NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

In 2022 while attending the first ever Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Museum Institute (NHPIMI) in Hawai'i, I began to write a series of columns for the Pacific Daily News that covered some of the 90 year history of the Guam Museum.   In recent decades the Guam Museum has a fairly complicated history, where at times for years there was no actual museum, just a collection moving from storage space to storage space. Even at times when there has been a physical, dedicated facility for the museum, sometimes there has been insufficient staff or resources. Even legally where the museum falls within the Government of Guam as an agency has changed over the past forty years.  For these complicating factors, the columns focused on the museum's history from the 1930s to the 1970s.  ******************* “Can a Museum Being a Living Institution?” July 21, 2022   I am spending the month of July at the East-West Center as part of the historic first cohort for the Native...

Independent Guåhan to offer Teach-In on The Organic Act, its past, present and future For Immediate Release, October 13, 2019-  Independent Guåhan (IG) invites the public to attend a Teach-In titled “The Organic Act Explained” on Thursday, October 17 th from 6 pm – 7:30 pm at University of Guam, Humanities and Social Sciences Building Room 106. This event is free and open to the public and will also be live streamed on the Independent Guåhan Facebook page ( www.facebook.com/independentgu ) Recently, Guam’s non-voting delegate to the US Congress Michael San Nicolas introduced a bill in Washington D.C. to amend the Organic Act for Guam, which would require that a public referendum be held prior to any tax increase for the island. The delegate also has plans to introduce future amendments, in order to compel prompt payment of tax refunds for local residents. Discussion on these proposed reforms has been unfortunately limited, in part by a general lack of knowledge and und...

Citizenship Questions and Honoring the Late Speaker Carlos Taitano are the focus for Independent Guåhan’s September General Assembly For Immediate Release, September 17, 2018  Independent Guåhan (IG) invites the public to attend our September General Assembly (GA) on Thursday, September 27th, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. at the Main Pavilion of the Chamorro Village in Hagåtña. These assemblies are part of IG’s efforts to educate the community on the need for Guåhan’s decolonization and the potentials for our independence. This month’s GA will focus on what form citizenship might take in an independent Guåhan.  At each GA , Independent Guåhan honors a   maga’taotao : a notable figure that has helped guide the island and the Chamoru people on their quest for self-determination. For September, IG will be honoring the late Carlos Pangelinan Taitano, who was a World War II veteran, Speaker for I Liheslaturan Guåhan and an instrumental figure in helping get the Organic Act p...

I just to Okinawa a few hours ago, had dinner and meant to quickly fall asleep in my hotel room, but this has not happened yet. I spent much of the trip today thinking over my various talks that I'll be giving while here this weekend. I was trying to map out my strategy for talking about decolonization in Okinawa. In Guam, I already have several ways of introducing and broaching the topic, as the history of the island has given us a couple of esta listo discourses that you can use. For example in Guam today I would say there are three basic ways in which decolonization is discussed. You can break them down as follows: Unincorporated Territory, Non-Self-Governing Territory and Nasion Chamoru. Each of them begins from a different point in Guam's colonization and although they may overlap, they often evolve in opposing directions. Unincorporated Territory: The basis for understanding colonization is the lack of incorporation with the United States. Guam is a possession of th...