NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

My 19 month old Makåhna, admiring the såkman model that is part of the Hinanao-ta Exhibit at the Guam Museum. I love bringing people into this part of the exhibit, where we can see the features of Chamoru life at the time of contact with Europeans. Their religion and culture. Their weapons and style of warfare. Their diet and architecture of their homes. And of course their navigation and seafaring abilities.    This section is always tinged with some sadness though because of what awaits in the next gallery of the exhibit, the consequences of colonization, one of them being Chamorus losing this connection to the sea and the depth of knowledge to navigate the open ocean as their ancestors before them had done for millennia.    But just as when I see my children playing near this model, hope is also on the horizon as well, if you look a little further. Chamorus have been learning from others in Micronesia for decades now about how to carve and how to navigate and the ...

Every week I host the podcast Fanachu. In the past my role was something in the background with others such as Manny Cruz, Lawrence "Siguenzama" Lizama or Albert Toves and Hannah Rebadullah taking the lead.  Since the pandemic, I've been the primary producer and host for Fanachu, and it has been tough at times trying to put out an episode kada simåna, with so many other things constantly going on in my life. I've been grateful for a handful of other creators who have come along to help produce content for Fanachu and give me some breathing rooms some weeks.  Recently Monaeka Flores from Prutehi Litekyan and Independent Guåhan has been great in terms of hosting and helping organize guests related to current protest movements on Guam. I'm excited that next year Tori Manley, a young up and coming Chamoru activist with Replenish Earth will be taking on regular episodes.  One of the most consistent people in the past two years in terms of helping produce content is Ann...

One of my jobs this summer is to run community conversations with Nedine Songeni for Humanities Guåhan at the Department of Corrections. I first started doing these types of conversations or civic reflections many years ago, when the Humanities Council introduced them as a means for talking about the military buildup. I along with several others underwent a training period and held these conversations with diverse groups across the island. Since then I've also helped them a few more times on organizing civic reflections. It is an interesting model, and what I've always found nice about it, is that it requires the use of humanities text, whether it be an article, a text, an essay or a short film, as a means to stimulate conversation. Rather than a debate or a lecture, you build from a text which can be interpreted in many ways to sort of try to unpack many of the things members of the community may be feeling and may or may not be talking about. A few years ago Humanities Guåh...

Earlier today I had the honor of giving a presentation before the Guam National Football (Soccer) Team. They have a friendly tournament coming up on island where they'll be facing off against teams like Saipan, Macau and Mongolia. I was asked by some of the coaches and staff for the team to speak about traditional navigation and use it as a metaphor to inspire the players. Traditional navigation in Micronesia is something to absolutely be proud of, even on Guam where it was lost for centuries and is being incorporated back into life again. People say that Magellan put Guam on the map. He did so only for Europeans. Peoples in Micronesia had their own maps and Guam was already on them. Chamorros had their own maps and these maps stretched from Asia to the Marshall Islands covering thousands of miles. To fixate on Magellan putting Guam on an map helps us forget so much that we can and should be proud of. Magellan puts Guam on the map 3500 years after Chamorros put it ...