NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

FROM WE ARE GUAHAN: An guaha tiempo-mu, put fabot sapotte este na dinana' yan i inetnon lokkue'. Maolek i tinekcha' i fine'nina na sakkan, puede ha' lamaolek i mina'dos, no? **************** Hafa Adai, One year ago, a small group of folks were drawn together by a document (the DEIS) that painted a disturbing picture of our community's future. One year has since passed with over 25 events and initiatives -- over 20,000 personal conversations -- over 30,000 volunteer hours -- Pagat lawsuit filed -- and a continuing commitment to the future of our island and our people. We celebrate a year and community brought together, to protect what we love. We Are One Please join us for We Are Guahan's first birthday celebration fundraiser at the historic Lujan House. Friday, Friday, December 17 6:00pm- 8:00pm Pupus and Refreshments provided $25.00 For tickets: Jon Blas 707-3557 action@weareguahan.com Si Yu'os Ma'ase, We Are Guahan

Last year the group TASI or Traditions About Seafaring Islands organized a Sakman Summit, or an event where experts on Chamorro culture, language, history and Micronesian traditional navigation gathered together to discuss various aspects about the recreation of the Chamorro sakman, or open-ocean large canoe. Central to the gathering was developing a standardized vocabulary for all of the terms which you would need for navigation in Chamorro, such as parts of the canoe, tools, sea-birds, names for the different parts of the day, etc. I've written before about how critical in today's Guam the work of TASI is. They are decolonizing. They are not returning to a previous era, but rather showing us how it is entirely possible that things which were lost or prohibited long ago, such as the seafaring skills and technology of Chamorros can find a place in today's world. Decolonization is not about preserving, because preserving assumes that something is dead or on the verge of de...

By James Moore from the Huffington Post 12/10/10 I am Julian Assange. I want information so that I can hold my government accountable. If my country acts improperly and in my name, I want the proof. I want to know if there actually is no evidence proving weapons of mass destruction. I want to know if America is working with Israel to overthrow Iran's leadership. I want data that has not been spun by reporters that work for publishers and broadcasters with political and business goals that conflict with the facts. I want to know. I am Julian Assange because I know unfettered information is valuable to democracy and a peaceful world. I can make the best decisions with the most knowledge. I can vote for the best candidates. I can support the smartest policies to help my country and the world. I am not naïve; I know that not every operation can be transparent but I have a right to know its outcome and how it has affected my country and me. I do not believe Julian Assange has ...

Despensa yu'. Mangontrata yu' na bai hu na'fanhuyong i 2010 Guam Political Sign Awards gi i ma'pos na mes, lao ti hu na'funhayan. Gof tinane' yu' gi i ma'pos na mes ya tinane' yu' lokkue' gi este na simana esta ki agupa'na. Put fin na esta mafatto i finakpo' i "semester." Esta nina'yafai yu' nu i che'cho'-hu pa'go. Hu fana'gue sais na klas gi este na "semester," yan esta listo para bai hu deskansanaihon. Achokka' i kabales na listan i manggana para iyo-ku "Awards" ti munhayan tribiha, esta hu na'fanagi i publio gi iyo-ku column gi i Marianas Variety, gi i ma'pos na mes. Espiha guatu yanggen ya-mu mas. Lao gigon na makpo' i che'cho'-hu agupa', bai hu kekena'funhayan siha. Depensa yu' ta'lo.

I am helping organize a special solemn mass to be held on Wednesday morning, December 8th to commemorate the anniversary of the attack on Guam by the Japanese in 1941 which brought World War II to Guam. In preparation for the event I conducted research, helped write articles and I'll also be helping facilitating a storytelling session with four survivors of World War II on Guam, one of whom is my grandfather Tun Joaquin Flores Lujan, the Chamorro Master Blacksmith. The hope for this event is to not focus on the atrocities, the violence or the liberation, but instead issues of peace and what we can learn from the war. There is also meant to be a dimension of forgiveness in this event, helping the island to move on from that horrible period. This event includes an exhibit of images from prewar Guam and information from the Guam Humanities Council and the War in the Pacific Museum about the war experiences of Chamorros. The whole thing is organized by the office of Senator Frank Blas...

I've been wanting to write about WikiLeaks but haven't been able to get ahold of their latest leak dump and so while I've heard that Guam appears in the documents 40 times I haven't been able to see it for myself and analyze it. Everytime I've tried to download them they've been taken offline. In the meantime, I came across this on the website Antiwar.com. It is a letter from famous whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who has weighed in on the issue, noting on Democracy Now! that he is jealous of how scanners and other technology makes it so easy nowadays for whistleblowers to collect mountains of evidence. The Pentagon Papers which Ellsberg made public were 7,000 pages and he said it took hours of slowly photocopying them. Part of the current saga is Amazon.com shutting down WikiLeaks from their US servers. Ellsberg wrote the letter below to them, chastising them for their cowardice and asking others to boycott them. ******************************* Open lett...

Dr. Carlyle Corbin, an expert on decolonization from the US Virgin Islands is back on island conducting research and meeting with people. He gave a lecture last night at the University of Guam which I was able to attend, and while many of my students who went complained about his talk being too abstract or difficult to follow, what he brings to Guam is still so crucial. I explained to one student that the abstractness of Corbin's speech is precisely the problem, but it has nothing to do with his delivery, the tone of his voice or even what he is talking about. The problem is here on Guam, the problem is our insularity. Insular means having to do with islands, but it also has the implication of something being limited or parochial, cut off from other things, stuck in itself. Such is the natural metaphorical extension of Europeans and islands. Land based people see islands as the ultimate metaphor of something cut off and because of that, they breed various forms of negativity. Ins...

In my endless quest to make sure that I always have too many things to do and not enough time to do them in, I've started working with the office of Senator Frank Blas Jr. on an event to be held on December 8th to commemorate the invasion of Guam in 1941 by the Japanese. Each year there is a Paka-level-strength-typhoon of memorialized and commemorating for the reoccupation of the island by US force, known as Liberation Day, but very little takes place to remember the island was first cast into the fire of war. This event will feature a photo exhibit at the Cathedral Gallery in Hagatna, a mass on December 8th as well as a war storytelling event to take place after the mass. This project is the most recent part of Senator Blas' push to get war reparations for Chamorros. If you want more information on that issue then they have created a website devoted to it called Guam War Survivor Story . I'm pasting information on the project below, the photo exhibit and also some info on...

Don't Ask, Don't Tell: Marines Most Resistant To Openly Gay Troops JULIE WATSON Associated Press 11/27/10 OCEANSIDE, Calif. — They are the few, the proud and perhaps the military's biggest opponents of lifting the ban on openly gay troops. Most of those serving in America's armed forces have no strong objections to repealing the "don't ask, don't tell" law, according to a Pentagon survey of 400,000 active duty and reservists that is scheduled for release Tuesday. But the survey found resistance to repealing the ban strongest among the Marines, according to The Washington Post. It's an attitude apparently shared by their top leader, Commandant Gen. James Amos, who has said that the government should not lift the ban in wartime. The Senate is supposed to consider repeal during its lame duck session in December, with many legislators favoring changing the law to allow gays to serve openly. A few staunchly oppose it, however, and both sides ...

Several years back I posted on Minagahet Zine a page called "Famoksaiyan gi i Rediu" which featured various interviews on the radio given by members and allies of Famoksaiyan regarding issues of militarism, colonialism, decolonization, the UN, cultural revitalization and anything else which someone with a microphone and ten to twenty minutes wanted to chat about. As the years have passed the links for those interviews have gone dead, the files have been moved and even the server for Minagahet Zine itself has changed and is no longer on Geocities but now can be accessed directly at http://www.minagahetzine.com/ Recently, Martha Duenas, who is part of Famoksaiyan West Coast and blogs at Too Late To Stop Now, updated the Famoksaiyan gi i Rediu page, found the new links for interviews and even added some more which have been conducted as the military buildup issue has become even bigger and occassionally garnered the attention of progressive and mainstream national media. I...

On Thursday night I was on a panel for a film screening at UOG. After the film we had a short discussion about the film and took some questions from the audience. The question I received from the audience was about how the people of Guam, Chamorros and non-Chamorros can speak out with one voice with regards to the buildup and thus take control of it. I thought about that questions for the moment, and couldn't really come up with a decent or hopeful answer. That surprised me, but I guess given how things have played out in terms of the US military buildup to Guam since 2005 I shouldn't be. I have been asked that same question in so many forms in these past five years, more frequently in the past year, but my answer has constantly changed, depending on how the island has changed or has not changed. Early on, I was fighting against the inevitability that people were infusing into the buildup despite not knowing anything about it. My answers were long and rambling, always hopeful ...

This weekend I'll be taking people up to the literal "top of the island," Guam's tallest "peak" Sabanan Lamlam, or Mount Lamlam. It is part of We Are Guahan's "Heritage Hikes." We went to is Pagat two weeks ago, Cetti and Sella Bay last week, and now our third and final hike up to Mount Lamlam. Even though will be the third time to travel up there in the past month, but I'm still excited about it. Here is one of the reasons why. My cognitive map of Guam, the network of images, symbols, ideas, sights, smells, and so on which I use to imagine what Guam is on a daily basis is dominated by my classrooms where I teach in, the apartment complex where I live in, and the things I pass by the side of the roads as I travel. I spend most of my time in the central part of the island bouncing between Chalan Pago, Hagatna, Tamuning, Barrigada and Mangilao. As such, Guam is a pleasant concrete jungle, dotted every once in a while with random clusters ...