NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

In my life I have attended a number of events, whether in person or virtually, where representatives were gathered in solidarity from each of the current US territories. But in these spaces, there was usually just a single representative from different territories, owing to the distances or difficulties in physically bringing together people Guam, the CNMI, the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and American Samoa. One thing that made the recent Right to Democracy summit different for me, was the amount of people in attendance representing each of the territories, and how each community wasn’t reduced to a single voice, a single soundbite or a short presentation. The experiences of those in the current US territories was not on the fringes or the margins, which is the norm, but instead we were all centered. This summit focused on developing a network across the territories, with the aim of helping to dismantle US colonialism, created a lot more possibilities than usual and that was exc...

Since 2003 I have had a number of uneven traditions associated with this blog. Many of these have dissipated as I have used this blog less and less, but a few I have continued to hold on to. One of the longest held traditions is "Happy US Imperialism Day!" It started as a thinking piece while I was working on my Master's Thesis in Micronesian Studies at the University of Guam. I had spent a few years reading as much as I could about Guam History. I had interviewed hundreds of elders born prior to World War II, who had experienced Japanese occupation. I had even begun working for Puerto Rican filmmaker Frances Negron-Muntaner on a documentary that would later become War for Guam. I was also spending time with activists of every stripe on Guam, trying to talk to anyone who I could find who had long been critical of the things I was just starting to learn about the historical and contemporary realities of the Chamoru people.  I was encountering the history and the present of...

Everytime Trump mentions Guam, it is like we get to walk on to some national reality TV show. It is always interesting, sometimes funny, sometimes scary, sometimes saddening. Here are some articles around our most recent mention, when Trump talked about statehood being off the table and not an option for Guam and other US territories.  *******************   Decolonization Commission: Trump comments superficial and selfish Steve Limtiaco Pacific Daily News USA TODAY NETWORK Oct 19, 2020  The government of Guam’s Commission on Decolonization on Monday responded to recent comments by President Donald Trump about the political status of Guam and other U.S. territories.   Trump, during an Oct. 1 phone interview with Sean Hannity on the Fox News Channel, accused Democrats of trying to add three new states to the union, including Guam, in an effort to get more power in the House and Senate.   “That would give them six automatic Senate seats,” Trump said. “It would be v...

I first wrote an article "Happy US Imperialism Day Guam!" about 16 years ago. It was published in Minagahet Zine and later on this blog when I began it soon after. The writing of this article originally was a very formative experience. Part of it eventually became my Masters Thesis in Micronesian Studies. But I also wrote it at a time when I was first trying to find a way to become more public about my critiques and writing letters to the editor of the Pacific Daily News and creating websites/blogs were some of the obvious choices. This article was written when the second Iraq War was only eight months old and the War in Afghanistan was over two years old. It was written at a time when I was feeling frustrated over the deaths of the first few Chamorros in Iraq, Christopher Rivera Wesley being the first. As I said, it was also written at a time when I was first working on developing a critical consciousness and a public voice in terms of writing and philosophy. I had been...

Media Shouldn't Defend Colonial Status Quoby Michael Lujan Bevacqua January 5, 2018 Pacific Daily News As we crawl out of the dumpster fire that was 2017 for much of the United States and its territories, we inch cautiously into 2018 and hope for the best.  As someone who has been working over the past few years to elevate the community consciousness about decolonization,  I am most interested in what the coming elections and federal cases will bring in terms of changing the island’s political status. What occupies my thought process is the role of the media in helping build that consciousness or impede it. The media institutions in any society don’t just exist to report or investigate. These institutions also, often in less perceptible ways, promote values and norms, usually on behalf of elite segments of society. In a colonial context, these roles gain a colonial dimension. Both institutions and individuals often will be compelled to defend and natur...

Fanhokkåyan is my series where I share articles, writings and other documents from some of my previous websites, most notably the Kopbla Amerika/Chamorro Information Activist website and Minagahet Zin e. The one I'm sharing today is an intriguing one, as it represents a piece that helped shape alot of my own perceptions as an early activist about Chamorro issues, in particular their relationship to colonial legacies. This piece, which I co-wrote with a friend of mine at the time, built off the idea of "soul wound" a theory that was first popularized in considering the contemporary place of Native Americans in relation to their historical (or continuing) trauma. It is far too easy for us to argue that we shouldn't be stuck in the past by recounting how Chamorros have been hurt by colonizers, that is a common interpassive point. In truth, we need to recount it and we need to understand it, most importantly so that we can change things today, so that we can reshape th...

I'm working on an exhibit for Humanities Guåhan, and its put me back into researcher/scholar mode. I've been pouring through books and reports for the past week looking for various bits and pieces of information. Part of this meant re-reading some books and archival documents I hadn't touched in over a decade. Given the way in which conversations over decolonization and self-government have begun to take on a new character lately, I was particularly attracted to passages that can help me or others reflect on our development over time, how far Chamorros and Guam may have come, or haven't, especially in the context of their political connection to the US. There are many ways that we can say that Guam has changed over the past 500 years or over the past 100 years. As we remain in the era of American colonialism, I am mostly concerned with the impact of the US and its policies. As I have written about in a variety of ways, these changes are tangible and very real, but a...