NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Every September 11th since September 11, 2001 has a surreal quality to it. As if in a world where history repeats and meaning is always muddled, somehow the events of that day achieved a special, extra level of meaning for those that were alive and of age to experience it. At least this is what they say, and how true this seems depends a lot on your relationship to the US and what type of imaginary tissue connects you to it.  9/11 always means another set of memorial or retrospectives. These commemorative acts help us lock in a particular narrative for conceiving what happened that day, what it means, and whether or not we allow any understanding of events that helped led to that attack. At these memorials people recall where they were when they learned of the attacks and reminders of how scared they were, but how America rose again from those ashes.  Mixed into this naturally is a lot of what you might call blind patriotism or shallow patriotism. September 11 th , as the US se

The image is from Suicide Cliff in Tinian, where a collection of memorials for those who died in World War II can be found.  The text below is the English translation of a poem written by Rinko Sagara, a 14 year old student from Urasoe in Okinawa. She recited it earlier this year at an event meant to remember the victims of the Battle of Okinawa in World War II. It's title is "Ikiru."  ******************** I am living. Standing on the earth transmitting the mantle's heat, My body embraced by a pleasant, humid wind, With the scent of grass in my nostrils, My ears tuned to the distant sound of the surf. I am now living How beautiful this island where I now live is. The sparking blue sea, The shining waves releasing spray as they hit the rocks, The bleating of goats, The babbling of brooks, Small paths leading through the fields, Mountains bursting with green colors, The gentle tunes of the sanshin (three-stringed traditional instrumen

There is a long list of people whom I wish I had the chance to interview and ask some basic questions, the overwhelming majority of which are Chamorros or from Guam. This long, gof annakko' na lista is divided into two parts. First, those whom passed away long before I was born, and those whose lives overlapped with mine, but I never had the chance to sit down and interview. High on my list was Påle' ( Monsignor) Oscar Lujan Calvo, who was close cousins with my grandfather. Påle' Scot as most Chamorros referred to him was the third ever Chamorro Catholic priest. He went to seminary in the Philippines alongside Påle' Jesus Baza Duenas and Påle' Jose Ada Manibusan was ordained in Manila during the war, but died before he could return to Guam. He returned to Guam and war ordained just a few months before World War II hit the island. He, Påle' Duenas and Reverend Joaquin Sablan were the only religious leaders on the island during World War II, meeting the spiri

The Toujin Grave or Toujin Tombs is a very interesting site. It features a large monument which is unmistakably and almost guadily Chinese. There are always things through Okinawa and Japan that you can point to as being Chinese in origin or being part of Chinese influence, but often times Japanese chafe at such connections seeking to hide the history of contact or the genealogy of cultural evolution. But this monument is meant to absolutely be Chinese. While for mainland Japan the signifier "China" is something to be wary of. For centuries it has evoked a gathering threat, just on the other side of the sea, a force to be reckoned with. Something that Japan draws much of its culture from but also resists admitting to because of the general feeling of antagonism. China was always a potential military threat, always looming and leering in a way that it could perhaps swallow up Japan. In World War II the Japanese got to act out a lot of their pent up national aggression or r

Yesterday I spent the day at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. It was a very surreal experience. On the surface it appears like many other shrines or places or worship or reflection in Japan, but it was an incredibly militaristic space. It featured museums dedicated to a whitewashed military history of Japan, thousands of letters from soldiers writing home about how happy they were to die for Japan, and statues for the courage of war widows. The shrine is meant to serve the more than two million souls who have died as soldiers for Japan over the past century, so the militaristic and warmongering tone makes sense, but given what I know of Japanese history it was still shocking to see the way things were twisted in order to create a sense of sinlessness and honor in the midst of a very blatantly imperial period of their history. The shrine reminded me that if you win your wars, you can always explain and justify the deaths involved as heroic, as necessary, as part of a teleology of g

It is frustrating dealing with the ways that so many people, on Guam, on the internet and in so many places talk about race, or rather talk about it in ways to try to neutralize it as a potential issue to be taken seriously in life today. While we can self-identify as a race, while we can say we are this color or that color, and can take pride in what is culturally or historically or linguistically associated with that race, this doesn't take us very far in terms of understanding how race operates in our lives and therefore how racism persists in life, even when race is not "mentioned." Racism is not so much about difference, or the differences between racism, but at its core it is a dynamic between those who are "raced" or "racialized" and those who are not. Those who carry the stigma of race as they move, entangled in various systems and those who do not. Race is a stain, a mark, something that allows for certain bodies to be treated differently, t

On Saturday, my special projects class "The Uprising at Atate" traveled to Malesso' in the South to take pictures of the two memorials at Tinta and Faha. Malesso' has the most notorious "village" story of the entire war. Despite being far away from the centers of Japanese power, by the end of the war it is the site of two massacres (Tinta and Faha) and one uprising (Atate). For this research project we have been studying why the massacres sites, which are zones filled with trauma and victimization have become so important in WWII memorialization, while Atate, a space where Chamorros fought back and killed their Japanese captors holds little to no significance over how people see the Tiempon Chapones tale unfolding. Finding the exact location where the uprising at Atate took place has proven difficult, as those who have been there are generally too old to travel there, and other know the general area and can point at it from afar in a way which is attemp

Asunto Chamorro Siha: A Chamorro Issues Roundtable    The newly created Chamorro Studies major track in the Pacific-Asian Studies Program is poised to be a bridge that will connect the Chamorro community to the University of Guam and vice versa. The Chamorro Studies program is dedicated to using the intellectual resources of the University of Guam to address major issues confronting the global Chamorro community. The first half of this session will feature a panel of undergraduate students doing Chamorro Studies themed research. They will share their work on excavating a largely buried but nonetheless significant event in recent Guam history, the uprising at Atate in Malesso, where Chamorro men liberated themselves from Japanese control prior to the American invasion. The second half will feature a panel of Chamorro Studies scholars who will discuss pertinent issues that are affecting Chamorros today such as the continuing quest for self-determination

Below are pictures from the Inagofli'e' Peace Vigil held in February in Tumon. Yesterday on my blog I posted my Marianas Variety column about it from last month. You can read it by clicking here .