NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

I have a radio interview lined up for tomorrow, with i kayu-hu Migetu Tuncap from UC Berkeley. We're going to discuss what Migetu has been doing at UC Berkeley in terms of getting Pacific Islanders recognized, funded and with their own faculty and programs, and also my recent trip to the United Nations and what's happening right now in Guam and the military buildup. I'm pasting the information below for the interview, and also a list of radio interviews done by members of Famoksaiyan over the past year on similar topics. Check them out, the interviews are very good and very informative. There are alot of voices involved and touching on so many important issues for Chamorros, whether it be environmental damage, military build up, economic dispossession, cultural and language revitalization and even music. ********************************* Apex Express: Asian Pacific Islander radio Thursdays 7PM-8PM, KPFA 94.1 FM, KFCF Fresno, www.kpfa.org Thurs. Nov. 29th: US Troop Increase

Published on Tuesday, November 27, 2007 by the Sun-Times (Chicago) Most Democratic Candidates are Ignoring African Americans by Jesse Jackson Can Democrats get the votes they need simply because they’re not Republicans? You might think so in this presidential campaign. African-American and urban votes are critical to any Democratic victory. Bill Clinton won two terms without winning the most white votes. His margin was the overwhelming support of black voters. George Bush learned that lesson; that’s why his campaigns spent so much effort suppressing the black vote in key states like Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004. His victory margin was the tally of votes suppressed or uncounted. Yet the Democratic candidates — with the exception of John Edwards, who opened his campaign in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward and has made addressing poverty central to his campaign — have virtually ignored the plight of African Americans in this country. The catastrophic crisis that engulfs the African-American co

I am writing right now two lectures on the Pacific and Pacific Islanders which I'll be giving this week in the Ethnic Studies 1A class at UCSD. I've got the basic idea of what I want to say and what I'll use to say and prove it, but still the actually writing and plotting of it is a bit difficult. I at first wanted to show what Pacific Islanders and their islands mean in relation to the United States, so for other Americans, what do they enable, perform or make possible culturally, politically and militarily. The different segments of a nation and an empire are bound together in various ways, but one important and obvious one being practical or utilitarian. From the vantage of being a "real" citizen, or a "real" American, what it is for example, that different racial or ethnic groups provide to the health and prosperity of the nation. What it is that they bring here that is important? The reason for this is of course to both explain why someone should b

Hu tuge' este hagas ha' (lao ti gof hagas). Hu fakcha'i este anai umaliligao yu' gi My Documents gi iyo-ku computer. Hu taitai este, ya ha na'malalago yu' para bei fangge' betsu siha ta'lo... *************************** Måttochihu Abak yu’ gi I pakyo-mu Chaochaochao lao suette yu’ Chubasko ya taifitme, Pat osino bei tekuni (hao) Magof mafoyung-hu, mahalla ya sesso naofrågu (nene) Måtmos yu’ ya mangge hao? Pinacha’ yu’ lao nao’ao hao (nene) Hågu, I chi-hu Hågu, I chi-hu Taifinakpo’ I tasi, enkubukao-hu taiguini, (ombre) Sesso un na’kilili, guaha na biahi nai un goggue (yu’) Na’dafflok yu’ mangguaiya, na’klåru humitå-ta, (sångan) Kao guahu I amot-mu? Pat Guahu I chetnot-mu? (Fehman) Hågu, chi-hu Hågu, chi-hu

CALL FOR PAPERS "POSTCOLONIAL" FUTURES IN A NOT-YET POSTCOLONIAL WORLD: Locating the Intersections of Ethnic, Indigenous, and Postcolonial Studies March 5-7, 2008 Ethnic Studies Department University of California, San Diego In September 2007, after twenty years of debate, the United Nations finally passed the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – a huge symbolic victory for indigenous peoples around the world who struggle under predatory and exploitative relationships with(in) existing nation-states. At the same moment, the UN was lumbering along in the 18th year of its impossible attempts to eradicate colonialism, with groups from around the world flocking to it to petition for the decolonization of their territories or to demand that their situations at least be recognized as "colonial." Across all continents, indigenous and stateless peoples are struggling for and demanding various forms of sovereignty, as the recently decolonized world is sobering u

(The website Antiwar.com is fundraising right now to make it through the next quarter of the year. Articles such as the one below, which are one the reasons that the website is so necessary. It provides a very important archive for the different, disparate voices which are speaking out against war in different ways. It does obviously feature alot of authors which I don't generally trust or care for, and I sometimes include this Justin Raimondo (the author below), but it is nonetheless a very helpful resource. Please click here to help support their site and make a donation.) *************************** Wars to Watch Out For 2008 will bring us an abundant crop of overseas crises by Justin Raimondo From Antiwar.com As we approach the new year, a fresh crop of overseas crises threatens to spring up, like mushrooms after a rain, and the prospects for peace on earth, this holiday season, are dimmer than ever. Iraq: First up on the agenda is, of course, the war in Iraq, which, we are

The next few days will be busy, as you can see from my last couple of posts. I've got an action packed couple of next days ahead of me. Here's my list of to do things (off the top of my head): 1. Attend a educational policy meeting at UCLA tomorrow morning for Pacific Islanders. 2. Supervise a college networking workshop Saturday morning at the 6th Annual National Pacific Islander Education Network Conference ( NPIEN ) at Paramount High School. 3. Have my brother Jack record another " Guam Talk " with my friend Josette Saturday afternoon. 4. Meet with other grad students in the department on Sunday to help finalize plans for an Indigenous and Postcolonial Studies Conference we're organizing next year at UCSD. 5. Finish by the 20th, my first column that I've been asked to write for the Guam magazine GU . The column will tenatively be titled "In Search of a Slingstone." 6. Write two lectures on Pacific Islanders and their contempora

A few years ago, me and i atungo'-hu Josette Lujan Quinata recorded a "Guam Talk." For those of you who don't know who Josette is, she is a Chamorro raised most of her life in the states, who for the past few years has been looking for different ways to connect to Guam. She wrote her senior thesis as an undergrad on Guam, and later worked in the Department of Interior as an intern. Lola Sablan Santos from the Guam Communications Network first introduced us over the phone, since according to Lola, Josette had plenty of questions about what's going on in Guam and what's happening to Chamorro language and culture, and I could probably help her answer them. We emailed back and forth, at one point Josette giving me a list of I think 12 questions and me responding with 12 pages of answers. Sen magof yu' kada na mamakcha'i yu' mangge na Chamoru taiguini, pi'ot gi lagu. Hassan gi entre i manhoben pa'go este na guinaiya yan minalago para u ayuda i

I'm applying for fellowships, scholarships and other forms of funding right now to help me through my dissertation writing process. It is a pain in the ass process, made much more difficult by the fact that people don't know very much about Guam and so everything I write requires lots of explainations about where I come from and why this is important, yet the page limits for the personal statements that they request are so short, I don't really have enough room to say very much after I've explained Guam and where I'm coming from. Perhaps its like this for everyone, regardless of what their project is, namely that they feel like the page limits they are given are far too short to describe who they are and why their work is important. I'm not so sure about this, I think that this sort of generalization is too easy and too useless. For those whose communities or topics are "small" or "invisible" there is almost an excessive scrutiny when it come

The press release from my visit to the UN last month. I'll be pasting soon the full testimonies from the three of us who spoken on behalf of the people of Guam. _______________________________ FOR IMMEADIATE RELEASE Contact: Victoria-Lola Leon Guerrero 510-967-9872 Email: decolonizeguam@gmail.com Chamorro Delegation Urges United Nations Intervention on Guam’s Decolonization, Military Buildup. New York City, November 9, 2007 — Chamorros from Guam testified October 9, 2007 before the United Nations Special Political and Decolonization Committee about Guam’s current political status. They insisted that the international community pay closer attention to the island as it faces a massive U.S. military build-up; accompanied by enormous indifference as to the effect this buildup will have on the island and its residents. The Fourth Committee is responsible for overseeing the decolonization of the world’s 16 remaining Non-Self-Governing Territories (NSGT), including Guam. Delegations from

Published on Sunday, November 4, 2007 by The New York Times Noun + Verb + 9/11 + Iran = Democrats’ Defeat? by Frank Rich When President Bush started making noises about World War III, he only confirmed what has been a Democratic article of faith all year: Between now and Election Day he and Dick Cheney, cheered on by the mob of neocon dead-enders, are going to bomb Iran. But what happens if President Bush does not bomb Iran? That is good news for the world, but potentially terrible news for the Democrats. If we do go to war in Iran, the election will indeed be a referendum on the results, which the Republican Party will own no matter whom it nominates for president. But if we don’t, the Democratic standard-bearer will have to take a clear stand on the defining issue of the race. As we saw once again at Tuesday night’s debate , the front-runner, Hillary Clinton, does not have one. The reason so many Democrats believe war with Iran is inevitable, of course, is that the administration is