Europe on my mind

I was giving this white guy a ride the other day from campus. His roomate is a friend of mine in my department, so that's how we had met and we were on our way to the beach to go kayaking with our mutual friend. I told him that I came from Guam. He asked a few nervous questions, and then admitted to not knowing very much about Guam. I told him that I'm from a colony, and the benefit of that is that you get to feel whatever you want about us, we are supposed to be at the disposal of your desire or disinterest.

He asked me how far Guam was from the US. I told him, several thousands miles. "It must be pretty isolated then, huh?" he asked. I told him, not really. West of Hawai'i there are actually lots of islands, Guam is the largest in a chain of volcanic islands in the Marianas, and its surrounded by hundreds of others in Micronesia.

He apologized saying, "Well I guess I can always blame this on my geography classes." We both laughed. He continued, "But I do know lots about Europe, though."

The laugh intended to come out of my mouth, instead got caught as I realized something. Given the makeup of the school system on Guam, today and my own experiences in education, one could easily call it a colonial school system. The emphasis is most definitely not local and not regional. We do not connect to Asia or the other islands the way we do to the United States (and its disowned parent Europe).

Without laughing, I depressedly replied, "So do I."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chamoru Love Sayings

Image
A student from my Zoom Chamoru classes recently asked me for some suggestions for some Chamoru sayings or words of wisdom that she could use for a speech she had to give for a friend's wedding.  I get this type of request pretty frequently and so over the years I have a number of lists of ways to say "I Love You" in Chamoru. For years that was one of the my most visited pages on this blog, a simple page that had more than a dozen different ways to say "Hu Guaiya Hao" ranging from the poetic and deep, to the silly and sexy.  When I looked at many of those lists, I realized that the majority of the ways love was expressed, was indeed written in Chamoru, but not necessarily rooted in Chamoru. What I mean by this, is that alot of the sayings were simply translated from English or variants of ways that love would be expressed in English.  For me, I am definitely in support of these sorts of things, I love having our language adapt and take on new forms, especially wh
Read more

Chamorro Public Service Post #15: Pues Adios, Esta Ki

A lot of people end up visiting this blog because they are searching around the internet for lyrics to Chamorro songs. Over the years I’ve pasted a couple here and there, but haven’t really kept up with it as much as I should. I complain all the time about there not being enough internet presence for the Chamorro language and for Chamorro thoughts and so I feel bad when I inadvertently contribute to that absence. På’go, gaige yu’ gi i gima’ iyo-ku grandfather. Desde i ma’pos’ña na mes, kumakatre gui’. Kana’ hineart attack gui’, ya sumaga’ gui’ gi i espitåt para tres meses. Mana’huyong gi i ma’pos na mes, ya sumåsaga’ gui’ gi i gima’, lao ti ha hulat tumohgue sin ayuda. Kada na puengge måtto yu’ gi i gima’-ña para i tetno-hu pumulan gui’. Gi este na tiempo, tåya’ internet, pues siña hu usa este para bai hu fanhasso. Manhasso yu’ put i lina’la’-hu pat i guinife-hu. Buente i chinathinasso-ku siha lokkue’. Tonight, I was trying to figure out what would be the best song to share the lyrics
Read more

Tuleti

Image
I was racking my brain recently to determine what was the first ever Chamorro song that was featured in a motion picture. Noon Sunday was the first every motion picture to be filmed primarily on Guam, prior to that some minor filming had been done on Guam for World War II and Godzilla films but nothing substantial. Noon Sunday was not set in Guam, but it was the first film to feature extensively the island of Guam. Guam was the locale for a fictional Pacific island that was being taken over by a menacing Asian power. Almost all the speaking roles went to people from off-island (from the US or the Philippines), and Chamorros ended up playing most of the "extra" roles. As a result the film didn't feature any Chamorro music. You do find documentaries and television programs, all locally produced that feature Chamorro songs of at least Chamorros singing songs. Guam's History Through Songs, made by the late Carmen Santos is a perfect example of this. For those of you u
Read more