NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

I received this comment my blog several months ago on my post " State of the Chamorro Language ." The author of the comment " One Hot Chamaole " apparently didn't like my post or my blog and left a rather annoying and useless comment, which she soon removed. I had the chance to read it before she removed however and thought that I would post it here in order to discuss some of the more "undiscussed" issues that the Chamorro language is up against. Her comment as you'll read below was not friendly and not very intelligent either. But, this is something you often find with people who claim to be preserving the Chamorro language, a very clear lack of knowledge about what the language is, how it is being killed, and how it can survive. The usual list of things which are endangering Chamorro language are tv, internet, movies, music, kids who don't want to learn, laziness. All of these things have their roles, however it is incredibly pointless and a...

This editorial offers some very obvious but crucial points that Guam in particular, but all of Micronesia needs to address. If the region is going to be "built up" or "developed" what course should this change or process take? How much should it be managed, checked or planned for, or how much should it simply be let go and unattended to? The keyword that we find in this article is "discipline," which should always be accompanied by "planning." Just because someone wants to dump 100 million dollars into the island, to build some new gigantic hotel or several hundred half million dollar condos, does that mean that we should just allow it, just go along with it? The mentality in Guam for so long has been, whatever is brought from outside, especially from richer larger countries, is better and fantastic, and we need as much of it as possible. Little thought is put into how much damage is done, in economic, social and environmental terms. Simply beca...

A few months ago, I had the pleasure of taking my then four month old daughter Sumåhi around the island, and photographed her at different historic sites. I took photos of her atop a canon at Fort Soledad, in front of the Protestant Church her great great grandfather helped build in Inarajan, and helped find the names of her relatives on the memorial wall at the Asan overlook. Each site was accompanied by a boring but informative lecture on the importance of this location, and what lessons Chamorros today can gather from each site. Often times the lessons would be difficult, especially around issues of Spanish violence, Japanese imperial brutality and American colonial racism. People told me that it was silly to be dragging her around the island and teaching her the island’s history when she’s too young to remember any of it. But the value of this first trip as I see it, isn’t in what is happening now, but rather the way this “silly” trip would hopefully help start a dialogue between ...

Its been a while since I changed my profile image for blogger, and so now that I'm done with the fall school quarter, un nuebu na tata, with a new calendar year looming on the horizon, I thought, what better time than now? This is my old image, of the legendary West Indies cricketer Viv Richards. My rationale for choosing this image can be found on my post from May of 2007, " Cricket and Liberation ." Seeing this reminds me, that I should post more about cricket, since I've become a huge fan of it over the past few months. In fact as I'm typing this right now, I'm watching the commentary for the India vs. Pakistan and Sri Lanka vs. England Test matches. The last thing I wrote about it was " The Tip of the Spear " which discussed the implausible relationship between Zimbabwe beating Australia and my dissertation on how a tiny place such as Guam produces American sovereignty. My new image, should not come as a surprise to anyone who has seen my booksh...

I'm heading back to Guam tomorrow morning. This beautiful tumatanges na birenghenas is what's waiting for me. Ti sina hu nangga esta ki in ali'e ta'lo! For more info head over to - The Life and Days of the Angry Pineapple

The mainstream media in San Diego, in California as well as at the national level, "celebrated" the fires that hit California several weeks ago, as a sort of "anti-Katrina." The comparision is stupid and self-serving, but ultimately boils down to simply, where so many things went wrong in New Orleans, so many things went right in San Diego. The rosy image of the fires down here, can in large part be attributed to the complicity of the news media in portraying only the good parts of the story of the fighting of the fires, and not delve into the racism that many communities experienced in terms of not receiving warnings, not receiving supplies, or even being cracked down upon while fleeing the fires. For those interested in learning this other story of the San Diego fires, which was less than stellar for Native Americans, working class and migrant worker communities and large number of Latinos, please check out the links below. By the way, I'm pasting below my la...

I have a radio interview lined up for tomorrow, with i kayu-hu Migetu Tuncap from UC Berkeley. We're going to discuss what Migetu has been doing at UC Berkeley in terms of getting Pacific Islanders recognized, funded and with their own faculty and programs, and also my recent trip to the United Nations and what's happening right now in Guam and the military buildup. I'm pasting the information below for the interview, and also a list of radio interviews done by members of Famoksaiyan over the past year on similar topics. Check them out, the interviews are very good and very informative. There are alot of voices involved and touching on so many important issues for Chamorros, whether it be environmental damage, military build up, economic dispossession, cultural and language revitalization and even music. ********************************* Apex Express: Asian Pacific Islander radio Thursdays 7PM-8PM, KPFA 94.1 FM, KFCF Fresno, www.kpfa.org Thurs. Nov. 29th: US Troop Increase...

Published on Tuesday, November 27, 2007 by the Sun-Times (Chicago) Most Democratic Candidates are Ignoring African Americans by Jesse Jackson Can Democrats get the votes they need simply because they’re not Republicans? You might think so in this presidential campaign. African-American and urban votes are critical to any Democratic victory. Bill Clinton won two terms without winning the most white votes. His margin was the overwhelming support of black voters. George Bush learned that lesson; that’s why his campaigns spent so much effort suppressing the black vote in key states like Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004. His victory margin was the tally of votes suppressed or uncounted. Yet the Democratic candidates — with the exception of John Edwards, who opened his campaign in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward and has made addressing poverty central to his campaign — have virtually ignored the plight of African Americans in this country. The catastrophic crisis that engulfs the African-American co...

I am writing right now two lectures on the Pacific and Pacific Islanders which I'll be giving this week in the Ethnic Studies 1A class at UCSD. I've got the basic idea of what I want to say and what I'll use to say and prove it, but still the actually writing and plotting of it is a bit difficult. I at first wanted to show what Pacific Islanders and their islands mean in relation to the United States, so for other Americans, what do they enable, perform or make possible culturally, politically and militarily. The different segments of a nation and an empire are bound together in various ways, but one important and obvious one being practical or utilitarian. From the vantage of being a "real" citizen, or a "real" American, what it is for example, that different racial or ethnic groups provide to the health and prosperity of the nation. What it is that they bring here that is important? The reason for this is of course to both explain why someone should b...

Hu tuge' este hagas ha' (lao ti gof hagas). Hu fakcha'i este anai umaliligao yu' gi My Documents gi iyo-ku computer. Hu taitai este, ya ha na'malalago yu' para bei fangge' betsu siha ta'lo... *************************** Måttochihu Abak yu’ gi I pakyo-mu Chaochaochao lao suette yu’ Chubasko ya taifitme, Pat osino bei tekuni (hao) Magof mafoyung-hu, mahalla ya sesso naofrågu (nene) Måtmos yu’ ya mangge hao? Pinacha’ yu’ lao nao’ao hao (nene) Hågu, I chi-hu Hågu, I chi-hu Taifinakpo’ I tasi, enkubukao-hu taiguini, (ombre) Sesso un na’kilili, guaha na biahi nai un goggue (yu’) Na’dafflok yu’ mangguaiya, na’klåru humitå-ta, (sångan) Kao guahu I amot-mu? Pat Guahu I chetnot-mu? (Fehman) Hågu, chi-hu Hågu, chi-hu

CALL FOR PAPERS "POSTCOLONIAL" FUTURES IN A NOT-YET POSTCOLONIAL WORLD: Locating the Intersections of Ethnic, Indigenous, and Postcolonial Studies March 5-7, 2008 Ethnic Studies Department University of California, San Diego In September 2007, after twenty years of debate, the United Nations finally passed the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – a huge symbolic victory for indigenous peoples around the world who struggle under predatory and exploitative relationships with(in) existing nation-states. At the same moment, the UN was lumbering along in the 18th year of its impossible attempts to eradicate colonialism, with groups from around the world flocking to it to petition for the decolonization of their territories or to demand that their situations at least be recognized as "colonial." Across all continents, indigenous and stateless peoples are struggling for and demanding various forms of sovereignty, as the recently decolonized world is sobering u...

(The website Antiwar.com is fundraising right now to make it through the next quarter of the year. Articles such as the one below, which are one the reasons that the website is so necessary. It provides a very important archive for the different, disparate voices which are speaking out against war in different ways. It does obviously feature alot of authors which I don't generally trust or care for, and I sometimes include this Justin Raimondo (the author below), but it is nonetheless a very helpful resource. Please click here to help support their site and make a donation.) *************************** Wars to Watch Out For 2008 will bring us an abundant crop of overseas crises by Justin Raimondo From Antiwar.com As we approach the new year, a fresh crop of overseas crises threatens to spring up, like mushrooms after a rain, and the prospects for peace on earth, this holiday season, are dimmer than ever. Iraq: First up on the agenda is, of course, the war in Iraq, which, we are ...

The next few days will be busy, as you can see from my last couple of posts. I've got an action packed couple of next days ahead of me. Here's my list of to do things (off the top of my head): 1. Attend a educational policy meeting at UCLA tomorrow morning for Pacific Islanders. 2. Supervise a college networking workshop Saturday morning at the 6th Annual National Pacific Islander Education Network Conference ( NPIEN ) at Paramount High School. 3. Have my brother Jack record another " Guam Talk " with my friend Josette Saturday afternoon. 4. Meet with other grad students in the department on Sunday to help finalize plans for an Indigenous and Postcolonial Studies Conference we're organizing next year at UCSD. 5. Finish by the 20th, my first column that I've been asked to write for the Guam magazine GU . The column will tenatively be titled "In Search of a Slingstone." 6. Write two lectures on Pacific Islanders and their contempora...

A few years ago, me and i atungo'-hu Josette Lujan Quinata recorded a "Guam Talk." For those of you who don't know who Josette is, she is a Chamorro raised most of her life in the states, who for the past few years has been looking for different ways to connect to Guam. She wrote her senior thesis as an undergrad on Guam, and later worked in the Department of Interior as an intern. Lola Sablan Santos from the Guam Communications Network first introduced us over the phone, since according to Lola, Josette had plenty of questions about what's going on in Guam and what's happening to Chamorro language and culture, and I could probably help her answer them. We emailed back and forth, at one point Josette giving me a list of I think 12 questions and me responding with 12 pages of answers. Sen magof yu' kada na mamakcha'i yu' mangge na Chamoru taiguini, pi'ot gi lagu. Hassan gi entre i manhoben pa'go este na guinaiya yan minalago para u ayuda i...