NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Duru manhasso yu’ Put i orå-ta på’go na puengi  Anai umapacha hit put kånnai, lassas, labios I patten hågu ti manmaleffåyon Gi asson-hu guini anai esta ma’pos hao Gagaige ha’ hao gi fi’on-hu Hu nginge’ hao, hu siente hao  Ti siña maleffa yu’ i minaipe-mu gi hinagong-mu gi matå-hu Este todu muna’mongmongmong i korason-hu Ya muna’kakai ha’ i minaigo’-hu

The issue of wall funding in the United States for President Trump is another point at which we can see ideological lines become distorted and distinct when moving from the community of the colonizer to the community of the colonized. Left and right, liberal and conservative have particular meanings within a community and within groups within a community. Part of the colonizing process is not solely those things which the colonizer does to forcibly integrate the colonized peoples, but also the ways in which the colonized peoples may accept a particular framework for understanding themselves and their issues. This is a key point people often miss. Colonialism isn't inherently conservative and therefore decolonization is liberal. Colonialism can be both faces and many more. There can be liberal forms of colonization and conservative ones. Movements or conversations that are liberal or progressive in the US can still be colonial.  We are reminded about this every once in a whil

PBS recently did a short documentary about Guam and veterans here as part of their program America by the Numbers. It was a pretty good piece. I was interviewed for the program at the WWII Memorial Asan Overlook as seen in the picture for this post. The interview was pretty long covering a whole range of topics. As usually happens with these sorts of things, very little of it was used in the actual interview. I still think it was a good piece even if I was barely in it, although there was a glaring, but expected lack of discourse around Guam's political status. The issue of Guam's colonial status is always something that mainstream media in the states have difficulty with. You can describe it in a hundred different ways, talk about it from this angle, that angle, give a wide range of options for how to approach it, but ultimately it is for your average media person, something they can't engage with. It would require too much discursive muster, it would consume any piece

I trongkon niyok, i trongkon lina'la para i taotao gi i Tasin Pasifiku. Anggen manbetde yan manggaila'la' este na trongko, manggaila'la' yan mabrabu lokkue' i Chamorro siha. Lao anggen un atan este na trongko siha pa'go gi isla-ta, ti manbrabrabu, mismo manmalalangu. Across Facebook for months I've seen posts lamenting the state of Guam's coconut trees. The rhino beetle has infested the island and is slowly destroying this essential island trees from within. Asan Beach, a site that 70 years ago was obliterated in the American re-invasion of the island during I Tiempon Chapones, has become synonymous with scattered coconut trees as much as military relics. Earlier this year, the Department of Agriculture began cutting down trees there that were infested with the rhino beetle. As I kept reading these updates a particular image kept popping into my head. I wrote about it on my own Facebook: I want to translate "Fake Plastic Trees" by Ra