NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

  Art has long provided communities with a way to express who they are, preserve what matters to them, and imagine their futures. This October, Independent Guahan's Youth Organizing Fellowship members invite the community to take the stage and share their talents through music, poetry, storytelling, comedy, and other forms of creative expression. The group is hosting an Open Mic Night on Saturday, October 17, 2026, from 7:00-10:00 p.m. at 105GU in the Tumon View Plaza. Local performers are encouraged to share pieces centered around the themes of indigenous culture, language, values, and sovereignty. The event is free and open to the public, and people of all ages and backgrounds are encouraged to attend. Independent Guahan, a local organization that educates the community about the possibilities of independence as a future political status for Guahan, began a youth fellowship program this summer with the intention of fostering leadership and community organizing skills for a group ...

What does Liberation Day on Guam make you think of? Does it remind you of parades? Beauty queens? Canopies? Columns of military marching? Does it remind you of rain? Fireworks? Playing games at the carnival? Spending time with family? I think of all of these things and one thing that most might not: I think of people chastising me for not really knowing what Liberation Day is really about. Today many people know me for writing a regular newspaper column. For the past 10 years I’ve had a column in the Pacific Daily News, and for around six years before that I wrote a column in the Marianas Variety (now known as the Guam Daily Post). But while I was a graduate student, I would sometimes write letters to the editor of the Pacific Daily News and occasionally they would get published. One of the first of these letters was published in 2003 and at that time there was a discussion around the official naming of Marine Drive to Marine Corps Drive. While Guam’s central road was well-known as Mar...

This week, Guam is preparing for Typhoon Bavi which will hit the Marianas. While that is obviously the most present thing in our minds here in the Western Pacific, in our particular corner of the American Empire. Much of the United States is focused on other things. For more than two centuries, this time of year is reserved for celebrations, commemorations, mythology-making around the origins and destiny of the United States. It is July 4th, Independence Day, a time where much is said about the genesis of the United States, but many of the most basic and most critical questions remains painfully unasked by most. This year's commemoration is meant to be larger and greater because it falls on the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. While the celebration is both smaller, laughable and more visibly partisan and usual, because of the current administration, these are sometimes lamented as exceptions to the norm, but from a certain perspective of the Unit...

  On February 1 st , 2014, 12 years ago, a group of activists, cultural practitioners, scholars, students and artists, through groups such as Our Islands are Sacred and Hinasso organized an event called "Lukao Fuha." It was a pilgrimage, a special walk from Humåtak Bay to Laso' Fouha or Fouha Rock, that was meant to symbolize for Chamorus, walking in the ceremonial footsteps of our ancestors in a variety of ways. Firstly, Fouha Rock is thought to symbolize an important part of the Chamoru creation story, as it represents the body of Fu'una, who with her brother (whose body is the land itself) gave up their forms and their energy to create the Chamoru people and our islands. Secondly, early Spanish accounts discuss that the largest gatherings for ancient Chamorus in the 16th and 17th centuries took place around a large rock, and part of these gatherings was the retelling of the creation stories and other legends that went back connecting centuries and generations of st...

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...

  Recently Senator Will Parkinson introduced a resolution to I Liheslaturan Guåhan calling for a full examination of statehood or another autonomous status. In his statement explaining the resolution he equated statehood for Guam with ensuring the island’s survival.   Is statehood really the only choice for Guam’s future?   This Friday, May 2nd from 5:30-7:00 pm at the Guam Museum, Independent Guåhan will be holding a community forum discussing some of the implications of what statehood might mean for the island. This event is free and open to all. Former UOG President and non-voting delegate for Guam Robert Underwood will also offer his reflections as part of the discussion.   Artwork in flyer courtesy of Teihini Davis   **************   Three Things You Should Know About Statehood for Guam 1.         Unlike Independence, where all people have the right to be free and right to self-determin...