NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Despite me currently being lost in the thesis-writing dimension, the Guam Bus Comic Book Making Team, also known as Pump Fake Nation is still hard at work. In response to the feedback we got at the Alternative Press Expo (APE) last month, we will compiling the issues that we have for Battle For Kamchatka into a graphic novel and seek to publish it later on. This is exciting for me because I will be able to work freely on the comic in the next few months, and therefore hopefully get some great stories going before I have to worry about trying to sell the stupid thing. To keep track of our progress you can head over the website that i che'lu-hu Si Jack is putting together. http://www.pumpfakenation.com By the way, for those that don't know, Pump Fake Nation is me and my brothers creative company, with Jack at the helm. My imprint which Battle for Kamchatka is produced by is Panopticomix. For those of you who have asked what exactly Battle for Kamchatka is supposed to be, I wrote ...

A few years ago I put together the historical narrative below to support an application for a California history grant, which would have provided the money for a historical display chronicling the story of Chamorros and the state of California. Unfortunately the project never went through, but I came across this narrative earlier today and thought it interesting enough to share. If I were to write a grant such as this now, my history would be slightly different, especially in the last couple of paragraphs where I have cultural description. But the paragraphs towards the beginning are actually a nice little history of Chamorro migration to the United States. Guam and the Chamorro people's first entry into American history books begins in 1898, when the island was taken as a spoil of the Spanish American War. However, even prior to that Chamorros had already found their ways in large numbers to Hawaii and California. They had left Guam as bayaneru siha (whalers) in the 19th century, ...

Published on Tuesday, May 2, 2006 by the Chicago Sun Times Are Immigrants Putting Justice on Parade? by Jesse Jackson May 1, a day of worker celebration, began in the United States around the struggle for the eight-hour day. Now it is honored across the world, but largely ignored in the United States. How fitting then that this year, immigrant workers from across the world have revived the day, marching to defend their dignity -- and energizing an entire movement for social justice. They march to make their humanity known. They march to make their views known. They march because they will not be victims or pawns, but will be the subjects of their own history in this country. The new immigrants seek precisely what has made our country great: They thirst for democracy and freedom, a job and security for their families, for citizenship rights and to leave repression and poverty behind. Lower-wage workers in this country -- many of them African Americans -- worry that employers are using i...

Self haunting alert. I was searching through my computer looking for this one interview that I need for my current master's thesis and came across the short piece of art theory writing I'm posting below. What a shock it was to come across this. I wrote it as part of a class I took with Professor Jose Babauta when I was an undergraduate in art at the University of Guam. We met once a week and discussed art from a theoretical and philosophical standpoint. Since I left Guam I haven't been able to keep up the discussion, and since I graduated from UOG in 2001, I haven't really maintained my cache of art theory language and concepts. (Clement Greenberg is either a type of colonge of an art theorist having something to do with abstract expressionism) I do eagerly await the day though, when I will return to Guam and start up that conversation again. As I try to articulate in a somewhat scattered and naive manner in the piece below, there is something about the experience of Gu...

I just finished my conference circuit for the year, three in the fall of last year and then four in the spring of this year, makes way too many for this school year (especially since each of them was a different paper). Now that my conference circuit is over, that means its time for, ai lana, the conference submission period to begin again! Next year, I think I'll do way less conferences, since I won't be writing as much in terms of my school work. The reason last year's was so packed was because my papers were in different ways related to the thesis I am writing right now for Ethnic Studies at UCSD. I'm pasting below my most recent abstract, which I've discussed on this blog before a few times. Its building off of a short zine article I had published in Third Space last year, and I'll be expanding it to become the conclusion for my current master's thesis, as well as my presentation for the CCCC in New York in 2007. Just thought I'd share it below: “Thi...

At first I was surprised when I read the back of Multitude and found that Naomi Klein was one whom had assisted in the writing of the text. But after re-reading both of Hardt and Negri's most recent books as well as sections of Fences and Windows and No Logo, I can completely understand why. As the Left searched for a way to reconstitute itself, both on a broader scale and with a more appealing message, these texts are the answer. After all Empire was referred to as the first intellectual blockbluster, and No Logo is called in the article below, "the Das Kapital of the growing anti-corporate movement." Hunggan, guaha didide' ni' umestotba put este na lepblo siha. Lao hinassosso-ku kao taibali i tinacha? Yanggen mumetgotna i kinalmten i Inakague' put este, kao debi di bei suppote este, achokka' bula na ti hu konfotme giya Siha? Mungga mahasso na bai hu traiduti Si Naomi Klein. Hu guaiya gui' yan i che'cho'-na sinembatgo, lao i mensahi-na kalang ...

What an incredible day today is. Gofha'an pa'go na diha. For nearly two years the boxes on all my personal pages, whether they be myspace, friendster or PFG have been clicked to "hopelessly single." Today, however I switched them all over to "in a relationship." For those of you who don't know, my last serious relationship ended two years ago, and since then there has been a wide array of strange encounters, blood drenched social faux pas, accidents, hookups that were a lock if I drank setbesa, and near fatal crushes, but nothing that ever made me consider logging onto to myspace and changing my estao inakkamo'. For the past few weeks I've been going out with this girl, and its been incredible. For those who regularly read my blog, she is the one whom I couldn't get the nerve up to kiss after three hours of salsa dancing turned our friendly outing into an obvious "date." One of my friend's emailed me today, chiding me that it se...

Here's a list of my favorite moments from the Famoksaiyan gathering last week. As you read them, bear in mind that I didn't get to participate as much as I wanted to in the actual conference (discussions, presentations, etc.), so most of my moments are around the conference. Setting things up, fixing problems, driving people around, stressing out. By the way, I've started up a listserv for the conference, to help keep everyone connected, informed and working as time goes on. You can join in by going to the following link and signing up for it, or asking me and I'll add your email to the list. We'll be using it to send out news items, notices of events, meetings, conferences, grants, opportunities, as well as find out people to help with projects and ideas and so on. http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/famoksaiyan My Favorite Famoksaiyan Moments: Taking Chaz to his first In and Out dinner Hanging out at Kinko’s at 2 in the morning, TWO NIGHTS IN A ROW Fanai saying that...

Check out the flyer above for information on the upcoming Tan Chong Padula Humanitarian Awards to take place next month in Garden Grove. Each year the Chamorro community in Southern California and the Guam Communications Network puts it together. One organization or individual will receive the main award, while a number of others will receive medallions (I was lucky enough to receive one a few years ago). Last year I was fortunate enough to attend, when the Kutturan Chamoru performers received the main award. This is truly an incredible group considered the types of performances that they are doing and that the majority of their members are stateside Chamorros. Their open debt to the work of Frank Rabon and Taotao Tano' is a welcome reprieve from the usual trajectory of Chamorro dance groups (both on Guam and in the states), which is usually hula, hula and more hula. Chamorros are scattered throughout the United States, but they have nonetheless been able to maintain crucial social...

In its Big Ideas of 2006 issues, AdBusters named Alain Badiou as "The Philosopher of the Year." This passage from their short article on the reception of his work in the United States is what brought about the following post: "To take just one example, postmodern thought has been obsessed by the figure of the cultural other. However, the abstract, absolute character of the postmodern idea of the other has insured that any attempt to reach out will always be viewed as just another form of domination. Badiou has brought a withering philosophical criticism to bear on the notion that cultural difference can be thought of in terms of overarching generalities about metaphysics, arguing instead that the social field that structures otherness is a matter of specific "situations," organized around certain concrete, tendentious exceptions, with political "truth" being a matter of bringing these exceptions to light. Thus, while postmodern philosophy dead ends in...

For those of you following me and my brothers' slowing, bumbling, meandering and potentially meteoric rise to fame in comic books, Jack, the aesthetic talent of the group is putting together our website. It is under construction mind you, but you can visit there nonetheless, and whistle or make disparaging remarks about the work habits of its employees by clicking on the link below: http://www.pumpfakenation.com Two weeks ago we bought a table at the Alternative Press Expo (APE) in San Francisco, to see what people thought of our work. I'll be posting more on that soon, but in the meantime, let me share with you the script for one of the ashcans that we photocopied and stapled for the convention. It was inspired by the film, The Rising, which is the story of Mangal Pandey and his role in the sparking the First War of Indian Independence. Here is the introductory text that I put in the ashcan as well as the script itself: "The agent of revolution, whether it be a single per...