NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Next month I'll be back in Washington D.C. to resume my research about federal territorial relations that I began last year. Much of my focus last year was on Guam and its commonwealth movement, but as I conducted interviews and sifted through files, I also found more and more references to the commonwealth of the CNMI as well and found its evolution and devolution to be even more fascinating. Even just the contrast of reading about what has taken place there for the past few decades in federal documents versus local government is striking. Take for example when a number of sovereignty provisions that had been negotiated through the commonwealth were lost about ten years ago. This process was referred to the in CNMI as a "federalization," akin to a takeover by the federal government. Within the federal government however it was referred to as as normalizing of a relationship, whereby those provisions were considered to be only temporary and would eventually be done away

One of the people that I’ve really enjoyed talking to and listening this trip to Okinawa is Usii Chinin. She is a writer and strong voice for both decolonization and independence for Okinawa. She was on a panel with me during the first day of the decolonization symposium at Okinawa International University. The second day she was a moderator for another panel that I was on. Over the course of my time here she has been interviewed several times by mainland Japanese media interested in this idea of “Okinawan Independence.” During the question and answer period one of the audience members criticized Usii. Every member of the audience was given a sheet of paper to write their questions or comments on. One such sheet asked Usii why she was dressed in such an uncool and outdated way and also commented on her hair looking too old-fashioned. I should note that this phrasing comes from someone who translated for me and so I don’t know exactly what was said or how it was cra

At the 2010 World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, everything is conducted in English and Japanese. Since most of the people attending the conference are from Japan and do not speak English, all the overseas delegates have headsets and during the proceedings off to the side there is an interpreter who is telling us what people are saying. While I was in South Korea I had the experience of attending a conference where I did not understand a single word, and while I did get a lot of other work done during that time, it was disappointing to not be able to follow what was being said. One thing that the organizers of the conference request in order to make their job easier is that we turn in our speeches ahead of time so that it can be translated into Japanese ahead of time, or so the interpreter can have it in front of them while you speak to help guide them. I submitted my speech a week ahead of time, but was told the day I arrived to make some changes and cut its length. In

I’m sure that most people out there have heard the term “sausagefest” before. Its a term you use to refer to the fact that something is comprised mainly of men, or to call attention to the fact that there are way too many men here. The Micronesian Island Fair last month at Ipao beach, was a very interesting and inspiring experience, but also one which some might refer to however, as a sade’fest. Sade’ is the Chamorro word used for diaper, but it is also the contemporary Chamorro word which is used for loincloth. For a variety of reasons at this year’s event, there were sevearal dozen men, from Guam and from other islands who were sporting very little clothing other than a small shred of cloth covering their, you know what’s. Chamorros from Guam and Rota who were wearing loincloths did so because of their participation in certain events, such as the building and maintaining of the guma’higai, a small cultural village which was built on the edge of the fair, and was meant to represent