NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

  One of of my oldest child's Sumahi’s favorite books growing up was “Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak.    She loved the artwork and the story and would sometimes request that we read it for several nights in a row. For those unfamiliar with the story, a young boy Max is causing so much havoc in the house that his mother sends him to his room without supper. While there he undertakes a journey that takes him over a great sea to the land of the wild things. He becomes the leader of the wild things and they dance and have a great time. Eventually Max grows tired of the freedom being a “wild one” gives him, and he decides to sail home. When he arrives in his room he finds he supper waiting for him; and it is still warm. Part of the difficulty with reading books to my kids is the fact that I only speak to both of them in Chamoru. Even if I am reading to them a book like “Where the Wild Things Are”  which is in English, I have to translate it as I’m readin...

   For all my children, since the moment they were born, no matter what the topic, I only speak to them in Chamoru. This doesn’t mean that every single word is in Chamoru, as sometimes English words, or other words must be used or translated into Chamoru. But given my commitment to perpetuating the native language of the indigenous people of the Marianas, it means we use Chamoru and adapt Chamoru, no matter what the topic or context. Language are however social organisms, which means that for most people, children included, even if you use it with them, unless it is reinforced, and there is a sense of community or value associated with it, keeping the language alive and in turn passing it on will be difficult. Even if you speak Chamoru to your own children, they might speak it back to you, but if they don’t perceive that others around them speak it or that it doesn’t have any value expect in the past or within very narrow means, there is a marginal chance they will ...

After my third child Lulai was born in 2021, I had a month of paternity leave from working at the Guam Museum.  During this time, I would usually take Lulai at night for around four or five hours, to give her mother Desiree a chance to sleep or relax or do anything undisturbed for a while.  I would sing to her, rock her, hold her while she slept. It gave me time to think, to reflect, to watch things, to read. One of the things that I thought alot about at the time was Chamoru music and its future.  I never really made the jump to digital music platforms like Spotify, but I do listen to music on YouTube.  While I would be watching Lulai I would want to sing to her different Chamoru songs and I would look for them on YouTube and not be able to find the songs. I was frustrated because I had the songs on tapes or on CDs or on vinyl records, but my hands were full with a child, or the physical copies were packed away in boxes in storage somewhere and it would take forever...

  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...

Typhoon Mawar was the first major typhoon for all of my children. My two older children who are in their teens, had experienced Typhoon Mangkhut in 2018 and Typhoon Dolphin in 2015. Both of these typhoons were damaging to Guam, but not in the same way that Mawar was last month. For my two smaller children, Lulai and Makåhna, this was their first typhoon of any type. And what a first typhoon it was for both of them. Lulai who will be turning 2 in a few months and Makåhna who wasn’t yet 3 weeks old when the storm hit. I am grateful that we weathered the typhoon well, no major injuries other than diaper and heat rashes. Two weeks later we still didn't have electricity and our cellphone service and data remains intermittent. But thankfully we had water albeit low at times, throughout. My partner Desiree and I have both been through major typhoons, with catastrophic destruction and disruption. Mawar was our first as parents. Looking back, it was a dramatically different expe...

My time with Lulai Lumuhu is filled with dancing and singing. Desiree always said that she would pay attention to my voice while she was in the womb. When she heard others, like Sumåhi and Akli'e' she would kick and move. But when I was speaking to her she would stop and listen. Ti siguguro yu' esta på'go, kao este kumekeilekña na ya-ña i bos-hu pat ti ya-ña i bos-hu. Kao ha respepeta yu', pat kao inespåpanta? I try as much as possible to sing Chamoru songs to her, knowing that she'll hear English and other songs from just about everywhere else, she'll be hearing Chamoru from me. The song that soothes her the most is "I Puti'on." Akli'e' and I do a nice duet of the song for her to help calm her when she is cranky. Over the years I've collected several dozen Chamoru children's songs from before World War II, many of which are fragments. Songs then were different then the way we think about them now. People took tunes they liked a...

  For fun, I used to take anime songs (gi Fino' Chapones) and translate them into Chamoru. Over the years I translated songs from Naruto, Gantz, Cromartie High School, Master Keaton, Evangelion, and Attack on Titan just to name a few. It was an exercise in expressing two things that I am very nerdy about. I hadn't thought about this in a long time though until earlier tonight when Youtube's next song randomness started playing anime theme songs. As I started to feel the chetnot nostalgia hit me, the kids asked what song is this? where is this from? When I described the plot of Evangelion to Sumåhi, her review, "wow sen na'triste enao (wow that is like incredibly depressing)." I told the kids about how I used to translate songs like this into Chamoru. When they asked why, I said, "Ya-hu fino' Chamoru, ya-hu este na kånta. Anggen hu pula' este gi mismo lenguahi-hu, hu na'latatahdong I siniente-ku put este. (I like Chamoru, I like this song. If I...

This article about my grandfather, the Chamorro Master Blacksmith Joaquin Flores Lujan or "Tun Jack" was first published in the Pacific Daily News on October 14 and October 21, 2016. I have been missing my grandparents like crazy since they passed away in 2013 and 2015, and sometimes only writing about them can help me overcome the sadness I feel.  December is always difficult, as this is the month that grandma, Elizabeth Flores Lujan, passed away three years ago. This is also a difficult month emotionally because of all the family emphasis and for Chamorros, the fact that December 8th represents when our elders, i mamparientes-ta, i manamko'-ta, were swallowed into the beast of a great war.  I keep writing about my grandparents because I find myself remembering things that I struggle with at other times. It don't know why that is the case, perhaps it is because I feel more secure in the fact that as I am writing/typing, I am keeping their stories live. Kee...

--> Ti Guahu tumuge' este na estoria, lao fihu hu sangan este na estoria gi klas-hu siha yan gi me'nan i famagu'on-hu. Estoria na estoria ni' mafa'na'an "Puntan Patgon." Este na estoria put i fihu na prublema siha gi familian Chamorro (yan gi todu i familian taotao). Achokka' mamparerentes, guaha nai ti maniniha put chinatkomprende. I Puntan Patgon na estoria uma'aya yan i estorian "Sirena" sa' i dos put i prublema anai ti manafa'maomaolek i manaina yan i famagu'on, sa' binibu pat hinesguan umentalo'. Hu hahasso este na dos na estoria todu tiempo, ya i mensahi gumigiha mo'na komo tata. *************         Åntetes na tiempo gi tiempon i man mofo’na na taotao eståba un taotao i na’ån-ña si Masåla. I gima’-ña gaige gi inai giya Tålagi Si Masåla gof banidosu sa’ pudi sumen dangkolo yan sumen metgot gue'. Mansen ma'åñao i Chamorron Guahan.   Tåya' gi isla siña umigi si Masåla.  ...

I completely neglected this during the past year, even though I would remember it every once in a while. 2014 was the ten-year anniversary of the starting of this blog, "No Rest for the Awake - Minagahet Chamorro." I first began it in 2004, while I was preparing for graduate school in San Diego, California. At that time I was running several websites with the help of a few other people, some of whom I haven't been in contact with for close to ten years. It was a place for me to vent thoughts, share ideas, get the word out about things. It has been by now something that countless high school, middle school and college students use for their research papers. It is something that even other scholars have used on occasion for theoretical points. I have posted on this blog 2121 times and it has been visited over 900,000 times. Over the course of this blog's life I have had two children, finished a Ph.D., lost both my grandmothers, testified at the United Nation...