact that Japan had agreed to pay the expenses for moving another nation's military out of its borders. A number of Japanese political delegations had visited Guam, including representatives from Japan&