NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

This month Filamore Palomo Alcon, artist, art teacher and owner of the Guam Gallery of Art at the Chamoru Village and an uncle of my through the Lujan extended clan network, passed away. He had been struggling with health issues for some time and his gallery was closed by some of his friends earlier this year after being open for almost three decades. For this reason, he had become less active in recent years as an artist and promoter of local arts, but it is painful is still painful to imagine that someone who was such a fixture in the Guam art scene and so influential in the movement develop Chamoru artistic consciousness has left us. When my grandfather, Tun Jack Lujan had a blacksmith shop at the Chamoru Village, the Fil’s gallery was a regular stop for me or for grandpa to check in with Fil on art, on Chamoru Village business, on cultural politics on island. Sometimes I would go visit him while grandpa would watch the shop and sometimes, I would go visit him while grandpa stayed...

  Lulai continues to speak more and more Chamoru about more and more things.    In her third year, I've been  encouraging her more and more to start responding in Chamoru by playing games, providing commentary in Chamoru to movies or videos she was watching on YouTube, telling stories in Chamoru, reading books.    At first most of her Chamoru was blooming in the areas where I was prompting it.    I would say "nihi ta hugåndo este" and she would start speaking Chamoru in response to the idea that Chamoru has to be used for the game we are about to play.    But in the last week, and in particular since her younger sister has arrived, she has started to use Chamoru more and more organically and unprompted, telling stories in Chamoru that she starts herself and even creating her own games in Chamoru that she now invites me to play.   To give you a good example of the language growth in her, take this character, Lotso from the film Toy S...