NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

English is my mother tongue, in the sense that it is the language that I grew up with and speak most comfortably. It is my first language. It is however not my favorite language, not the best language and certainly not i mas takhilo' para Guahu. I am a non-native speaker of the Chamoru language as I learned to speak it when I was 20 years old. It is natural for me in some ways, but still unnatural in others, primarily when talking about things that are difficult in general to express in a Chamoru lexicon. This is not only something that I struggle with, but as the Chamoru language has become more and more limited in how and where it is used, many people find themselves constantly switching to English since a potential part of their conversation is something few people have actually used the Chamoru language to convey. What makes speaking, thinking and writing easier is if the topic fits easily within some existing framework or lexicon for carrying meaning. If that framework...

  When I first listened to this song more than 20 years ago, gi hinasso-ku gof na'chalek, lao ti hu komprende i tinahdong-ña gi kostumbren Chamoru. I was not aware when I first listened and translated to it, how much deeper the meaning is beyond the silly things described in the lyrics.   This song "Aye na Påtgon" from Johnny Sablan's album "My Marianas" describes a father taking his son to the ranch to try to teach him some basic life skills.  But for everything that he tells his son to do, his son does something different and sometimes nonsensically, as well as all around gago'.   For instance he tells his son to boil the papaya and the coconut and instead his son goes to pick berries.   He tells his son to go collect firewood but he doesn't actually come back until all the cooking is done.  The lyrics are silly and more about sounding fun or funny than actually depicting something real. But when I was younger I never connected this song to...

In the 20th century, the fate of the Chamoru language depended heavily on the development of a contemporary Chamoru music industry. This is something that is scarcely discussed both in historical terms, but sadly even less so in terms of what it may take to revitalize or sustain the language in the future.   As the Chamoru language was rapidly losing relevance in society following World War II, with the language being used less and less, especially among younger generations, the creation of Chamoru music was essential in creating new and contemporary possibility for the language. It wouldn't be chained to the past, something to just disappear and fade away. It was something tied to the current moment, something that could gain new sounds and new life.   But with the decline of Chamoru music in the past two decades, as fewer and fewer artists are releasing songs or albums in the Chamoru language, means that this source of vitality has disappeared as well. Compared to ...

I have for several years now been collecting plåkan Chamoru or Chamoru vinyl albums.  Each week I scour the internet searching for records I haven't seen or heard yet.  Every few months I'm able to find a new one to fill in the gaps in my collection.  I have over the past few years been able to find four copies of this album "Dalai Nene" released by Johnny Sablan in 1968. This was the first ever Chamoru language music album and was released when Johnny Sablan was just 20 years old.  I have collected four in all, one for each of my kids (three are already here, one more is a few months out from when I am typing this).  Each will inherit one of them when I pass away.  This album is historic in so many ways, but one thing for me makes it even more unique and special, namely its use of Chamoru for its text.  There are hundreds of Chamoru albums that have been released on vinyl, cassette and CDs. And while all used Chamoru as the primary language for their ...

  As is the tradition for the Guam Bevacqua family, we put together our family bilen this month.    Each member of the family gets their own figure in the bilen representing them.    This year’s bilen is different however, since part of my gifts for everyone was to get Desiree, Sumåhi, Akli’e’ and Chuguangguang (Lulai) each a nesting doll.    Each was made in Ukraine and was purchased to support Ukrainian small businesses and artists.    Sumåhi is the Pokémon, Akli’e’ is the Star Wars, Desiree is the Dracula and Chuguangguang is the Neni na Yoda.    I forgot to buy one for myself though, so I chose the cassette tape for the Chamoru album by the DPW Singing Bus Drivers to represent me.    The background for our family bilen is the two disc vinyl album from Johnny Sablan “A Chamorro Christmas.”    Si Yu’os Ma’åse to Lulai’s nina Isa for the wooden name tags that came with our gifts this year.    The bilen...

Ever since I first began learning Chamoru my interest in Chamoru music has continually grown.  I grew up sometimes hearing Chamoru music, but couldn't understand it and didn't really connect with it.  But from the first time that I sat down with my grandmother at the dining room table and had her help me translate the CD "Chamorro Yu'" from Johnny Sablan, kinenne' yu'. I have been hooked.  To this end I have been collecting Chamoru music, whether in CD, cassette or vinyl form.  I've collected whatever I can from newspapers, magazines and scholarly sources related to Chamoru music.   I have also been fortunate enough to sit down with many musicians and talk to them about their experiences and why in a world where English dominates, they chose to record and release music in Chamoru. Last month I was very very luck, gof suettettette, to be able to pick up the album "Ai Saun Diroga" by Chamolinian II while searching for Chamoru music online.   Fr...

Back in September, I spent an afternoon with Håle’ Para Agupa’, a Chamoru cultural group based in the Washington D.C. area. It was an enriching and energizing afternoon. The fafa’na’gue of the group Teresita Guevara Smith organized a gathering of young and old, and I gave a presentation about Chamoru language and culture, and even a short language lesson.  Wherever I go, in Guam, the CNMi or even the diaspora, I am always encouraged to see Chamorus wanting to learn more about who they are as a people and want to do more to keep culture and language alive. After all, for a group that numbers perhaps only 200,000 in the world, we always have to ask ourselves, “anggen ti hita, pues håyi?” When it comes to preservation and revitalization of our heritage, if we won’t do it, who else will? This is an issue that Chamorus have to confront sooner rather than later, especially in light of the fact that more Chamorus now live outside of the Marianas. The realities of cultural maint...

My Pacific Daily News columns from the past two weeks focused on Chamorro music and how to determine what makes a great Chamorro song. It didn't pick any favorite Chamorro song, but it was fun thinking about the issues and how one might go about it. Here are the two columns. ******************* The decades since World War II have brought a great number of changes to Chamorro culture and Chamorro life. Practices and trades once considered essential to life have disappeared or been adapted to societal and technological changes. The decline of the Chamorro language is one of the clearest ways you can perceive these changes. But there is one way in which the Chamorro language, even as it was banned in schools and not taught to children in many homes, remained alive and well, and that was in Chamorro music. During a time of rapid Americanization, where Chamorros were actively giving up and tossing away things that had once defined them proudly as Chamorro...

If you were to ask me what type of music is my favorite, I will always say Chamorro music. It isn't really that I like every single Chamorro song, but I will purchase every single Chamorro CD or record I can get my hands on, in order to support one of the main ways that the Chamorro language persisted even during the generations which were quietly trying to silence it by not teaching it to their children. Chamorro musicians deserve far more support and credit than most people give them. They are, within recent Chamorro history, the ones who played the most significant, but unheralded role in keeping the language spoken and alive. While most families did not speak it to their children, collections of singers decided to keep using the language to make music, despite immense pressure to simply sing in English and Americanize the way everything else seemed to be going. Within that collection of musicians a few names stand out more than others. There are those who had their names on t...

This year for the Inachaigen Fino' CHamoru or Chamorro Language Competition we tried out a new category, Kantan Chamorrita. This style is something unfamiliar to most on Guam today, but was an integral, constant and always oppan part of Chamorro life before the war and even for a few years afterwards. Kantan Chamorrita or Chamorrita refers to a style of social improvisational singing. A verse is started with a familiar tune, and another takes up the song by adding on a verse of their own. Each verse is supposed to be four lines. The tune is simple and doesn't move to fast, but each singer is expected to rhyme the last part of the 2nd and 4th line. In the days before radio was commonplace and stereos, walkmans or iPods existed, this was how people filled the gaps in the air and in time. Singing familiar songs, but making up your own songs with others was something you did while fishing, weaving, farming, partying and so on. But as audio distractions and diversions became eas...

I've had a Youtube account for many years now, I think 8 or 9, lao ti siguru yu'. I didn't post many videos for a while, and I'm not sure why, perhaps because I got a better camera a few years ago and with the not that great internet in the various apartments I've lived in, it takes several hours to post videos nowadays. I recently started publishing videos again, after starting a number of video projects and being inspired to engage in this media form. My Youtube videos are frequently shaking and suffer from very bad audio and never edited in anyway. But still they can provide an interesting view into certain events on island and elsewhere. Every once in a while I get a message from someone who couldn't be at an event or who was looking for information on something that has happened in Guam and they thank me for my shaky almost avant garde looking movie. Here are some recent videos that I've posted. A video from the 2011 Inachaigen Fino' CHamor...

Bota Fino’ Chamoru! Michael Lujan Bevacqua The Marianas Variety 10/29/14 During the summer, the Hurao Language Camp at the Chamorro Village in Hagatna held several waves along Marine Drive. This is un såkkan botasion, an election year and so waves are about as common as Japanese tourists, with candidates sometimes standing in the early morning and the twilight hours, hoping to make eye contact with you as you speed by. Hurao’s wave was somewhat different. It wasn’t for any particular candidate, instead it was for “Fino’ Chamoru” or the Chamorro language. Children held up signs with “Håyi hao?” and “Hu tungo’ håyi yu’” on them, and shouted out “Bota Fino’ Chamoru!” to those driving by. Johnny’s Sablan’s immortal classic “Mungga Yu’ Mafino’ Inglesi” or “Don’t Speak English to Me” blared in the background. It is that time of the year, when young 18, 19 and 20 year old in my classes, who will be voting for the first time start to wonder about this new ri...

The exhibit I worked on for the Guam Humanities Council titled Sindalu: Chamorro Journey Stories in the US Military is currently on display at the Isla Center for the Arts at UOG. As part of the exhibit I've given several scholarly tours to students, teachers and veterans. Although the exhibit itself features so many stories, the interaction with these groups often yields even more stories. Sometimes people will find themselves or their ancestors in the photos. They will offer up another perspective or another facet of someone's anecdote. Sometimes they challenge things and sometimes they express their gratefulness that an exhibit like this has been put together. I teach many aspects of the exhibit in my own classes, but I have appreciated the way the research and writing for the exhibit and then the way I have developed my talk for the tours has led me to really think about the progression of Chamorros and their relationship to the United States, through their military servi...