NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

In recent years my research and scholarly work has become heavily focused on Chamoru music.  Part of this stems from the fact that my own journey in starting to learn the Chamoru language, more than 20 years ago, was heavily aided by Chamoru music, listening to songs and trying to translate songs with my grandmother.  Party of it also stems from the fact that when you go through Guam's history, even from the perspective of outsiders, music was an essential part of life, and one of the most important ways that Chamorus expressed themselves. This is something that the Spanish smartly focused on in their colonization of the Chamoru people in the 17th century. Using Chamoru and focusing on teaching the new religion through songs. Here is an account from Le Gobien in 1700, At first the natives shyly held back upon the arrival of the ships and did not want to come aboard. San Vitores, however, encouraged them to sing the litany of the Virgin and soon they approached...

Since Maga'låhi Kepuha from Hagåtña is the most famous of all Chamorus from ancient times, I get asked about him more than any other figure from that time.  Here are the questions and some answers I gave to a Guam History student recently, who wanted to know more about his legacy as a leader.  ***********************  What made Chief Kepuha a great leader?   Given the time that he lived, you could argue that Kepuha was a great leader because he could better see into the future in terms of how the Spanish would become the new dominant power on Guam, and so being as close and as helpful to them as possible would ensure that his family would benefit the most despite some massive changes. Nearly all Chamorus wanted to trade with the Spanish, but this did not mean that they wanted them to stay in their houses. Or that they wanted them to stay on the island permanently. Kepuha’s claim to fame was that he, was more open to letting them stay personally, even taking responsib...

When San Vitores first came to the Marianas the Chamoru people were largely accepting of the new religion for a few reasons. The Spanish offered gifts to those who converted to the new religion, including sometimes precious  lulok or metal. They were the newest hottest thing on the island. Exciting simply because it was different, like when Applebee's or McDonald's first came to Guam. Some converted seeing the chance for greater power by being closer to those that they perceived might shake up island hierarchies. Some may have followed the new religion, because it truly spoke to them.  But one of the things that helped San Vitores win over the people in many ways was his ability to speak to them in Chamoru. Chamorus had interacted with Europeans for more than a century at that point via hand gestures and sailors from the Philippines and Southeast Asia who were able to communicate using Austronesian terms with the Chamorus they encountered. Spaniards, Filipinos and African slav...

Un diha siempre bai hu fannge' lepblo put i historian i taotao-ta. Esta meggai na kadada na tinige'-hu put este, lao i guinife-hu mohon na un diha bai hu puno' i toru yan na'magåhet este gi un kabåles na lepblo. Lao siempre este na lepblo u matuge' gi Fino' Ingles, ya guaha påtte siha matuge' gi Fino' Chamoru lokke'. Esta gof libiånu para Guahu, para bei estoriåyi taotao nu i hestoria-ta gi Fino' Ingles, lao guaha na biahi debi di bei lachandan maisa para bei cho'gue este lokkue' gi Fino' Chamoru.  Put este na motibu-hu guaha na biahi, mañule' yu' påtten hestoria-ta, ya hu ketuge' put guiya gi Fino' Chamoru. Sesso i inayek-hu put este, ti sen interesånte, gi Fino' Ingles "basic" pat gi Fino' i tatan bihu-hu "mata'pang."  Put hemplo, a'atan este guini gi sampapa', ni' tinige'-hu put si San Vitores. Ti hu guaiya si San Vitores, ti ya-hu meggai put i hestoria-ña, lao hu tung...

 I recently gave a lecture talking about the Maga'håga spirit and the matrilineal strain that runs through Chamoru culture. In putting it together, I had to scrounge for different quotes from the early accounts of the Spanish, when they encountered Chamorus in the 16th and 17th centuries. It provides a stark contrast in most ways we see gender relations today, but it must have felt nightmarish at times for a Catholic priest of the time. To see women with this much authority over life and over their husbands, I imagine it would have given San Vitores and others plenty a panic attack.  Here are some of the quotes I used in my presentation: *******************   In each family, the head is the father or older relative, but with limited influence. A son, as he grows up, neither fears or respects his father. In the home it is the woman who rules, and her husband does not dare give an order contrary to her wishes, nor punish the children, for she will turn upon him and beat him...

Despite the social distancing lockdown and remote work for my office over the past month, it has been difficult to find the mental brain space needed to write regularly. I mean this in terms of creative writing, but also political writing. So much of my brain space has been taken up by worrying about so many different things, I've found it hard at times to focus or give myself the space to take on the many other writing projects I have waiting for me. Thankfully I have been able to work through some of the thoughts I have on the COVID-19 pandemic and Guam's political status in my weekly column for the  Pacific Daily News. This hasn't gotten me many new fans, in fact the columns that I published for three weeks at the start of the lockdown phase have been some of my most hated since I started writing for the newspaper a few years ago. I won't get into way people seem to take particularly gleeful hate in my columns lately, but I felt compelled to share them here. Afte...

Every week I get at least one request for an interview, several requests each week for information related to Guam history or the Chamoru language. Sometimes the requests can become a bit much, as I'm not able to get back to everyone. And sometimes I've responded to people close to a year later (ai lokkue'). But if I had more time I would respond to everyone I could, since the knowledge that I have or have access to, is useless unless there are ways it can get out to others.  After I gave a guest lecture in an English rhetoric class last year, one of the students contacted me asking for some help on understanding Hagåtña and its contemporary and historical place in Guam. I appreciated her wanting to know more about a village that most everyone takes for granted nowadays on Guam. So I wrote up responses to her 8 questions. Here they are below. ******************** 1. What makes Hagatna unique from other villages?  What makes Hagåtña unique is that because...

Every September 11th since September 11, 2001 has a surreal quality to it. As if in a world where history repeats and meaning is always muddled, somehow the events of that day achieved a special, extra level of meaning for those that were alive and of age to experience it. At least this is what they say, and how true this seems depends a lot on your relationship to the US and what type of imaginary tissue connects you to it.  9/11 always means another set of memorial or retrospectives. These commemorative acts help us lock in a particular narrative for conceiving what happened that day, what it means, and whether or not we allow any understanding of events that helped led to that attack. At these memorials people recall where they were when they learned of the attacks and reminders of how scared they were, but how America rose again from those ashes.  Mixed into this naturally is a lot of what you might call blind patriotism or shallow patriotism. September 11 th , as ...

Each semester I try to organize a Dinanna' for our majors and minors. We have grown as a program so much in the past three years, even though I am the gehilo' for it, I have trouble keeping track of things. There are so many things which make Chamorro Studies as a program or discipline different than other academic units at UOG. We are one of the programs which you could argue is most connected to the community, save for those who are explicitly about community service or engagement (such as the cooperative extension). We are also a program which, in the scheme of things at UOG, has to regularly argue for our existence, against all manner of colonial and ignorant nonsense. Many programs exist simply because they are part of an established Western or international canon for education. There is little obligation for the faculty, the students or the program, since their vitality is assumed to be a given because of that relationship between power and knowledge. Women and Gender...

In terms of situating Chamorro pasts and giving a founding meaning to their history and identity, Fu'una and Puntan, the two siblings who created Guam and Chamorros are generally given that great honor. They are thought of more and more as being the founding spirits, whether you see them as Gods, historical figures, metaphors or fantasies. They are taking a key place of meaning in terms of rooting Chamorro identity today, not as a spirit that was created in 1521 or 1668, but as something longer and having its own distinct origin. Even those who refuse to believe in Fu'una and Puntan as being spirits, but see them as possible historical figures, who may have been the ones to lead a voyage to Guam long ago, nonetheless reinforce their primacy. In one of the earliest references that we have to Fu'una and Puntan, Fu'una herself is not even mentioned. Puntan is mentioned and so is his "sister," but she is hardly given a role. In this passag...

--> It is a surreal experience being a "professor" and a "doctor" in the sense of being an academic. Although I have the degrees and the background to give these labels the appropriate meaning, I still feel first and foremost that I am actually an artist. My sensibilities and my approaches to almost everything are more like that of an artist than that of a scholar. I constantly learn towards creativity and innovation rather than seeking the usual stability of disciplinary sheltering that characterizes most academics. This is why even though my career and so much of my reputation is tied to things such as development of Chamorro language programs, curriculum, Guam History research and the development of programs related to Chamorro culture and identity, I still yearn to create "art." I try my best to force it into the things I do, but I also want to actually create art in the sense of comic books, writing fiction and often times just painting a...