NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

One of the things that I take pride in, is that this blog has been around for a while and that I've been able to maintain it continuously for 12 years now. Most of the Chamorro related or Guam related websites that existed when I first started this blog are no longer around. They have been taken down, lost, morphed into something else. Many of the people are still around, but they have moved on to other social media platforms. At one point the Free Association for Guam Task Force had a website. Nasion Chamoru had a website on an AOL platform, although it is now on Blogger (like this blog). The Statehood for Guam Task Force still has a website. A number of social websites or personal blogs have disappeared, and every once in a while I wonder what has become of those people. Below is a short article written by former Senator Mark Charfauros, who was an active member of Nasion Chamoru in the 1990s. This was published 16 years ago on the website "Dialogue Between Nations"

In 2005 I started a blog titled Decolonize Guam or "Peace and Justice for Guam and the Pacific." I ran it with a few other people for about six years, and posted more than a thousand news pieces related to Guam and Chamorros, but and also wider issues related to war and peace in the US and in the Pacific. For some reason (lao ti sina hu hasso sa' hafa) we stopped updating it in 2011, after things connected to the public comment period for the US military buildup had officially ended. It might have been because I started writing a column in the then Marianas Variety, which became a new focus for me. It could have been because I was now more consumed with my role at the University of Guam, as a professor though and using that venue as a conduit for various types of activism or educational events. I'm really not sure why I stopped posting there and updating it, but looking back I'm glad that we filled the site for a few years worth of content, as I find myself r

Ti katoliko yu', gof ti katoliko yu'. Lao hu komprende na hagas gof tahdong i hinenggen katoliko gi kutturan Chamoru. Put este, ti hu despresia i Chamorro siha ni' manmanhohongge gi i gima'yu'us katoliko. Para meggai na Chamorro siha, yan-niha i gima'yu'us katoliko ti put i pinayon-niha ha', lao yan-niha sa' ti gof mappot luma'la katoliko giya Guahan. Guaha meggai na areklamento gi i gima'yu'us, lao ti manstriku. Guaha misa, gupot yan dinana' siha, ya este i Chamorro ma gof gogosa. Achokka' mumosmisa hao un biahi kada sakkan, katotoliko ha'. Ya gaigaige ha' i kustumbre siha achokka' tataigue ha' hao gi i gima'yu'us. I halacha' na yinaoyao gi gima'yu'us put i tinilaika siha desde un nuebu na gurupu umannok gi halom i gima'yu'us. Ti hu gof komprende i chi-na siha este na mimu. Lao hu tungo' na meggai manlinayo' put i bidada-na i Maga'obispo. Ti ha fa'taotaotao hun i taota

In 2008 I was able to attend the Democratic National Convention in Denver because of something called "The State Blogger Corps." This was a grassroots effort by the party to bring to the convention local blogs and progressive groups from all 50 states and even the territories to join the conversation and get access that they would surely not be able to get otherwise. With my press credentials from the State Blogger Corps, I was basically a member of Guam's delegation and also a member of the press. I got to go almost anywhere, even in places that normal member of the press weren't allowed to. I want to attend the 2012 convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. I don't see any mention of the State Blogger Corps this time around on the Democratic Convention website. I don't know if I just can't find it, or if they aren't offering it this time around. The 2008 campaign appropriated alot of grassroots elements in order to symbolize that Obama was riding a

A few months back I started up a Tumblr in hopes of exploring the angsty, curious teenage girl inside of me (j/k). In truth, I have no idea what the teenage girl inside of me is like, we don't talk very much, sina gof ekpe gui' lao ti siguru yu', hassan na kumuentos ham. Actually I did think about getting a Tumblr long ago, but it was precisely the abundance of angsty, curious pre-teen and teenage girls on there which made me shy away. Would getting a Tumblr mark me in a social-virutal way that I wasn't expecting? I don't know how cool or uncool Blogger is, but I'm certain that having a Tumblr is cooler, but would it be the right kind of cool? Esta meggai na blogs-hu siha, lao ti mangcool siha. Ya mungga yu' mama'tinas nuebu ya para bai hu makase' ta'lo. I asked my younger sister Alina who is a living, breathing angsty teenage girl what she thought about Tumblr and her response was, "What's that?" So that's when I decided it

I've been wanting for several years to create a blog for my artwork. I've produced hundreds of pieces over the years the majority of which I don't have any photographic record of, but were sold off at fairs, exhibits or just to people interested in my artwork. Although my work is pretty worthless and will most likely remain worthless even if were to die young from some stereotypical drug overdose or suicide, I still feel proud that my pieces are traveled over the world. People from places such as The Virgin Islands, Hong Kong, Japan, the US, France, Russia, Australia, Mexico, Canada, Germany and India have bought my work over the years. For the first year I was an artist I attempted to keep the contact information of people who had purchased my paintings so I could notify them about shows and other events in my "rise" as an artist, but the rise never really happened. It's hard to make money on Guam as an artist, and as I got more involved in academics and acti

I have had an online presence for quite a while now. I've had websites or some sort of presence here for so long that I started a geocities website when it was still cool to have one, and have lived long enough to see geocities close down and most of the sites wiped from the face of the earth (a few were saved by generous mirrors). I've seen the internet landscape of Guam change somewhat. Every year or so a handful of websites which are meant to be the ultimate or premiere online presence for all things Guam or Chamorro appear, and most of them fade away very quickly and very quietly. The creation and popularization of blogs didn't lead to any real change in the emptiness of Guam's online world. If you google around for Guam/Chamorro blogs you'll find several pages which were created and never actually started. You'll also find plenty of blogs with a few posts and nothing else for several years. I was jealous of Saipan for quite a while because while Guam langui

It has been quite a white since my last installment of Fun With Footnotes, where I post on my blog some of my more excessive or informative footnotes from my academic work. I wrote a poem several years ago which described Guam as one "Big American Footnote," and that was in one way the first seed which later became my dissertation, various articles, some of my favorite talking points and numerous posts on this blog. The metaphor of the footnote was something I felt could help me explain Guam and its colonial predicament, and how it exists, it means something, it matters, it reveals something crucial or important, but like most footnotes it is assumed to matter in a way that doesn't matter. I remember when I was in grad school at UCSD and in one class, another student who had read a draft of my Masters Thesis noted that my long footnotes were irrelevant and pointless since she, like everyone else in the world didn't read them anyways, and to make them any longer than