NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

A few times each year I testify publicly on Guam about something.  Usually it is at the Guam Legislature over a bill or a resolution or as part of a hearing.  Regardless of what the topic is, I try to do it in Chamoru, especially if I have time to prepare my written comments ahead of time, so they go into the public record.  Chamoru is a national language for Guam, which means that it can be used regularly for public activities and public representations.  Official documents can be in both Chamoru and English. Signage around the island can be bilingual.  The fact that Chamoru is an official and national language of Guam is something that many indigenous groups around the world might be envious of, since it provides for a far amount of existing legitimacy and social/political power.  You don't have to fight for recognition, since the law already accepts it. But sadly we don't do more to build off to this.  It could begin in simple ways, such as public s...

No one ever fully knows a language, and that is always an interesting way of reminding people that a language is, first and foremost, a social organism. It connects people. It exists to connect and express connections.  But as no one ever fully knows a language, it means that even those who use it everyday are always still learning in the language. There is always more to know, as a language is always belong what a single person can know or do. One way that I have continued to learn and grow in the language is by translating songs from English, regularly into Chamoru. At this point, I've translated hundreds of pop songs, rock songs, hip hop songs, country, punk, alternative, emo, ska, at this point just about any genre you can imagine, I've probably translated at least one song from it, into the Chamoru language.  Sometimes I try to keep the original intention and metaphor of the song, other times I completely abandon it. Sometimes even the tune of the song itself, its flow ge...

There is a saying in Chamoru, "mungga masse, anggen ti ya-mu makasse." Don't tease, if you don't like to be teased. It is fairly simple and straightforward, but it is always funny when you find someone who can't handle some of their own medicine, or who has trouble hearing the truth of themselves that their teasing or their negative behavior is meant to hide. That is one of the main reasons that people engage in that type of behavior. Is so that no one will look at me with critical, judging or penetrating eyes, if I keep everyone looking at the faults in someone else.  I have always tried to keep myself very distant from superficial people like that. I don't mind it if people are shallow or superficial in general, but I don't want those types of people close to me by any means. But in my dating life, sometimes people slip through the cracks. Often times there are things that I'll see in someone, or at least think I see in someone, but they may not see ...

Since 2003 I have had a number of uneven traditions associated with this blog. Many of these have dissipated as I have used this blog less and less, but a few I have continued to hold on to. One of the longest held traditions is "Happy US Imperialism Day!" It started as a thinking piece while I was working on my Master's Thesis in Micronesian Studies at the University of Guam. I had spent a few years reading as much as I could about Guam History. I had interviewed hundreds of elders born prior to World War II, who had experienced Japanese occupation. I had even begun working for Puerto Rican filmmaker Frances Negron-Muntaner on a documentary that would later become War for Guam. I was also spending time with activists of every stripe on Guam, trying to talk to anyone who I could find who had long been critical of the things I was just starting to learn about the historical and contemporary realities of the Chamoru people.  I was encountering the history and the present of...

Mad Boy's Love Song (After Mad Girl's Love Song) I close my eyes and the world drops dead The curtain of blackness falls, blanketing a cruel reminder that I think I made you up inside my head You as a thunderbird is all I see roaring, splitting silence Trailing behind you twinkling smiling newborn stars thatform a shower up above In your afterglow, I hear the stars trickle down the blackcurtain of a world dropped dead I feel them fill the lines in my face, finding their way into the strings that tie together my life, dripping along and spiraling deeper and deeper until my every moment becomes bewitched When I lift my lids, all is born again, but now water-colored with you instead  The straining of my grocery bags, is the crinkling of your skirt The scratch on my car hood, follows the curves of your leg   Every bump in the road, is my eyes tracing the tempting lines of your fingertips The red of the shampoo bottle, glistens with the faintness of your lips White sheets of paper,...

10 years ago the cultural arts group Inetnon Gefpågo premiered "Fanhasso, Fanhita, Fanachu" a musical journey through Guam History and Chamorro issues written by Michael Lujan Bevacqua and Victoria Leon Guerrero, with choreography by Vince Reyes. The musical was directed by Clifford Guzman. The cast was made up of island youth in the group Inetnon Gefpågo.  Next Tuesday, December 8th, Inetnon Gefpågo and Independent Guåhan are holding a webinar to reflect back on the 10 years anniversary of this performance, which eventually was transformed into the play Pågat in 2014.  The webinar will be live on the Facebook pages of Independent Guåhan and Inetnon Gefpågo from 10 am - noon on December 8th. To say that I'm excited about this webinar would be an understatement. I am elated to the point where words are starting to fall short of expression.  The musical Fanhasso... was something I worked on with Victoria less than a year after starting teaching at UOG full-time and finish...

  For fun, I used to take anime songs (gi Fino' Chapones) and translate them into Chamoru. Over the years I translated songs from Naruto, Gantz, Cromartie High School, Master Keaton, Evangelion, and Attack on Titan just to name a few. It was an exercise in expressing two things that I am very nerdy about. I hadn't thought about this in a long time though until earlier tonight when Youtube's next song randomness started playing anime theme songs. As I started to feel the chetnot nostalgia hit me, the kids asked what song is this? where is this from? When I described the plot of Evangelion to Sumåhi, her review, "wow sen na'triste enao (wow that is like incredibly depressing)." I told the kids about how I used to translate songs like this into Chamoru. When they asked why, I said, "Ya-hu fino' Chamoru, ya-hu este na kånta. Anggen hu pula' este gi mismo lenguahi-hu, hu na'latatahdong I siniente-ku put este. (I like Chamoru, I like this song. If I...

  Every week I get sometimes a few, sometimes quite a few requests for information, for interviews, for assistance. I am not a very well-organized person and so sometimes these requests fall through the cracks, and I miss them. But for the most part I try to accommodate as many people as I can. I recall that if I can help someone in their research, finish a paper, gain some perspective for their thesis or even provide a key quote or insight for their article, it could help put Guam or Chamoru issues in a more critical light, and it may push someone, tied to the island, to be more engaged about things important to me (and hopefully to them).  It is always nice to look back and see if I did have an impact, albeit even a small one on someone's perspective or even the course of their intellectual journey. A few months ago, I was a guest speaker for a college course focusing on cultural diversity in psychology. I talked about my experiences growing up Chamoru, but also not very ste...

The one the reasons why so many scholars, activists and often times community members feel the need to rethink or rearticulate or reimagine "Liberation Day" is because of a recognition of hope integral it is or has been to our relationship to the US. World War II changed dramatically the relationship between the Chamorus of Guam and the US. It changed it somewhat from the US perspective, but it was dramatically altered from the Chamoru side of the equation. Chamorus who felt a clear distance to their colonizer, even if some were eager to be patriotic, prior to the war, emerged from the war eager to find whatever way possible to express their loyalty, their newfound attachment to America. But as I've written many times before, what Liberation Day does as the basis for Chamoru identity in an American context, is create the Chamoru as a subordinate subject, a minor footnote, that must always be superpatriotic for fear that America will withdraw funds, support, recognition an...