NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Last year a graphic story that I wrote titled "I Sindålu" was published in the creative anthology Pacific Monsters edited by Margret Helgadottir. It was a fun story, that I thankfully got to write in the Chamoru language, with English translations. It tells the story of a Chamoru soldier who is dealing with the trauma of what he experienced while being deployed in a foreign land. He comes home to Guam and live in a ranch at the edge of the jungle, and begins to feel menaced by the spirits of his ancestors, the taotaomo'na. I really liked writing this story and was happy to see it in print, but I am terrible at promoting things, especially if I'm the one who created it ( ai lokkue'). Here is an interview that I did with the website The Future Fire.   ************************* Sunday, 6 May 2018 Interview with Michael Lujan Bevacqua The Future Fire http://press.futurefire.net/2018/05/interview-with-michael-lujan-bevacqua.html May 2018 I n th

The final book in the "Real Faces" trilogy, which focuses on documenting the stories of Chamorro World War II survivors is finally here. I am happy to see it come to completion, I've been assisting with this project for several years now and it has been a very heartwarming experience. For so much of the past few decades the recounting and retelling of Guam's World War II story has been focused on the United States, their role in expelling the Japanese and ending the occupation. As a result, even when Chamorros were doing the commemorating, they were often times excluding or minimizing their own stories, their own beliefs, perceptions, and lessons, for the sake of aligning their tales and memories with a more patriotic and American-supremacist narrative. I am thankful to see that shift in recent decades, and thankful if my work, research and writing has played some role in making that happen. ********************* "Legacies Beyond Faces" by Michael Luj

The new book from the Guam War Survivors Memorial Foundation is coming out soon. It will be titled Legacy Beyond Faces and I am honored to have a few articles in it. I've been on the board for this foundation for a few years now and written several articles for them. It is nice that after spending decades celebrating the US and their role in liberating the island from Japanese control during World War II, now we are investing more energy in documenting the stories of our elders and putting them into a more respectful context. If you look at the way Chamorros have been traditionally represented in documentaries, books and other types of media, they are mere footnotes to the exercise of American military might. They suffer, they cry, they die, they hope and most importantly, they stay loyal to the US and affirm its best elements, as an avatar for democracy, justice, liberty and freedom. But the Chamorro experience is unfortunately lost in these accounts. For even if it is compelling

Cloud Atlas was by far my favorite film of 2012. It was a film I only saw once, but wanted to watch again immediately after I left the theatre. Part of this is due to the fact that a group of actors play multiple roles in different historical eras. Some of them are obvious, others aren’t so clear. The film becomes a type of game trying to figure out who is who. In the credits they flash on the screen each actor and all their roles. You realize then how many you recognized and how many zipped before your vision but you didn’t recognize them. The story itself is complicated and so that might also create that desire. You want to see it again because there may be a section you didn’t quite catch or weren’t quite sure about. At certain points the jumping across times can be confusing, especially towards the beginning when you don’t quite have your bearings yet. As one of the characters in the film states, a half finished book is like an unfinished love affair. It

I truly enjoyed the movie Bodyguards and Assassins which was released last year and tells the riveting, somewhat action packed tale of a group of motley bodyguards who have to protect exiled and most wanted Chinese nationalist and revolutionary leader Sun Yat Sen while he is visiting Hong Kong for a few hours so he can make a plan for overthrowing the Qing Dynasty. In the movie, we see regular folks, from different parts of China, some of whom are not even fighters, sacrifice themselves in order to protect Sun Yat Sen and the dream of a unified, modern and democratic China that he is represents. My favorite part of the movie is when we at last see the face of the man that the Qing government wants dead at almost all costs and whom so many people are willing to risk their lives for. After meeting with represents of various provinces in China he thanks them for coming to the meeting and shares with them some of his thoughts on the meaning of revolution. His words are very profound and t

Thankfully, it has been a while now since a soldier from Guam was killed in the current slate of US Wars on Terror. But as the US prepares to increase its presence in Afghanistan, I cannot help but think back to several years ago, when the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq were in full force and it seemed like someone from Guam or from Micronesia were dying every month. I remember writing several emotional and sometimes angry posts about the way these precious lives were being wasted on imperial ventures. For obvious reasons, these sorts of posts are very difficult and sensitive, for so many reasons. Malingu un lina'la'. A life is lost. A Chamorro life is lost. A Chamorro life is lost fighting for the United States, which has been and continues to be his or her colonizer. A brown body is lost fighting other brown bodies, usually for the sake and interest of rich white people, or at least rich people. Lastly though we reach the most difficult point, which I articulated several