NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

What does Liberation Day on Guam make you think of? Does it remind you of parades? Beauty queens? Canopies? Columns of military marching? Does it remind you of rain? Fireworks? Playing games at the carnival? Spending time with family? I think of all of these things and one thing that most might not: I think of people chastising me for not really knowing what Liberation Day is really about. Today many people know me for writing a regular newspaper column. For the past 10 years I’ve had a column in the Pacific Daily News, and for around six years before that I wrote a column in the Marianas Variety (now known as the Guam Daily Post). But while I was a graduate student, I would sometimes write letters to the editor of the Pacific Daily News and occasionally they would get published. One of the first of these letters was published in 2003 and at that time there was a discussion around the official naming of Marine Drive to Marine Corps Drive. While Guam’s central road was well-known as Mar...

I get asked questions about Guam History all the time.  Almost every day I give an interview to someone who is doing a paper about Guam or Chamoru history, whether it be for middle school, high school or college.  Or it may be someone doing research for a documentary, a TV show, a newspaper or a book.  It could be just someone wanting to know more about their roots.  Or just someone visiting with questions that are bothering them about the contemporary or historical landscape of their temporary home or tourist visit.  Normally I know the answers, or I know where the answers are. Or I know that we don't know the answers. But there are some questions which I'm not quite sure how to answer. It may be because of how they are phrased, often times because whoever is asking the question may be assuming something that isn't in history or in reality, or isn't connected to what is in the facts or the historical data, and so sometimes I can be at a loss as to how to make a...

  For the past 10 weeks, I've been writing columns for the Pacific Daily News providing historical context for the 1946 protest of US Navy Radioman George Tweed by more than a 100 Chamorus. Today marked my last column on the series. Although I did get a great deal more hate messages and a hateful comments during this series, I still greatly enjoyed writing these pieces. George Tweed was such an incredibly important symbol for Chamorus during the Japanese occupation. For me as a historian it is fascinating to think about how, just two years after the end of that occupation, more than a 100 Chamorus felt compelled to make signs and protest him when he returned to island. They didn't do this in the dead of night, but in the middle of the Plaza de España in front of the leadership of the US Navy on Guam. As I wrote in this last column, it was a multitude of things that compelled Chamorus to take this act, but many of them weren't about Tweed himself. Chamorus were frustrated th...

For my Pacific Daily News columns over the past month, I was focusing on providing some reflections for the recent passage of Juneteenth as a national holiday in the United States. This was partially in response to some young activists and educators on Guam, hosting a special Fanachu! episode discussing the issue from a Guam perspective. There was so much more that I could have addressed in more columns and I may return to the issue of African American history in Guam or Chamorus navigating US racial hierarchies at a later date in my column. But until then, here are the columns: ************************ Juneteenth celebration connects history of CHamorus, African Americans Pacific Daily News By Michael Lujan Bevacqua  Jun 25, 2021   Last week the United States recognized Juneteenth as a federal holiday. This is an important day whereby the U.S. can reflect not only the history of slavery, but the legacy of that inhuman institution and how it continues to impact African Am...

In February,  Adolf Sgambelluri or "Sgamby" as many knew him, passed away. He leaves behind a long legacy of accomplishments. To name a few, he was a war survivor, a decorated Vietnam Vet, a GCC Vice President and a Guam Police Chief.     When I was a graduate student in Micronesian Studies at UOG, close to 20 years ago, and I was asking my grandparents who would be great to interview for oral history, about prewar life, war experiences, anything, we made long lists of people we could visit. Sgamby was on that list.    When we visited him however, he wasn’t the focus, but rather his father. Adolfo Camacho Sgambelluri had played a sort of double agent role, while working for the Japanese as a police officer, trying to minimize where he could their violent impact on the lives of Chamorus. I also learned from that visit that we were related with his mother being a close relative to my great-grandfather. Sgamby was eager to tell his father’s story since some up til ...