NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

 I am excited this week to sit in a Zoom room with other members of Independent Guåhan to reflect on our role in making possible the Fanohge March for Chamoru Self-Determination on September 2, 2019.  If you aren't familiar with it, this was a historic day. More than 2,000 people marched in support of the rights of the Chamoru people to self-determination and also marched in support of Guam becoming something other than an unincorporated territory. The event was organized by a collective of volunteers, including all three political status task forces and a number of community groups. If you want to learn more about that day, learn some inspiring stories, but also hear some reflections on what has happened in the time since, tune in this coming Wednesday (9/15) at 12 noon Guam time, live on Facebook. 

Litråtu siha ginen i Fanhita Conference, September 11-12, 2019. *********************************

One of my jobs this summer is to run community conversations with Nedine Songeni for Humanities Guåhan at the Department of Corrections. I first started doing these types of conversations or civic reflections many years ago, when the Humanities Council introduced them as a means for talking about the military buildup. I along with several others underwent a training period and held these conversations with diverse groups across the island. Since then I've also helped them a few more times on organizing civic reflections. It is an interesting model, and what I've always found nice about it, is that it requires the use of humanities text, whether it be an article, a text, an essay or a short film, as a means to stimulate conversation. Rather than a debate or a lecture, you build from a text which can be interpreted in many ways to sort of try to unpack many of the things members of the community may be feeling and may or may not be talking about. A few years ago Humanities Guåh

Some images I took from the Ayuda i Mañainå-ta Dos event last month. There is a full album available on Independent Guåhan's Facebook page. I was glad to be able to help so many elderly people with their war claims forms, but I could not help but feel upset over my own grandparents not being eligible as they passed away in 2013 and 2015. ***************************

Biba Ha'anin Mannana! Happy Mother's Day! This Mother's Day I cannot help but think of my grandmother, Elizabeth Flores Lujan, who passed away last December. She exemplified for me so much of what is awesome about Chamorro culture and Chamorro women, even if at the same time she also endured under the problematic ways in which we conceive of women's power and women's roles in Guam within a Chamorro context. With each passing Mother's Day there are no doubt so many mentions and passing thoughts of our mothers and our grandmothers as maga'haga siha and empowered and women who kept their house and their family in line. Our memories are often filled with the moments of potent female power, where women who struggled much and put up with much, seemed to fill our family lives with quiet miracles. There are different ways in which these sorts of stories of minute female empowerment and the woman as the glue that holds families together emerges. The most comm

I've been so out of shape this past year, I'm committed to going hiking at least every other week this summer. In order to fulfill this promise, I'm coordinating Miget's Secret Summer Hikes, that will take place at random intervals this summer. There is no schedule for the hikes. There is no real order. It is a mixture of places I love to visit and new places that people are introducing me to. The only place I really post info about them is on Facebook. If you aren't a friend of mine on Facebook then you won't be able to learn much about them. Asi'i yu'. Here is a pick of where I went to today.

My previous trips to Okinawa revolved around demilitarism and decolonization in a political sense. This trip, because of my participation in the Island Language Revitalization Symposium at Ryukyu University was focused on decolonization with regards to the language in Okinawa. As people have asked me about my trip to Okinawa and what it was like I have developed a sort of easy to use, easy to understand narrative that I rely upon. Most think of Okinawa and Guam as places that are linked only through the presence of US military bases. Chamorros from Guam know Okinawa primarily through the imaginary of the military, as a place where they once lived, trained or heard stories of how the people there protest the US military. I want to challenge those limited ideas and show that there are more potential connections beyond that, more chances for solidarity. I want to help people see Okinawa from Guam not through the lens that you get by serving in the military, or

For those looking to practice their Chamorro I have a Chamorro sentence email list. Every few days or so I send an email to a list of people that contains a sometimes simple and sometimes complicated Chamorro sentence. The sentence will sometimes deal with mundane issues of what is your favorite cereal, what type of car do you drive, what village to you live in? When you receive the email you can respond to the entire list or just me if you'd like any feedback. If you'd like to be placed on this email list you can send me a request at mlbasquiat@hotmail.com. It is free and open to anyone. For the 50th sentence that I sent out I decided to make it special. Instead of a single sentence it became a sprawling story about a guali'ek with a question tacked on at the end. If you want to take a crack at the sentence you can see it pasted below: *********************** Kao guaha manli'e' hao gualiek gi tasi yan kumekematmos gui'. Ha a'agang hao gi i batko-mu