NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

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, ...

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...

This month I reread Island in Agony by Tony Palomo. I have actually read it many times, but decided to take a look at it again as I was writing my weekly columns for the Pacific Daily News about World War II in Guam, and that book had been my first, comprehensive and in-depth look at it when I was a graduate student. In contrast to books by Don Farrell or Robert Rogers which also cover to varying extends the Japanese occupation of Guam, Island in Agony, feels very Chamoru and is in most ways written for Chamorus. When you read the book, you can see Tony Palomo's voice clearly trying to sound like an average American newspaperman. But in how he frames the story and what he chooses to include, you can tell he is trying to write something that will tell the Chamoru side of the story, that will stand as a testament to the Chamoru experience. Most chronicles of the war focus, as you might expect on the militaries involved. The great titans that clash over Guam. Not much attention is...