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Showing posts from March, 2014

An Important Message

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CCF Directions

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March 29, 2014 Chamorro Cultural Festival San Diego, CA 10 am - 6 pm DIRECTIONS to the Chamorro Cultural Festival - March 29, 2014: Market Creek Plaza is near the corner of Euclid Avenue and Market Street, near the three corners that situate the Tubman-Chavez Multi-Cultural Center, the Malcolm X Library, an d the Elementary Institute of Science. The Plaza's bright and unique architecture is instantly recognizable. Market Street Plaza 310 Euclid Ave., San Diego, CA 92114 (Corner of Market St. and Euclid Ave.) By Car From Downtown, drive east on Market Street and turn right at Euclid Avenue, or go east on the Martin Luther King Freeway (94) and exit at Euclid Avenue going south. Turn right to get to Market Creek Plaza. From Interstate 5, go east on the Martin Luther King Freeway (94) and exit at Euclid Avenue. Turn right to get to Market Creek Plaza. From East County, go west on the Martin Luther King Freeway (94) and exit at Euclid A

Tumblr

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Gaige yu' gi Tumblr . I am on Tumblr. Ti ya-hu mureblog. I do not like to reblog. Hu rikokohi gi iyo-ku Tumblr, i fina'tinas-hu I am collecting in my Tumblr, things I have made. I ltratu-hu siha ginen i isla-ku. My pictures of my island. I litratu-hu siha ginen i hinanao-hu siha My pictures of my trips. Infotmasion put i che'cho'-hu gi koleho yan gi kuminidat. Information about my work at UOG yan in the community. Parehu i ison-niha yan este na blog, lao mas ha aguiguiguiya i fina'litratuh siha iyo-ku Tumblr. My tumblr and my blog have the same purpose, lao my Tumblr is primarily for visuals. Ti meggai iyo-ku followers (dadadalaki siha). I don't have that many followers. Lao kada biahi na umafakcha'i ham yan un follower, nina'gof magof yu'. But each time I meet a new follower, it makes me very happy. Ti pinacha' i korason-hu anai ma sangani yu' na ma li'e' yu' gi PDN. It doesn't do much

The Falling Bookcase

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During this trip to California I am meeting up with people I haven't seen in years, in some cases, I haven't seen or heard from them in close to a decade. It is interesting to experience the memories that people have of you after a long stretch of time. Are you frozen in time to them? Have they imagined  future for you even if it matches nothing that you have done since you last saw them? Today I met up with someone who heard me read poetry a long time ago in San Diego, when I was attending grad school at UCSD. We had only met a couple of times, but for him it was an important meeting because I was the first person from Guam, he had met, who talked about Guam in a critical way. He had heard me read a poem on Chamorros being a footnote to the American Empire. It is something that struck and stuck with him ever since. For me, I cling to moments like this, and I thread them together to create my personal necklace of relevance. It is so easy sometimes to feel like nothing I do

The Garrido Manuscript

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MARC. Colonial studies Working Group  PRESS RELEASE The Garrido Manuscript: A Unique Glimpse of the Chamorro Language in 1798 by Dr. Carlos Madrid and Jeremy Cepeda. University of Guam, CLASS Lecture Hall Thursday, March 27, 2014 – 6 pm. Expected duration of the event: 1 hour. A one-of-a-kind document written in the Chamorro language of the 18th Century is being brought to light as a result of research recently conducted at the Micronesian Area Research Center, University of Guam. The Micronesian Area Research Center and the Chamorro Studies Program are presenting a translation of this document to the community and offering a rare look into what the Chamorro language looked and sounded like more than 200 years ago. In 1798, Manuel Garrido, a Chamorro and official of the Spanish Government of the Mariana Islands was asked to translate into Chamorro news received from Manila regarding the victory of Spanish and Filipino soldiers against British shi

Tinta and Faha

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On Saturday, my special projects class "The Uprising at Atate" traveled to Malesso' in the South to take pictures of the two memorials at Tinta and Faha. Malesso' has the most notorious "village" story of the entire war. Despite being far away from the centers of Japanese power, by the end of the war it is the site of two massacres (Tinta and Faha) and one uprising (Atate). For this research project we have been studying why the massacres sites, which are zones filled with trauma and victimization have become so important in WWII memorialization, while Atate, a space where Chamorros fought back and killed their Japanese captors holds little to no significance over how people see the Tiempon Chapones tale unfolding. Finding the exact location where the uprising at Atate took place has proven difficult, as those who have been there are generally too old to travel there, and other know the general area and can point at it from afar in a way which is attemp

Blessing the Bombs

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Because of Tinian's role in the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, you will always find it mentioned in intriguing ways. Tinian is invoked in peace studies and anti-nuclear activist rhetoric in the same way Guam is mentioned in military strategic analysis and history. Both are empty sites from which violence is projected and structures of power are maintained.  Rarely however do either of these sites achieve their own purpose in these mentions, instead they just serve to enhance the potency of other places and other projects. This is one of the reasons I wrote my dissertation, to try to give some shape and form to this dynamic, through which you can mention places like Guam and Tinian a million times, but never say anything about them. Below is a quote from the late Father Zabelka, a chaplain in the US Air Force and blessed both the pilots and the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I came across this quote from him in Howard Zinn's book

Estorian Sindalu Siha

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                 Date:               March 11, 2014                         Contact:          Kimberlee Kihleng, Executive Director                                                 Monaeka Flores, Coordinator for Marketing and Programs                         Phone:             472-4460/1 Council to host next Smithsonian Institution Exhibit Journey Stories, public call for photographs and artifacts The Guam Humanities Council will partner with the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, Museum on Main Street (MoMS) program to bring a national exhibit to Guam in 2014 entitled, Journey Stories. Many of us have powerful journey stories in our personal heritage. It may be a story of a family uprooting itself in order to stay together, or of sons and daughters moving to another land, or of a distant ancestor, perhaps unknown. As part of the Guam tour, the Council will highlight Guam’s unique journey s

I Manmanggana'

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2014 Inachá’igen Fino’ CHamoru Chamorro Language Competition March 10 and 11, 2014 University of Guam Theme/Tema: I Fino’ CHamoru: Didok, Fehman yan Tai Chi! (The Chamorro Language: Deep, Profound and Infinite!) List of Winners I. Eskuelan Elementario/Elementary Schools A.     K-2 Dinilitreha/Spelling 1 st Place:         Myra K. Chinen, Wettengel 2 nd Place:         Imajin Trinidad, Mt. Carmel 3 rd Place:         Kaden Apiag, C. L. Taitano B.     3-5 Dinilitreha/Spelling 1 st Place:        Harley Meeks, C. L. Taitano 2 nd Place:        Chanse Trinidad, Mt. Carmel 3 rd Place:        Alliyah Ducay, Ordot-Chalan Pago C.      3-5 Umestoriha/Storytelling 1 st Place:         Dimitrios Cruz, C. L. Taitano 2 nd Place:         Pedro P. Cruz, Mt. Carmel 3 rd Place:        Edreanna Bueno, Merizo Martyr D.     K-2 Yininga’/Drawing 1 st Place:         Rylee Jade Tudela, Mt. Carmel 2 nd Pla

Immortal Love

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When I read the short story, "The Sun, The Moon, the Stars" by Junot Diaz, he had several lovely passages, and on the advice of my male' Victoria Leon Guerrero I used to use it when I would teach composition at the University of Guam. There is one moment towards the end where the narrator talks about when one reaches the end of one relationship it brings you back to the beginning. You see the first moments in a color that was more vivid than when you actually experienced them. That is the sign that a relationship is coming to an end, like when the brain starts to shut down and it is gasping for life, the another moment after the next and it fills the abyss of your mind with a maelstrom of desperate exploding stars. There is an obvious poetry and symmetry to this, but I haven't really felt it to be true. Each time I have come to the end of a relationship, or even like I do now, where I can see the end ahead like a depressing oasis impervious to this r