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...

Dirk Ballendorf who taught for many years at UOG, most prominently in the Micronesian Studies program died last week. He was the second local historian, along with Tony Palomo to pass away last week. I knew Dirk Ballendorf while I was a student at UOG and even took one class with him while I was getting my MA in Micronesian Studies. Dirk was a character, in so many different ways. The class I took with him was Economic Development in Guam and Micronesia and for the Guam sections he actually brought in Tony Palomo to speak to us about economic development on the island. He did know about Guam History but it wasn't his focus or his expertise and so he invited Palomo to come and help him. It was an interesting class. Both Ballendorf loved to make silly jokes and include anecdotes when they talked and so it was like two old warriors trading anecdotes of people long dead and places long gone. The seminar was like a big card game where everyone else played with cards, while these two...

Last weekend there was no Chamorro Village night market on Wednesday, the reason being because a terrible accident had taken place there. A man driving on Marine Drive left the road and jumped the curb driving directly into tents and vendors where the Sagan Dinana' used to be on the Chief Kepuha side of the Chamorro Village. The car didn't hit anyone, but smashed into equipment and tables, sending them flying which struck several people who were barbecuing. The car eventually was stopped when it ran into a concrete structure, the bathroom, breaking a waterfountain. The medical examiner stated that the driver died from the injuries from the crash, and could find no evidence of any prior trauma or damage, such as a heart attack which could have caused him to careen off the road the way he did. When I arrived at the Chamorro Village in order to open my grandfather's blacksmith shop, the police had put up yellow tape and had brought in a tow truck to take the car away. Doze...

Two more things to share on the topic of Liberation Day, the war and the experiences of Chamorros historically and up until today. The first is originally a piece I submitted as a letter to the editor of The Pacific Daily News several years ago, which wasn't as far as I know ever published, so I rewrote it along with some others and published it in Minagahet . The second is another letter to the editor of The Pacific Daily News which was of course not picked up as well, that I wrote with my mother. In one of our discussions my mom had made a very simple point, which always gets lost in Liberation Day celebrations, and that is kao este ha' na sina ta silebra? Is this all that we can celebrate!? What kind of existence do we have when so much of our time, effort, energy and love is pumped into celebrating someone else? What kind of life is it when we place so much emphasis on building emotional and physical monuments to someone else and meanwhile treat ourselves as pathetic, help...