My Governor's Art Award

 


My grandfather, the late Joaquin Flores Lujan or Tun Jack, dedicated half of his life to displaying, demonstrating and teaching about Chamoru blacksmithing. He taught more than a dozen apprentices and presented a hundreds of fairs and schools. He was recognized as a Master of Chamoru Culture for his dedication to the trade that he was taught by his father from the age of 9, and received many awards for his work in promoting it.
 
For years I would take grandpa to the Chamorro Village where he had a shop to display and sell his tools. He had on the walls photos, certificates, newspaper articles about himself. He also had tools from his father and examples of the tools a blacksmith uses and the stages different tools go through in their creation. He also had his many awards. On shelves and tables he had the several Governor's Art Awards, which later became the Maga'låhi Art Awards that he had received during the tenures of Governors Ada and Gutierrez. 
 
For about 20 years, the Governor's Art Awards have been on hiatus. They were initially postponed due to a typhoon and then just never brought back. That is, until this month, when the Guam Council on the Arts and Humanities Agency or CAHA relaunched the Maga'håga Art Awards. 
 
I was honored to receive an award, for Literary Arts. I'm not sure gi minagåhet, if I received this award because of my work for The Guam Bus, the Guam Museum, Independent Guåhan or just for offering free Chamoru language classes on Zoom. 
 
Bu nonetheless, it is always an honor to be recognized by the community for the work that I do. But what truly makes me happiest about this is the feeling of following in the footsteps of my grandfather. Although I doubt I will ever get as many Governor's Art Awards as he had. I am happy to share in a similar commitment to community, culture and the arts.
 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chamoru Love Sayings

Image
A student from my Zoom Chamoru classes recently asked me for some suggestions for some Chamoru sayings or words of wisdom that she could use for a speech she had to give for a friend's wedding.  I get this type of request pretty frequently and so over the years I have a number of lists of ways to say "I Love You" in Chamoru. For years that was one of the my most visited pages on this blog, a simple page that had more than a dozen different ways to say "Hu Guaiya Hao" ranging from the poetic and deep, to the silly and sexy.  When I looked at many of those lists, I realized that the majority of the ways love was expressed, was indeed written in Chamoru, but not necessarily rooted in Chamoru. What I mean by this, is that alot of the sayings were simply translated from English or variants of ways that love would be expressed in English.  For me, I am definitely in support of these sorts of things, I love having our language adapt and take on new forms, especially wh...
Read more

Biba Eskuelan Hurao!

Image
This month, Lulai, my third oldest started her first year attending the Maga'låhen Hurao Charter School.  She had begun attending the Hurao Tiempon Somnak over the summer, but now this month has begun attending the Hurao school in earnest and Desiree and I are excited to say the least.  It has just been a few weeks, and so far guaha na biahi ya-ña, guaha na biahi ti ya-ña.  Every day she both enjoys attending school but is also struggling with separation anxiety saying "Ma'å'ñao yu' yan mahålang yu' para si nanå-hu yan si La'yak" (I'm afraid and I miss my mom and La'yak). Lulai's older siblings, Sumåhi and Akli'e' attended Hurao on and off in different forms over the years, sometimes the summer programs, sometimes the after school programs, and later even helping as aides.        All of this was across more then 10 years, yet Hurao wasn't to the point yet where it was an immersion or charter school in earnest.    After taking pi...
Read more

Announcing the 2012 Guam Political Sign Awards

Image
A familiar creature has returned to the roadsides of Guam. For some, as they see the beasts lurking beside the road they may feel as if it is too soon. It was not too long ago that these beasts came to blight the land, and it cannot already be time for their return! But for others these creatures are things of beauty; who stand like quiet sentinels and brighten the days of those who pass by. These creatures come in many forms, their plumes multicolored, and their shrieks filled with familiar refrains and friendly sound bytes. The creatures I am of course referring to as the political signs for this year’s election season. In times past, for most of the island, the next few months would be the highlight of everyone’s year. Families and friends would band together for months under the banner of Popular or Territorial, Democrat or Republican and waste the weeks away at pocket meetings and fundraisers. Naturally there was always a lot of bitterness and animosity during this ...
Read more