NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

  Last month, Tun Adriano Baza Pangelinan, a pioneering Chamoru artist and former professor at UOG passed away. I met Tun Adriano many times over the years, primarily when I was an art major at UOG. Tun Adriano was always an intimidating figure. My art professors such as the late Joe Babauta and Ric Castro, were both confident and outspoken, but became very circumspect and respectful when Tun Adriano was around. He wasn't the first Chamoru to paint or draw in a modern sense, but he was one of the first Chamoru artists to blend artistic styles from famous European movements like Fauvism and Impressionism with local culture and life. That blending and refusal to accept binary choices was pioneering. It wasn't too long ago that Chamorus felt that in order to achieve anything in life they need to give up their culture, their heritage, their island. This was part of how the United States entered into Guam, filling the island with demoralizing ideas in that wha...

My testimony give last week to the United Nations Committee of 24 Regional Seminar on Decolonization held in St. Lucia. ***************** A Growing Foundation, but still an Uncertain Future for Guam’s Quest for Decolonization Michael Lujan Bevacqua, Ph.D. Co-Chair, Independent Guåhan Curator, Guam Museum   Si Yu’os Ma’åse na makombibida yu’ mågi ta’lo para bai hu saonao gi este matua na dinanña’. Gi tinestigu-hu på’go, bai hu sangåni hamyo put i halacha na hiniyong gi islå-ku yan i kinalamten-måmi para in gi’ot i direchon-måmi komo taotao.    Your Excellency Chairwoman Keisha McGuire, distinguished delegates, representatives and experts from fellow Non-Self-Governing Territories, I am honored to be here again speaking before you on the topic of Guam and its continuing quest for decolonization. I also want to thank the government and people of Saint Lucia for hosting us on their beautiful island.    In my statements today, I want to provide updates on important w...

  From 2014-2015 I spent a year in Atåte in the village of Malesso’. Not in a physical sense mind you, but in an intellectual and scholarly sense. During that time I was a professor in the Chamorro Studies Program at the University of Guam, and I worked with the late Jose Måta Torres to publish his memoirs “Massacre at Atåte” through the University of Guam. I was so thankful that we were able to see his book to completion in 2015, as he would pass away later that year.   In addition to being the memoirs of a young man, coming of age in Japanese-occupied Guam, the book also provides a first-hand account of the uprising of the people from Malesso'. After the people of the village learned that the Japanese had attempted to massacre 60 of their friends and family at Tinta and Faha, most felt that it is only a matter of time before the rest were slaughtered. On the eve of the US invasion, a group of men led by Jose "Tonko" Reyes, surprised the Japanese, killing most of them an...