NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

  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...

For the entire month of July, I'll be in Hawai'i at the East West Center for the first ever Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Museum Institute. This is an incredible opportunity for me to work with museum professionals and scholars from across the Pacific and network with people from museums, galleries, arts councils and cultural centers from a dozen different island communities.We just finished the first week and it has already been amazing on so many levels. I'm sure I'll be writing more about my experiences over the course of the month Here is the full list of all of those who are attending.  Roldy Ablao, Pacific Island Ethnic Art Museum, California Archie Ajoste, Northern Mariana Islands Museum, Saipan Pamela Alconcel, Lānaʻi Heritage Center, Hawaiʻi Wilbert Alik, RMI Ministry of Culture and Internal Affairs, Marshall Islands Meked Besebes, Internal Affairs, Palau Michael Lujan Bevacqua, Guam Museum, Guam Mina Elison, Donkey Mill Arts Center, Hawaiʻi Ailini Eteuati, ...

The clock is running out for the Government of Guam to decide if they plan to appeal the recent 9th Circuit Court's affirmation of the Dave Davis case. After the federal district judge in Guam, Francis Tydingco-Gatewood ruled in Davis' favor in 2017, the government of Guam appealed. They lost that appeal earlier this year. In a few weeks the Leon Guerrero administration will reveal their plans for the Davis case and hopefully the issue of a self-determination plebiscite in general.  For those unfamiliar, the Davis case deals with a non-binding political status plebiscite codified in Guam law, that would be limited to only those who were made US citizens by the 1950 Organic Act and their descendants. Although not strictly a racial definition, the US federal courts have ruled that this classification known in Guam as "native inhabitants" is unconstitutional.  The question that remains for Maga'håga Lou now is, what is Guam's next step? As she is the head o...

When I was writing my dissertation more than 10 years ago, one question that I constantly had, was what is the "Department of Interior" in the United States, especially in relation to the territories. The easy answer is that it is the office to oversees them. It is the office that oversees the natural resource, the parks, the relations with Native Americans, but also the way the US connects to its insular areas and colonies. We can refer to the Department of the Interior as the make-shift colonial office, a colonial office in denial that it is a colonial office. The office manages resources and helps to remind those of us who live in the territories that we are a resource, that our lands, our lives are more explicitly than any other place within the US and its empire, thought of as a commodity. The fact that our strongest link to the federal bureaucracy is the DOI is key in understanding our relationship to the US. We may have a variety of fantasies about what we are to ...

This article is interesting. On the one hand, you could argue that it isn't necessarily talking about sovereignty in a overt political sense and so the title or the thesis is very overstated. It deals with an exchange over surfing and a sports article. But on the other hand, the article is a good reminder about the way that sovereignty can be woven into everything, and is something that can be fought at multiple levels, even the most basic of conversations. That it can begin with an idea, with a community formed simply by shared memories or shared desires and that it can grow from there. As I once wrote many year ago, "kada mumon linahyan ha tutuhon ni' un sinangan ha'." ***********************   Surfing as Sovereignty: How Native Hawaiians Resisted Colonialism by Dina Gilio-Whitaker Indian Country Today Media Network 11/14/14   In Hawaiian culture, surfing has always been more than a sport. So important was it that prayers and chants ...

To the question of whether or not Hawai'i is an occupied nation, the answer is simple, hunggan, sen hunggan, gof annok yan ti puniyon. But this is an important reminder of how the truth does not out, how what can be proven, what can be shown to clearly provide an understanding of the contours of reality does nothing on its own. You can show people things, communicate them to them, show them the structure of violence that leads to displacement, suppression, but for their own lazy and selfish reasons, because of the way their own privilege, their own pleasure may be tied to the denial of that truth, they will resist it. They will pretend it means nothing, they will drape the islands in as many American flags as possible, as many bases as possible, as many Wal-Marts as possible in order to cover that truth up, to blot it out, the make is go away, to try to banish it. ****************** Aloha to the US: Is Hawai'i an occupied nation? By Taylor Kate Brown   BBC New...

This week I'm at the symposium "Creating Futures Rooted in Wonder: Bridges Between Indigenous, Science Fiction and Fairy Tale Studies" at the University of Hawai'i, Manoa. I was fortunate enough to be invited out to speak and participate in workshops. The symposium has been amazing so far, because the discussion is so in line with thoughts I've had for years, the only difference is now I am finding so many others, books and journals that are parts of a conversation I can now join. I've always been into nerdy and geeky things such as comics, science fiction, fantasy, but about 15 years ago I began to care more about Chamorro culture, history and language. I have spent every moment since trying to find ways of bringing together those various passions. At this symposium I've found people from various Pacific Islander and Native American communities who feel the exact same way and have the exact same creative/political desires.  Here are some of...