NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Yesterday the prospective students for my department came by, and so naturally the discussions always inevitable in an Ethnic Studies Program took place. The origin of Ethnic Studies is a mixture of explicit politics and academics, and so the eternal struggle in any such department is how to balance the rigors of both life spheres. What are we to do with the divisions between the "abstract" world of academia and "concrete" world of real life? I should point here that my point here will not be that these divisions are false, but that how we position ourselves in relation to them is what makes all the difference on whether we will implicitly/explicitly accept them or transgress them. A crucial mistake that I see students make when posing philosophically these problems, is that rather than narrating a relationship to this particular division, which might in some way reveal its contingency, they instead narrate themselves into an interpassive state, whereby the division...

Published on Tuesday, March 7, 2006 by the Guardian/UK Join Brazil in Planting Oil: Only radical solutions will overcome the energy and environmental crises while promoting equality by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva The 21st century will be marked by a crucial debate: how can we make economic and social development compatible with the preservation of our natural environment? The challenge is faced by developed and developing countries alike, but the burdens need to be more equally shared. The width of the divide between rich and poor countries has doubled over the last 40 years. While the developed world has benefited from the prosperity generated by economic progress, poor countries suffer the consequences of environmental degradation resulting from uncontrolled growth. Rich countries have unsustainable patterns of production and consumption. They are responsible for 41% of total carbon dioxide emissions, and their overall consumption of raw materials is four times greater than that of all...

Oh lana, if only Felix Camacho sounded more like Matayoshi. I would defnitely, but very thankfully have much less to complain about. Please distribute widely Mayor James Matayoshi Mayor, Rongelap Atoll Local Government 52nd Bravo Nuclear Victims Remembrance Day Speech RONGELAP'S QUEST FOR A BETTER FUTURE This is a day of protest, a day of proclamation that the U.S. has not yet fulfilled its own standards of justice and responsibility for our people. This day takes us back to a time when the U.S. ruled our islands with absolute power, in a way that harmed us and changed us forever. We cannot let the world forget what happened here. However, the true meaning of Bravo is that we must solve the problems our nation has today. If we fail to find successful solutions, our problems only become more serious in the years ahead. How we solve these problems will determine whether the future is better or worse for our children. We need to recognize that the U.S. wants to forget the past and mov...

Here's the text for a presentation I gave over the weekend at the 4th Annual Crossing Borders Conference at USC. I am very much in agreement with Slavoj Zizek’s opening remarks from his article “Love They Neighbor? No Thanks!” any serious critical work today must have a dimension of psychoanalysis to it. The reduction of it to reductionist slogans, dodges its necessity for theorizing the role of things such as recognition and desire in our everyday lives. Until last year however psychoanalysis was a limited part of my work, a cool quote from Zizek here, a dense and disarming quote from Lacan there to throw off the reader. This changed however after I was called out and subsequently interpolated last year as a “Lacanian.” Never really conceiving myself as one, I decided instead of refusing the title and replacing it with a post-ideological sneeze guard distance from all formal theories, to instead own it, and augment it slightly, paradoxically and impossibly with the term indigenous...

Sa' hafa todu i tiempo tinane' yu', kalang u matgan i ilu-hu? Pa'go put hemplo, gi i otro na mes bei hu cho'gue Famoksaiyan. Gi i simana mo'na ki ayu, bei fa'nu'i (yan i mane'lu-hu) i kamek-mami giya San Francisco. Gi este na simana, debi di bei na'i iyo-ku thesis chair i mina'dos na kanto-hu, ya gi i fakpo'-na este na simana guaha dinana' giya USC nai bai hu fa'nu'i dos na tinige'-hu! I'm slowly realizing the reason why for all this stressing. Everytime I am stressed out and think I can't handle it ya siempre matai yu', instead of saying, "next month I'll do less, I'll start setting some time aside," I start actively planning for more shit that I'll have to do later on. For example, today I'm extremely stressed about finishing up the second chapter of my thesis and the conference papers I have at the end of this week, and so what am I doing to deal with this stress? I'm submitting...

Its fun being an up and coming academic or scholar and not having any established parameters for my work. So when I give presentations, no one knows anything I've done usually, so they ask for a bio or a description to present me. Its always fun putting them together, because while some things always go into them, other things I can shift around and play with. For example, this line goes in nearly all bios, "Michael Lujan Bevacqua is a graduate student in Ethnic Studies at The University of California, San Diego and the editor of the Chamorro Zine Minagahet ( http://www.geocities.com/minagahet )" The next line I always try to sneak in, but almost always gets taken out by the people who read it or publish it, "He is the grandson of Elizabeth Flores Lujan ( familian Kabesa) and the Chamorro Master Blacksmith Joaquin Flores Lujan ( familian Bittot )" I guess its a somewhat unconventional thing to have in someone's bio, but this is how I am known throughout Guam...

Just wanted to share with everyone my talk from the Oberlin Asian Pacific American Conference I attended last week. All in all it was a great experience, young students so energetic I seriously felt like a cranky old man to be around them. This feeling was very new to me, as usually in conferences I feel like some new kid on the block, or some young punk who isn't really familiar with the lingo or the literature. This of course making me for the first time in a while feel very mature and also indicating to me that my window of possibility for dating undergrads passed several years ago. Bente singko anos yu', kao esta bihu yu'? Achokka' sigun i calendario ahe' siempre, i siniente-ku na sina. "The Scene of Liberation" Michael Lujan Bevacqua Refocusing Our Lenses Conference Oberlin University, February 18, 2006 Much of my work during the past few years has revolved around a complex yet sometimes traumatically simple question: Why have Chamorros from Guam beco...

*** Please Forward Widely *** thirdspace - an anti-racist feminist magazine - is looking for submissionsfor our next issue (volume 24 number 3). The theme is "Food" - interpret how you wish - and submissions are due by FRIDAY, MARCH 31st, 2006. Possible topics (just to float some ideas out there):- What nourishes you? (Body? Mind? Soul?)- How do you see the future of food?- What's your relationship to food?- How does food intersect with your politic?- What's the food situation in your community?- How have you learned about food?- What is your favourite food or recipe and why?- How have your ideas about food changed over time?- Where does your food come from?- the list will grow according to your submissions... Remember, we also love reviews of relevant books/films! And we always need photos and images to illustrate written pieces. Anyone from anywhere may submit! thirdspace accepts comics, poetry, short fiction, artwork, rants, creativenon-fiction, book/film/music r...

Este i fine'nina na chinagi para este na betsu, bai hu na'lamaolek later. Yanggen un chagi kumanta este, kanta gui' gi i tune "Call me, Call me," tinige' Si Yoko Kanno ginnen Cowboy Bopeep/Bebop. Agang yu' Manmahuchom i mata'-hu lao sigi ha' Annok hao, ya mikilot-mu Humalom kombalachi ya mala'mok Lao masi'eng hao, un na'fitme Agang, agang, sotta hinasso-ku Agang, agang, na'ketu yu' guatu Ya bei hu ketungo' I siniente ni' huma'lak yu' Hafa bidada-mu? Kumonne' yu' guenao guatu? Un na'i yu' esta korason-mu Lao nai manhoben hit, lao sigi ha' magahet? Dos diha mit desde ma'pos hao Achokka' ti ya-mu, bei hu aligao Agang, Agang, na'tungo' mangge hao Agang, Agang, chalani yu' guatu guenao Ti bei sotta hao Esta ki un admite Isao-mu Nai un dingu yu'

This is a very interesting turn of events. Although in theoretical circles Fukuyama's texts are kind of funny in a cute "ahhhh, look at the little Hegelian" way, one must admit a very real hegemony around his thesis on history's end. What else could explain both the neo-conservative and neo-liberal pushes in this country, and I mean both at the levels of politicians and people interviewed by news media who think that a war with Iran isn't such a bad idea since its closer than Iraq, just south of Mexico. Take for example this quote that Bush made to Bob Woodward in 2002 speaking about the War on Terror, “At some point, we may be the only ones left. That’s okay with me. We are America.” The frightening echoing point in this is of course, not that America might be the last man standing, but that American already is the last man standing. Published on Wednesday, February 22, 2006 by Inter Press Service "Leninists!" Cries Neo-Con Nabob, Suing for Divorce by ...

I posted articles a few days ago about the growing scandal over the Tiyan landowners and whether or not the Federal Government will re-take the land which was returned to them, or if the local government will stand up and fight for their rights. This issue is of supreme importance and it shows one of the limits of most vocal forms of activism on Guam over the past few decades. In his afterword to Penelope Bordallo Hofschneider's text Campaign For Political Rights on the Island of Guam (1899-1950), Robert Underwood makes the point that issue of tano' or land have been at the core of any Chamorro radicalization since World War II. Land issues were the one thing that could turn anyone, whether a nurse, a teacher, a farmer or a soldier into an activist, indigenous or otherwise. Over the past decade indigenous activism has settled into a sort of lull on Guam. Some attribute this to the death of Angel Santos or poor economic conditions (such as that urban legend that the closing of b...

Tiyan land issue makes it to Capitol Hill by Mindy Fothergill , KUAM News Monday, February 13, 2006 Governor Felix Camacho will stand by original landowners as they fight to keep their recently returned Tiyan properties. After concerns were raised about the possible reversion of Tiyan land to the federal government, Guam's case has made it to the White House, as the island's chief executive says the battle against the feds has just begun. The plight of original landowners faced with the possibility of their land being condemned so a highway can be built in Tiyan has made its way to the nation's capitol. Governor Felix Camacho contacted inter-governmental affairs officials in Washington, D.C. to see what can be done about the Federal Highway Administration's threats to take back Tiyan lands. Optimistically Camacho forecasted, "The battle has just begun, but it's one we're going to win." The Governor is working on Guam's game plan saying the goal is ...