NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Independent Guåhan has organized a petition to give voice to the community's opposition to Senator Will Parkinson's Bill 242-38 which would eliminate the right of the Chamoru people to self-determination in a decolonization plebiscite. The petition text is below. It'll be presented to the Guam Legislature on Wednesday, February 18th at the public hearing for the bill.  *********************  We, the undersigned, express our steadfast opposition to Bill 242-38, which eliminates the ability of the CHamoru people to exercise their internationally recognized right to self-determination. The bill seeks to open eligibility to participate in a decolonization plebiscite to all registered Guåhan voters. One merely has to have lived on the island for 30 days to establish residency and be able to register to vote in Guåhan’s elections. This means that new or even temporary residents with no ancestral, cultural, or historical ties to the island, and who have not suffered fro...

Amongst Guam and Chamoru legends, you will find different themes, different archetypes. Some of them are familiar, common, while some are much more complicated and show clear layers of intervention and influence. This legend for example, which goes by many different names and has lots of different versions is one such fascinating example. It clearly shows European elements. You can see in it tropes that are common in other cultures, where deities visit the human world to test or view real, unvarnished life. And then from these experiences some one or some group is chosen to represent the best that humanity has to offer and others are punished.  There are versions of this type of story that go back to the Spanish era, but then there are others that show the editing or altering due to educators or writers adapting them in certain ways. One of the things that I enjoy most about this type of Chamoru legend though is how it becomes a creation story for the Chamoru people, after coloniza...