NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Through my Facebook page and this blog,  I often share what I refer to as “Adventures in Chamorro.” Gof takhilo’ i lenguahi-ta gi lina’la’-hu . Much of my work is dedicated to the revitalization of the Chamorro language and for my two children, Sumåhi and Akli’e’, from the days they were born I have only spoken to them in Chamorro. As such, in both work and the home, my life is filed with lots of interesting and hysterical Chamorro language moments. These are what I refer to as our “Adventures in Chamorro,” named for the adventure we take every day trying to talk about the world around us in the Chamorro language. Every couple of months, I would also share some of them in my Guam Daily Post columns. Here are some that I shared in my column published on August 17, 2016. Adventures in Chamorro #266: The other day Isa (i nobia-hu), the kids and I were walking along the beach and looking up at the moon. It was a crescent moon, which many people translate to "sinahi&q;

I've left Okinawa for Taiwan, but the stories I heard and learned still stay with me. The violence of war on the land and the people. So similar to Guam, a great conflagration between empires built and fed on war takes place over an island and the people are trapped, caught in between. They get erased in the process in so many ways. Their lives are obliterated. Their memories wiped away. Their claims to the land vanish beneath bases. Even their stories are cast aside. When they fit the heroic and sacrificial narratives of the two great powers, they are brought forth as moments of patriotism, loyalty and power. But if they don't, they are forgotten. I finished reading the English translation of former Okinawa Governor Masahide Ota's book on the battle of Okinawa. Even though Ota himself is Okinawan and a big critic of the way both America and Japan have treated his people, his book still follows the narrative above, focuses on the tales of the two great empires locked in

If you look at pictures of Chamorros a hundred years ago, we look markedly different today. I do not mean in terms of skin color and so on, but I mean in terms of size. If you look at images of Chamorros a century ago there are some who look healthy and comfortable in their size, but most, especially men are quite skinny. Descriptions of Ancient Chamorros allude to them being a bit on the larger side, healthy, but slightly overweight. A happy and comfortable plumpness.  Chamorros today are a very large and very unhealthy people. Some of this can be blamed on environmental factors, such as poisons in the land and sea due to militarization. It can also be blamed on the diets of people today, which are a combination of poor health choices but also structural conditions that go all the way back to the end of World War II and the drastic changes that took place in the Chamorro way of life. Chamorros are not unique in this regard but it is a tragic story we find across the Pacific, wher

I have to write more about this at some point. It is interesting because for so many Chamorros, their self-perceptions are mired in feelings that we have nothing (especially in cultural terms) and that no one would every want anything that we have anyways. It is intriguing then to see how popular Chamorro style dance is at conventions like this, and to consider that there are multiple Chamorro dance groups in Japan and the United States.  *************** News Releases  From the Guam Visitors Bureau Chamorro Culture Makes Impact at JATA September 28, 2014 (Tokyo, Japan) Team Guam continues to make a great impression at the JATA Tourism EXPO Japan with a plethora of activities lined up for the final da

Published on Friday, July 26, 2013 by Common Dreams After 60 Years of Suffering, Time to Replace Korean Armistice with Peace Treaty by Christine Ahn Sixty years ago today, the United States, North Korea and China sat down to sign the Korean Armistice Agreement to “insure a complete cessation of hostilities.” Several provisions were to guarantee a peaceful settlement, including a permanent peace agreement, withdrawal of all foreign troops, and no new arms introduced into Korea. Six decades later, none of these have been honored. As such, war, not peace, defines the relationship between Washington and Pyongyang. Official commemorations are now taking place throughout Korea and United States, mostly honoring veterans who sacrificed their lives to fight the Forgotten War. Missing from this sanctioned remembering are the nearly four million Korean, mostly civilian, lives lost in just three years.

Tomorrow I'll be at the Lunar Calendar Festival at the Fishermen's Co-op in Hagatna. I'll be there for two reasons. First, I'll be displaying my grandfather's tools. Second, my artwork was used for the calendar that they'll be giving out this year. I'm very excited to see it. Here is more information about the festival and the significance of the moon in Chamorro culture. ***************** Public Service Announcement The moon has always held much significance for the Chamorro people who have inhabited Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands for approximately 4,000 years.   The lunar movement synchronizes the life cycles of the flora and fauna of the islands and ocean.   The ancient Chamorro, being a seafaring people, relied on the moon phases to guide daily activities.   Modern Chamorro traditions and cultural values have evolved from these practices that encourage living in respect and harmony with the island environment.

I have a Chamorro Sentence email list. Every day or so I send out an email to everyone on the list featuring a basic sentence in Chamorro. You are encouraged to email back a reply to the sentence to either myself or the entire email list. If is entirely up to you how you want to use the list. You can ask yourself the question and then say your response out loud. You can write it down. You can send it to myself or to others and share your response. Hagu la'mon taimanu na mausa este na lista.  Here is the sentence that was sent out today. Chamorro Sentence #99: Hafa i mas ya-mu na fañochuyan Chamorro? or in English: "What is your favorite Chamorro restaurant?" If you are interested in joining the list, please send me your email at mlbasquiat@hotmail.com Otro fino'-ta: For those interested, Chamorro classes at Java Junction will be starting again this Friday,  January 25th at 12 pm. Classes are free and open to everyone and of all skill levels. The more stu

Most of my trip to Okinawa dealt with explicitly political matters; militarism, base issues, peace, decolonization, independence, self-determination. But this wasn't all I wanted to learn about on my trip, I also had a lot of conversations about Okinawan culture, trying to learn as much as I could about it and how there might be similarities to Chamorro culture and also differences between it and mainland Japanese culture. One of the difficulties in learning about this by simply driving around and seeing things is that the Japanese government attacked many aspects of Okinawan culture long ago, and even if Okinawans kept much of their identity, the practices and symbols disappeared. For example, most people in Okinawa as well as mainland Japan were intrigued by the tattoos on my arms. Although there is a tradition of tattooing in both cultures, this is something that is done primarily by "low" or "suspect" people, such as gangsters, gangstas and hoods. It is

If I had more time I would love to write and research more the meaning of Food Stamps on Guam. Like most things in life, people tend to view them negatively through the people who use them. They complain about them towards the start of each month, when they crowd the aisles and choke the lines of grocery stores. They are viewed as things which suck away life, and make things weak. But are they really? We see so many forms of Federal aid as things that make us lazy, and show how sad and dependent we are, but why do we rarely reverse that ideological equation? Since food stamps are so bad, why do we not see more people condemn the US for weakening the people of Guam and taking away their ability to work or sustain themselves?  One of the reasons why doing research on food stamps here could be very productive is because of the way Guam is not just a state, but rather a territory, a colony as well. So what is a simple ideological argument in the states, against racialized groups or poor gr

“Beautiful Scars” Michael Lujan Bevacqua 12/14/11 The Marianas Variety For me there is only one certainty in raising a child, and that certainty is both inspiring and depressing. Your child will do many things. It may let you down. It may surprise you. It may accomplish all the things you never did, or leave your bucket-list untouched on the ground near your grave. Your child may love you a lot, or it may hate you. It may admire you, honor you, or spit on your grave and curse the day you were ever born or allowed to breed. But no matter what you do, how well-intended of a parent you are, or have loving and nurturing you are, you will scar your child. You will do something to them which will traumatize them, which will become a primal force in whatever formations their identity takes for the rest of their lives. If you don't love them enough, if you love them too much, anything you do, the smallest or largest thing can become a wound in the life of that child. It may becom

Not sure when I'll be able to blog something, this week is crazy. I taught two winter intersession courses at UOG that finished last week, and now this week I start teaching six classes at UOG for the Spring 2012 semester. Six classes is quite a load, and they are four different classes, meaning that I have to prepare for four different lectures, discussions each week, and then without any TAs or any other support, have to grade the work of 150 students. I have so many thoughts swirling around my head, but just not enough time to type it into this blog. I hope that once things calm down this semester, maybe next week I'll be back.