NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

I posted last week about Al Franken's first amendment that has passed in the US Senate. Named the "Jamie Leigh Jones Amendment" it was meant to keep Federal military contracts away from corporations who force their employees to sign secret arbitration contracts, which prevent them from taking to court anyone who sexually harasses or sexually assaults them, and furthermore prevents them from even suing their companies (should they find this foreclosing of justice a bit unfair). The amendment is named for a woman who had a horrifying experience while working for a military contractor in Iraq. Here is the short version of her story according to Senator Franken's office: When Jamie was 19, she was working for then Halliburton subsidiary KBR in Iraq, where she was placed in a barracks with 400 men. She complained about sexual harassment, but KBR took no action and she was eventually drugged and gang-raped by co-workers. When she tried to report what had happened, KBR loc

The first story deals with the Joint Guam Program Office (JGPO) which is the group in charge of organizing and publicizing the transfer of Marines from Okinawa to Guam over the next few years. This story came out several months ago, and dealt with JGPO allegedly cutting off all media access to the Marianas Variety (most prominently to the Guam Industry Forum III ) . The stated reasons was due to repeated inaccuracies in their reporting and taking press releases and other documents from JGPO and publishing them out of context. The Marianas Variety made a big deal (as they should) about being "banned" from access to the event and possibly to military information about Guam, although by the next day everything seemed to be in order again and the ban or censorship issue was quietly dropped by just about everyone. A JGPO or a military ban on the Marianas Variety is to be expected. Whereas the Variety's main competition on Guam The Pacific Daily News considers itself to be a

Since I've come back on island I hear all the time, from the radio, the TV, I read it in the paper, and I hear it in offices, businesses, about the incredible and massive challenges that Guam is facing over the next few years. Challenges could mean anything, but in this context is almost always means, how are we going to prepare for the massive population increase, which the most recent conservative estimate claimed would be 43,000 people, that will result from the proposed US military buildup to the island? The challenges are things we all think about, utilities, economy, education, social well being, roads, pollution, environment, etc. But these challenges are divided into two dangerously narrow categories. The first is, how can we change ourselves and improve ourselves in order to best take advantage of the coming invasion? The second is, how can we mitigate the inevitable damage it is going to cause to just about everything on the island? Although we can see and feel the poor

I'm working on the latest issue of Minagahet for those interested, which will feature the testimonies given by Chamorros and their allies this year at the United Nations on the question of Guam's political status. While I'm doing that I just wanted to post here for those interested, the contents of the last issue of Minagahet, which provided links to those who are interested in what's happening on Guam, around issues of hanom, hambiento, fino' Okinawa, fino' i militat, yan fino' i maladjusted. If you would like to subscribe to Minagahet just email me and let me know and I'll add you to the list to receive it. **************** Minagahet Zine Vol. 5 Iss. 5 10/27/07 "The Invasion of Guam" Hafa Adai, yan welcome to i mina'trenta kuatro na Minagahet. Last month I decided to try a different format for Minagahet, which would feature lists of articles grouped around issues relevant to things such as the military build up, the environment, f

The word lemlem in Chamorro, is one I rarely hear spoken, but am nonetheless regularly made to feel its meaning is being invoked. This is especially so in the diaspora, when people constantly, tragically circle around the term when they speak of Guam and how its changing, losing its culture and its flavor, and never going to be like it was when they were there. " Lemlem" means roughly "to fail to recognize something because of how it has changed" or "to be surprised at how different something is when you see it again." I remember during my research years at the Micronesian Area Research Center, finding an article from the Guam Daily News in the late 1960's about my great grandmother's brother Jose Pangelinan De Leon, who after spending more than twenty years in the states following World War II, was returning to Guam to visit relatives. A section of the article towards its end, dealt with how surprised Jose was about the look and the composition o

I was searching around Youtube last night, looking for videos and music to keep me company while I was cleaning up my room and working on an article I intend to submit to the journal The Ethnic Studies Review. Gi i umaliligao-hu, I found these videos of General Bice speaking on KUAM News Extra speaking about the proposed military build up to the island. Its important whenever you read or listen to i fino' i militat, through speakers such as Bice, to not simply believe what they are saying, but to connect what they say to the history of the island (and not just the "liberation" of the island in 1944), namely the treatment of Chamorros by the United States military, and thus pay very close attention to what the military is not saying or intentionally being vague and coy about. For instance while the military is always more than willing to throw around figures like $15 billion, they are very hesitant and unwilling to tell us what exactly that number is supposed to mean, a

When I make claims that Chamorro and Guam-based patriotism to the United States is dangerous, people tend to give me looks like I am insane or mabababa i ilu-hu. For most people, and this includes Chamorros on Guam, the United States is basically all the island has got going for it. We get to be US citizens, we get to be a footnote to the greatest country in the history of the universe, we get to fly the American flag over our island and drap it over our soldiers who die in battle. In the universe of this thinking, even if we accept and admit that Guam is a colony of the United States, we are still apparently supposed to feel suette. I mean, things could be much much worse, what if we were a colony of France, or the Philippines, or Afghanistan? We should feel glad that we are stuck with a colonizer who understands how to use productively and efficiently our geographic position in order to project its military power into Asia and ensure that its narrow national and economic interests di