NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

For Immediate Release Contact: Michael Lujan Bevacqua futures0308@gmail.com ‘Postcolonial’ Futures in a Not-Yet Postcolonial World: Locating the Intersections of Ethnic, Indigenous and Postcolonial Studies Conference Will Look at the Futures of Indigenous, Ethnic and Postcolonial Peoples Across the World (San Diego, February 10, 2008) On March 5-7, 2008, the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, San Diego will be hosting a conference titled “Postcolonial Futures in a Not Yet Postcolonial World: Locating the Intersections of Ethnic, Indigenous and Postcolonial Studies.” This conference will bring together scholars and activists from the United States and from around the world, who are engaged in organizing and scholarly work across ethnic, indigenous and postcolonial communities. Traditionally, Ethnic Studies deals with minority peoples in first world nations. Postcolonial Studies is about the formerly colonized, now developing world. Indigenous Studies engages w...

I fine'nina na biahi na bumota yu', hu bota Si Unda'ut giya Guahan gi 2002. Hunggan, mismo tihu-hu Si Robert Underwood, lao ti put este ha' na hu bota gui'. Hu hongge gi ayu na tiempo na Guiya i mas maolek na taotao para u ma'gasi Guahan. Pi'ot sa' iyo-na "competition" Si Felix Camacho . Ai dimilas, sa' ti manggana' i gayu-hu, ya mailihi Si Camacho. Achokka' sen makkat este na botasion 2002 para i korason-hu, komprendeyon este na fina'pos. Nuebu yan fresko Si Felis, ya kulang taya' matungo' put Guiya, fuera di estaba maga'lahi i tata-na. Pues ti mappot para u ma hasso i taotao na "taiisao" gui' yan "harmless" lokkue. Kulang pumarehu gui' yan Si George W. Bush gi este na "harmlessness." I botasion 2006, ayu ti hu komprende. Ti gof maolek na maga'lahi Si Felis. Ti malate', ti kapas, pues taimanu na i taotao Guahan, pau ma ilihi gui' ta'lo!!?? Sigi ha' hu hongge ...

Published on Tuesday, January 29, 2008 by AlterNet Pioneering Blackwater Protesters Given Secret Trial and Criminal Conviction by Jeremy Scahill Last week in Currituck County, N.C., Superior Court Judge Russell Duke presided over the final step in securing the first criminal conviction stemming from the deadly actions of Blackwater Worldwide, the Bush administration’s favorite mercenary company. Lest you think you missed some earth-shifting, breaking news, hold on a moment. The “criminals” in question were not the armed thugs who gunned down 17 Iraqi civilians and wounded more than 20 others in Baghdad’s Nisour Square last September. They were seven nonviolent activists who had the audacity to stage a demonstration at the gates of Blackwater’s 7,000-acre private military base in North Carolina to protest the actions of mercenaries acting with impunity — and apparent immunity — in their names and those of every American. The arrest of the activists and the subsequent five days they spen...

People often ask me: "Kao guaha fun gi lina'la'-mu? Pat puru ha' che'cho'?" "Do you have any fun in your life, or is it just work?" I do admit that I do seem to privilege non-"fun" things in my life, but focusing most of my energies and time on different academic, activist and social justice projects. Right now I've got two big conferences on my plate that I'm helping organize for the Spring. One in March in my department at UCSD titled " Postcolonial Futures in a Not Yet Postcolonial World: Locating the Intersections of Ethnic, Indigenous and Postcolonial Studies ." The other will be in May and will be the 3rd Famoksaiyan conference. More info soon on this one, right now we're trying to secure a location and get the date set. I've also been writing some articles for different groups, publications and websties, including a piece for Guampedia I've been working non-stop on since the end of last year, on exp...

I dream of the day when I read an article such as the one I've pasted below, but instead of "states" it will be the " territories ," which are trying to get their National Guard units back from Iraq. I wrote about this last year as well, when the Legislature in Hawai'i was making moves to try and get their Guard units home. I wrote recently in an article for the Committee Opposed to Militarism and in Draft , in which I discussed the attractiveness of Guam to military planners. Among the points I mentioned, was this fantasy of Guam as an ideal militarized society. A place where people don't mind the planes flying overhead, where they don't mind the drunken soldiers and where they don't mind the poisons in the ground caused by the military. This sort of acceptance of all the dangers and irritants of having 30% of your island belong to the United States military, doesn't make it an ideal militarization community however. What truly makes Guam ...

I wrote last year that I'll be trying to put out Chamorro fanslations of manga comics, and asi'i' yu' because over the past few months, I've fallen behind. Its not that I haven't been translating, its more that I just haven't been uploading them. I uploaded last year my first Fanslation which was from the manga Kekkaishi, a one part story titled " The Last Praise ." It was a simple story about death, loss and the connections between the spirit world and this world, and so for these reasons I chose it to be the first. The second that I've done is from the taichi na maguiaya na manga Naruto. As I wrote last year, I resisted reading Naruto for a long time, because it looked like just another dumb, senseless ninja comic. And basically dumb and senseless are ideal terms for describing the main character, Naruto. Eventually however I became attached to it, on the power of its supporting characters, such as Kakashi, Kabuto, Kisame and Might Guy. I e...

This came from Sabina Flores Perez, a longtime environmental and economic activist from Guam. Her, myself and other members of Famoksaiyan are working on the Federalization issue of the CNMI right now. Taitai este ya put fabot konsedera umayuyuda ham gi este na che'cho'. **************** Dear Friends of Guam, It breaks my heart to see these changes happen without reprieve to the island that I hold dear to me. We have seen many of our leaders who have not come forward, who have been overwhelmed by the enormous task, or who have buckled under the pressure and the sense of hopelessness which accompanies the long struggle of justice and human rights for Chamorro self-determination, that the US, as the administering power, is legally and morally obligated to fulfill. I want to say to you that this buildup which has been reported to impact the island and her people on so many levels is not inevitable, but we must act fast. How, do you ask? Currently, there is a bill in the Senate, th...

Published on Sunday, January 27, 2008 by The New York Times A President Like My Father by Caroline Kennedy Over the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This sense is even more profound today. That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama. My reasons are patriotic, political and personal, and the three are intertwined. All my life, people have told me that my father changed their lives, that they got involved in public service or politics because he asked them to. And the generation he inspired has passed that spirit on to its children. I meet young people who were born long after John F. Kennedy was president, yet who ask me how to live out his ideals. Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and ...

Hu pega gi pappa’, un mensåhi ginnen Si Dennis Kucinich, put i anten I Ha'anin Martin Luther King Jr. Olaha mohon na lokka'ña hao Dennis! Siempre yanggen lokka'ña hao siña manggana hao gi i botasion Amerikånu!!! Giya Guahan, in tingo' na yanggen umachånda Si Juan Malimanga yan Si Nano gi un botasion, siempre manggana' Si Juan. Lao ti manggana' gui' put suette, bininitu, minalate' pat pao'fresko. Manggana' gui solo put i etigo'-na Si Nano'. Gi i Comedy Shows guini (gi lågu) todu tiempo ma sångan na ginnen "The Lord of the Rings" Si Kucinich, kulang Elf pat Dwarf. Lao giya Guahån, guaha otro na fina'na'an para este na taotao: Duendes . Humanao yu' nigap para un dinaña' nai ma gof honora Si MLK, lao bai hu post mas put este agupa' pat agupa’ña. Para på'go, taitai este na palåbras, sa' kumekuentos Si Kucinich put i umababåk-ña i Intenon Demokratik giya i United States. Lao kontat ki ma gof dalalaki i ante...

A few days ago i presisu na haggå-hu Sumåhi turned 9 months! Ha silebra i mina'nuebe na kumplemeses-ña gi i kanton tasi. Gi este na mubi, ti siguru yu' kao ya-ña pat ti ya-ña munangu Si Sumåhi. Lao gof paire gui' gi ayu na magågu!

The Federalization issue in the CNMI continues to heat up, and as usual the politics that are taking place at the Pentagon and in Congress that has to do with the territories such as the CNMI or Guam, have little to do with the interests of these islands. The Federalization issue, from the perspective of the Feds is purely an issue of national security and also making it possible for the Department of Defense to take advantage of the labor pool of the CNMI as they look to build up Guam. Here we see a sort of unholy union of liberal activism which seeks to get fair treatment for alien workers in the CNMI, being used as a cover in order to recolonize the Mariana Islands, and prepare them for levels of militarization not seen in two generations. I am still regularly awed by how people, from Guam and not from Guam, can say with straight faces and without blood leaking from their eye sockets, that there is nothing wrong with the way Guam exists politically in relation to the United States, ...

Wexler Wants Hearings A website everyone interested in justice and a new direction for the United States of America, should check out, and become involved in. For those in Guam and the other territories who don't vote for President, don't have a vote that counts in Congress, yet get sent in huge numbers to the frontlines every American war, the issue of impeachment is still very important. We may not be "full" members of the American family , but the abuses of power that take place at the White House, Congress, the Pentagon all very much affect us. I wrote last week about the ways in which Guam has been brought into the War on Terror. When Donald Rumsfeld and Company were looking for a place to detain their freshly captured enemy combatants, Guam was one option. This is just one instance where we on Guam could have been made accesories to the abuses and excesses of power and authority that the Bush Administration has wrought. Thankfully the island was spared this, b...

There is little doubt that this world is presently an unfriendly place for the Chamorro language, since although there is in Guam an acceptance of people's right to speak Chamorro, there is still very little effort to revitalize the language, ensuring its survival and making it the language of general instruction and communication. For school and college age Chamorros who have grown up speaking English only, this environment can be surprisingly impossible and hostile as well, as you seem at times to be pushing against the flow of history, since many who do speak Chamorro seem indifferent to passing it on, don't see any value in passing it on, or would rather spend their team teasing you instead of teaching you. I've compiled below, for those interested in learning Chamorro, a series of basic tips to help you cope with this unfriendly or indifferent environment. But first, let me quote a little bit from the draft philosophy I wrote for Famoksaiyan last year, to stress the i...

At present I'm trying to extend the scope of my blog and its readership beyond just Chamorros who stumble across my blog because they are googling around trying to find the lyrics to the song Apo Magi or Japanese businessmen and American military who are searching for massage parlors on Guam. This shift was prompted when I received a new visitor to my blog, Carbondate, a progressive military blogger who is currently stationed on Guam. The name of his blog is the command post , and he has some very good commentary there, on the presidental races in the US and New Orleans, which everyone should check out. Last month he wrote a post about my blog titled " Chamorro Blogger: Remnants of Colonialism " which not only linked people to this blog, but also informed people in the United States in a very straightforward and clear way about Guam's status as a contemporary American colony. It is rare to see people from the United States on the internet speak so frankly about this w...