NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

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...

Chris Perez Howard was born in 1940 to Mariquita Aguon Perez and Edward Neal Howard. When the Japanese invaded Guam the following year, his father, a US Navy sailor, was taken away as a prisoner of war, leaving his mother and family to care for Chris and his younger sister Helen. By the war's end, Mariquita would, like hundreds of other Chamorus during the occupation, become a victim of Japanese brutality. As a result, Chris would have few memories of her and soon after his father’s return to Guam at the end of the war, would be taken away from Guam and not return for almost two decades.  In the 1970s, Chris found his way back to his island home and begin to conduct research into the life and death of his mother. He pored through military archives and also interviewed family and friends, all of which helped him put together a literary portrait of her as an intelligent and resilient Chamoru woman.  In 1982 he published a biography for her titled, “Mariquita: A Tragedy o...

Independent Guåhan October General Assembly will commemorate the history of Chamoru petitions for self-determination For Immediate Release, October 21, 2019-  Independent Guåhan (IG) invites the public to attend their upcoming General Assembly (GA) to take place on Thursday, October 24 th from 6:00-7:30 pm at the Main Pavilion of the Chamorro Village in Hagåtña. This month’s GA will commemorate the more than a century of petitions by the Chamoru people for improvements in their political status. In this spirit, the group will honor as  Maga’taotao  the late Senator Francisco R. Santos, a long-serving local leader. Within months of the US takeover of Guam in 1898, the Chamoru people were already politely requesting improvements in their political status. Dozens of petitions were sent to the US Congress and the US Navy prior to World War II, some bearing thousands of signatures asking that the US improve the political status of the Chamoru people, whether by gran...

Independent Guåhan will honor the late Ron Teehan and Discuss Managing Natural Resources in their October General Assembly For Immediate Release, October 15, 2018  Independent Guåhan (IG) invites the public to attend its October General Assembly (GA) on Thursday, October 25th 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 potential benefits through achieving independence. This month’s GA will focus on how Guam might better manage its natural resources as an independent country.    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 October, IG will be honoring the late Ron Franquez Teehan, a long-time advocate for the rights of the Chamoru people who passed away earlier this year. ...

My testimony from earlier today at the Guam Legislature. I made it a point to write and deliver my testimony gi Fino' Chamorro. Crafting this testimony was difficult in Chamorro as these are all ideas and concepts I am used to articulating in English, but rarely in Chamorro. I figure though that for each time some important issue is discussed at the Legislature in a public hearing, I should try my best to testify in Chamorro and hopefully others will follow suit, even if just mixing Chamorro and English together or saying part of their remarks in Chamorro. It was very inspiring to see so many people gathered for a resolution sponsored by Senator Telena Nelson calling for a halt to the construction of the firing range at Litekyan. I was fortunate to be the second person to speak, as others waited for hours. ************* --> Buenas yan Håfa Adai, I na’ån-hu si Michael Lujan Bevacqua. Hu tutuge’ este na tinestigu-hu komo taotao gi kumunidåt. Ti hu kuentusisiyi i i...

Earlier this month I was on a panel discussion at UOG about the prospect of Guam holding a new constitutional convention and writing a new constitution. I was by far the youngest person on the panel, as I hadn't been born yet when the last Guam Constitutional Convention was held, but I was honored to have my voice included amongst other notable island figures such as Speaker of the Guam Legislature BJ Cruz, Public Auditor Doris Flores Brooks, Guam Attorney General Elizabeth Barrett-Anderson and former Senator Marilyn Manibusan. The discussion ended up being quite rich, with three out of the five panelists (myself included) speaking out against the writing of a Guam constitution. It is not so much that I or the others were against the exercise of writing a constitution, but the issue was, why write a constitution now, while Guam remains a colony of the US? Every once in a while this topic will emerge, usually proposed as an easier path for dealing with Guam's political s...