NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

One of my favorite songs lately is "Guinahan i Tano'" from Taotao Tano'. I first heard the song earlier this year at Dinana' Minagof, when it was performed as the finale for the event. It was truly an inspiring moment, as all the house leaders from the Pa'a network gathered together. My heart pounded fiercely within my chest as they were singing, representing in both their performance and their existence the possibilities for the Chamorro people. The realm of dance is a place where Chamorros have experienced an incredible and inspiring turn around in recent years. Chamorros went from having no dances, to today having dance traditions and dance masters. The influence of Taotao Tano' has even spread to at least one other country. In Japan there is a house of Pa'a Taotao Tano', named appropriately enough, "Guma' i Kinahulo' i Atdao" or "House of the Rising Sun." Taotao Tano' does not only dance and sing though, they a...

If you were to do a poll of Chamorros either today or even 100 years ago, and ask them to choose who in the entirety of Guam's history is the person who they think is the most important, I can guarantee you that most people would choose or would have chosen the same stupid person. Ferdinand Magellan. For most people this choice seems natural. After all Magellan was the first European to visit Guam, and was credited for a long time with "discovering" it. Snot nosed kids around the world have to learn about him whenever the "Age of Discovery" is discussed in school. So in every corner of the globe students learning history may or may not learn about Guam simply because Magellan stumbled upon it. It is easy to forget that Chamorros have been in Guam and the Marianas in one form or another for close to 4,000 years. Magellan only arrived close to 500 years ago. The period of colonization that we still live in today is only around 350 years old. In all this tim...

More on Pagan. Hopefully one of these days I'll be writing on this blog about how I am gonna make a trip up there.  **************************** Beautiful Pagan paradise PUBLISHED ON FRIDAY, AUGUST 02, 2013 00:00 BY JENNY SANTOS - FOR VARIETY WHEN I was growing up I always wondered what it was like 5,000 years before I was born. My parents were raised on an island with vegetables, fruits of different sorts, local produce and wild animals. There were few worries and they had everything including food from the sea and birds, fruit bats not to mention giant coconut crabs. I was 16 when I first went to Alamagan and it was an experience that I never could have imagined. A long and breath-taking boat trip from Saipan, passing three other islands before reaching, the island of Alamagan was worth every hour it took. Along the way I saw dolphins riding the blue waves and surfacing alongside the boat as we sailed up to the Northern Islands...

Chamorros have been waiting for war reparations for decades. So many who were hoping to receive reparations for their treatment during World War II have passed away, not living long enough to see the reparations become a reality. War reparations has become a general part of political discourse on Guam. It is something that politicians bring up as a foil to target the Federal government or Guam’s non-voting delegates. Since the issue of war reparations is so emotional and given the fact that the longer it takes the more people will continue to die, you can define war reparations as one of those things that people feel very real, almost hyper real things in relation to, but in truth don’t really understand or don’t really conceive properly. For example, as I have written before on this blog, advocates for Guam’s independence and decolonization often use war reparations in order to talk about how the United States continues to disrespect us and treat us as les...

On September 9th, the Chamorro Studies program will be hosting a meeting with representatives from the Hualien Tribal College in Eastern Taiwan. While I was in Taiwan in July I got to visit Hualien and spend some time in the Taroko Valley there. One thing I noticed about Hualien as opposed to Taipei was that there was a visible presence to the aboriginal Taiwanese there. Native figures were used in advertisements, there were signs at certain places indicating that this area was a native preserve and it was not open to the public. Aborigines in brightly colored clothes were even available for picture taking for a small fee. I don't know much about the Hualien Tribal College, but my communications with them have gone well and others have told me that they are doing good work in Taiwan. I am excited for the presentation tomorrow. If anyone reading this is available it will take place at UOG, in the HSS Building, Room 304 at 2 pm. My excitement doesn't only extend to the pres...

My son Akli'e' has not quite learned yet how to deal with disappointment. When he says "Malago' yu este" and he doesn't receive it, no matter how small or trivial, he'll often pout and cry. Sumahi and I take alot of joy in scolding him in the weirdest way, by singing a Rolling Stone's lyric to him translated into Chamorro. The song? "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and what we sing to him is "Ti sina un chule' todu i malago'-mu" or sometimes "Ti sina un risibi todu i malago'-mu!" ******************* Everyday when we are driving home, the kids and I pass by the airport. There are plenty of ways to say "airport" in Chamorro if you don't want to just make airport sound Spanish to make it Chamorro. It depends primarily on what aspect of the airport you want to emphasize in how you name it. Chamorro has a circumfix known as "fan...'an." You put the fan at the f...

Sakman Chamorro Project to take journey to the past Thursday, 05 Sep 2013 03:00am BY MAR-VIC CAGURANGAN | VARIETY NEWS STAFF WITH a nine-man all-Chamorro crew, an outrigger canoe built in San Diego will set sail on the first week of January 2016 and take a 40-day and 40-night journey to a native past. Master Carver Mario Borja said the 47-foot-long sakman, christened “Che’lu,” will travel 7,600 nautical miles from San Diego, to Acapulco, to the Marshall Islands, and finally to Guam. “We are looking for a meaningful expedition,” Borja said in an interview after his presentation of the Sakman Chamorro Project before the Rotary Club of Northern Guam, during the group’s meeting yesterday at the Hyatt Regency Guam. While the idea of taking the Hawaii route “sounds very nice,” Borja said, the navigating group is not keen on doing a luau. He said the canoe will be following the Spanish Galleon route and take the first port stop in Acapulco to ret...

Published on Thursday, August 29, 2013 by Times of India Why America Cannot Live without Wars by Chidanand Rajghatta WASHINGTON – On a day marking the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I-Have-A-Dream" civil rights speech, the United States is poised to unleash another nightmare some 10,000km away in the Middle-East. Washington's war machine is geared up for limited strikes against Syria because Damascus ostensibly crossed a red line by using chemical weapons against its own population, never mind that many regimes worldwide inflict atrocities against their own people by other means. Why a President who came to office on the strength of his anti-war credentials - especially on the phony war foisted on Iraq - is running with the war hounds, is something of a mystery. But the rest of the Washington establishment is champing at the bit to unleash missiles on the Syrian regim...

Mangguife yu' put Pagan gi painge. Kao mangguife hao lokkue' put Guiya? Gi este na ma'pos na simana maeyak yu' meggai put Pagan yan i ginefpago-na. Guaha fina'nu'i gi i Marianas History Conference put Guiya. Manakuentusi ham yan noskuantos na "activists" kontra Fina'militat gineni CNMI. Ma sangani yu' mas put Guiya. Ma sangani yu' na i guihan guihi mantaima'a'nao. Ti guailayi na un espiha siha. Siempre siha umespiha hao.  Achokka' estaba managa' guihi taotao. Gi tiempon i manmofo'na, guah managa' guihi. Ti durante i tiempon Chapones giya i CNMI, managa' taotao Hapon yan Okinwa guihi lokkue'. Ti mampayon i ga'ga' guihi nu taotao pa'go. Un taotao manna'i gui' unai as Guahu. Hu pacha i inain Pagan gi kalulot-hu. Malago' yu' bumisita gui' mohon.

The image above is taken from a conference that I attended in Okinawa earlier this year. The conference focused on the issue of Okinawa's sovereignty and the betrayal of the island that took place when it was sold out to the United States in 1952. The conference took place on the anniversary of that day of shame, when the rest of Japan received its sovereignty back, but Okinawa became a military colony of the United States for the next 20 years. For the past two years I have been to Okinawa four times, meeting with and working with demilitarization and decolonization groups there. I recently helped on such group work on the English version of their charter of incorporation. After seeing this group grow so much over the past two years, it was amazing to see what has been discussion become a political reality. In May of 2011 I spoke at a conference at Okinawa International University to a room that was sparsely filled about independence and decolonization. In April of this year...

I'm up late trying to finish my talk for tomorrow at the Marianas History Conference at UOG. The title of my talk is "Jumping the Fence" and it is an evaluation of the impact that Nasion Chamoru and its first Maga'lahi Angel Santos has had on contemporary Guam. I outline a number of changes that they helped to facilitate in terms of culture and politics. Jumping the fence is a metaphor for decolonization and it refers to the infamous incident when Angel Santos, Ed Benavente and several others jumped the fence at former Naval Air Station, or what is today known as "Tiyan." They did this right in front of media and military police, and when they were arrested Santos spat in the face of one of his captors. It was a moment that defined Nasion Chamoru for many people in a negative sense, but can also play a big role in helping us understand just how much they changed the island with their activism. My favorite line thus far in my presentation is as follow...

Shoichi Yokoi, a straggler who hid in Guam's jungles for 27 years after World War II is a household name on Guam. His story is interesting and inspiring and made him a celebrity for many years in Japan and keeps him a celebrity up until today on Guam. While many focus on the unique and strange aspects of his tale of survival, it is actually his life after his straggling years that makes him important to Guam's history. In terms of straggling Yokoi was not unique, there were many stragglers before him in Guam, and although he was the last straggler to be discovered on Guam, others still continued to pop up for years after he was captured. As the article below notes he was resolute in his desire to not be captured, but his loyalty was not even as fierce as some of the others. What makes him important to Guam is the role that he played in helping create the Japanese tourism industry that sustains the island today. His role wasn't intentional and wasn't di...

I recently had to write an article for the website Guampedia on the late Angel Santos, former Guam Senator and Maga’lahi of the Nasion Chamoru. Angel Santos was a very controversial figure during his lifetime. He was considered one of the most hated and most beloved island figures. After he died however, public opinion over his legacy warmed and even those who had publicly condemned him before came to praise some of his statements and accomplishments. While writing my article I went through as many of the public statements and writings of Santos that I could find. He was, like any larger than life figure, incredibly complex and full of contradictions. We may want to reduce the life of a person to things that are simple and inspirational, but they are always more complicated than that. I wanted to share today a list of quotes from his life and writings to give you a better sense of Angel Santos and his own journey in life. As a 10-year-old altar boy in Si...

$18M savings turned down by lieutenant governor and governor:  The elephant in the room Senator Ben Pangelinan Published in Marianas Variety August 22, 2013 WHAT we have seen over the past week during budget discussions is a desperate attempt by the Republican governor and senators to cover up what is truly a travesty of epic proportions, which is the governor’s intent and selection of a non-exclusive health insurance contract for GovGuam employees and retirees that costs all taxpayers $18 million more than an exclusive contract, which the governor just last year said is the best way to go and recommended by health insurance actuarial experts. The Guam Legislature recently passed the FY2014 budget ahead of the deadline of Aug. 31, which has apparently shaken up the governor to the point of his endorsement of an all out propaganda war to try and draw attention away from the health insurance injustice and to discredit a budget plan that increases the ...