NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

This month I reread Island in Agony by Tony Palomo. I have actually read it many times, but decided to take a look at it again as I was writing my weekly columns for the Pacific Daily News about World War II in Guam, and that book had been my first, comprehensive and in-depth look at it when I was a graduate student. In contrast to books by Don Farrell or Robert Rogers which also cover to varying extends the Japanese occupation of Guam, Island in Agony, feels very Chamoru and is in most ways written for Chamorus. When you read the book, you can see Tony Palomo's voice clearly trying to sound like an average American newspaperman. But in how he frames the story and what he chooses to include, you can tell he is trying to write something that will tell the Chamoru side of the story, that will stand as a testament to the Chamoru experience. Most chronicles of the war focus, as you might expect on the militaries involved. The great titans that clash over Guam. Not much attention is

Two poems written by the late Angel L.G. Santos while he was in US federal prison in the year 2000. I will write more on them another time, but for now, let them stand here as a testament to who he was and the times in which he lived, and also, how he helped to affect the course of Chamoru and Guam history up until today. ************************ Who Are We To Uncle Sam – Friend or Foe? (by Angel Leon Guerrero Santos) As I pen this poem, while I sit in prison, For you silence my voice, in the American tradition; Who are we Uncle Sam, are we friend or foe? If we are your friend, then treat us as so; Our land and our water, the air God giveth,  You came to our island, and then you taketh; We have drinking water, at Fena Lake you will find, You want us to pay “Now!”, cause it’s no longer mine; Our language and our culture, is 4,000 years old, You pass your own laws, “No More!” we are told; We live and we learn, you say we are one, You build y

I first traveled to the United Nations to testify in 2007. I testified along with two other Marie Auyong and Rima Miles before the Fourth Committee on the situation in Guam. We came in the wake of a larger delegation the year before which featured Victoria Leon Guerrero, Julian Aguon, Sabina Perez, Fanai Castro, Tiffany Lacsado and Kerri Ann Borja. That trip represented a big moment in sort of post-nation Chamoru/Angel Santos activism in Guam and the diaspora. The trip first came from a conference in San Diego that I along with a few others had organized in April 2006 about decolonization and Chamoru issues. It was, as far as any of us could tell, the first of its kind in the diaspora. The gathering of so many critical and conscious Chamorus in one place led to a great number of things, one of which was a period of new engagement around the United Nations. Chamorus had been traveling on and off to the UN since 1982. There were high points, usually when the Government of Guam wanted

Recently some people started sharing some articles on Facebook from old websites that I used to run such as The Chamorro Information Activists and Minagahet Zine. When I went back to read over some of what they shared, I could feel waves of nostalgia washing over me. These were the days when I was first starting as an activist and working with others for the first time, organizing things and trying to develop our ideas. I cringe when I read some of it because my positions have changed or I have learned more about certain topics. I've decided to start up a new recurring post series on this blog called "Fanhokkayan" or "Collection." Since these websites are no longer active, no longer being actively updated, they sit there online, and are occasionally visited by students conducting research for their papers. I worry sometimes that at some point they will disappear and they provide an interesting snapshot of Chamorro issues at a particular moment in my life and