NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

I wish I was in Jeju, South Korea this weekend. If I was I would be attending this conference.

Right now I am struggling with how to respond to something. Since the announcement that Guam may receive only 4,700 instead of 8,000 Marines from Okinawa, there has been a few murmurs of discontent from pro-buildup proponents, who have been using the occasion to attack critics of the buildup. The inference is that the buildup was moving full speed ahead a few years back, everything was going wonderful, Guam was about to get that dreamy golden ticket that the buildup represented, where everyone, no matter where they fit on the socio-economic ladder was going to get what they wanted. Because the Marines were on their way, and with their big bags filled with 50 Caliber machine guns they also were bringing billions and billions of dollars with them, the rich could get richer, the poor could get richer. Riches for everyone was what the fantasies made us feel. But then the nasty DEIS comment period came around. During that 3 month period, all of the activists and malcontents of Guam worm...

For the past week I've been pasting pictures of my many hikes to the Pagat area of northern Guam. In a one year period I hiked down there 14 times, and in the process exploring so many different areas there and finding lots of cool things. I don't have thousands of pictures of my trip, since more than once I lost a camera down there. But I do have enough to show different aspects of the Pagat area, most of which people don't really know. Pagat proper is the trail that takes you to the freshwater cave and then through a trail of lusong, past a single latte house, to get to the natural arch and the cliffs. Pagat is so much more than this, and I've been blessed to be able to explore and see so much more. On the Pagat loop trail you can see the limestone wall there which no one seems to be able to explain how it was made (but there are many fun theories). At Pagat point you can see two massive limestone rocks known as Chelef's Hands, named after a 17th century C...

Happy Valentine's Day!!!! *************  "You Is All I Want" Michael Lujan Bevacqua 2011 The waitress at Coco’s is happy I am not. She sashays to my table as if she has just stolen the sunshine of everyone in the room and beams at me with her conquest I am not in the mood for anything. I miss you, and it is the kind of missing that makes you feel like something is pushing your heart through your chest, giving it the sense of being released and set free as it is being choked to death by the bars of your rib cage. As the song says, there ain’t no sunshine when you’re gone, and every sunny soul makes me wish I was some cartoonish DC universe villain, with a ray-gun that would suck out your happy soul and then stab you in the eye with a spork afterwards. The waitress leans over and asks me, smile stuck between her teeth, “What do you want today?” I look at her wishing I was the protagonist of a movie and so when I glare, extras jump, cameras zoom, the soundt...

For my Marianas Variety article this week I'll be writing up some "love" related phrases in the Chamorro language, in honor of both Chamorro month next month, Valentine's Day coming up and in general the fact that we should celebrate and use this language which is part of Guam's unique heritage. Last year, one of my most popular columns was something similar, where I came up with more than a dozen interesting and special ways to say "I Love You" in the Chamorro language. I thought I would post that below, but also I wanted to solicit from people any phrases, pick up lines, song lyrics, poetic turns of phrase, anything that you would want translated into Chamorro to tell someone special on Valentine's Day on Tuesday. If you have something in mind, please email me at mlbasquiat@hotmail.com and I'll try to include it in my column this week and I'll also email it back to you.  *************************** "Love in Chamorro" Michael...

I haven't had an art exhibit in about two years now, since my last solo show titled "Before the Storm, After the Fire" in May of 2010. In December 2011, I hung a small exhibit featuring artwork created by my brother Jack but conceived as part of a project I've been working on for quite a while, but only got a small amount of funding to work on last year. The project is titled "The Untold Story of the Chamurai: How Chamorro and Spanish Warriors Fought Against the Spanish in Guam in 1616." The exhibit in it's still unfinished glory is meant to tell the previously unknown tale of how Samurai and Chamorro warriors fought against the Spanish who were attempting to wipe out all of the Chamorros on Guam in 1616. I had first imagined this project more than 10 years ago as a way of combining my interest in samurai manga, anime and fiction with my interest in reading and teaching Chamorro history. I wrote up an entire story arc, filled with action, drama, romanc...

Because he has a way of speaking in very profound and insightful ways about the continuing importance of thinking critically about race, in a world that seems too eager to dismiss any attempt to talk about it. A case in point is his article below from The Nation. ****************************** The GOP's Blatant Racism Gary Younge January 10, 2012  The Nation In the British original of The Office the main protagonist, David Brent (US reincarnation: Michael Scott), wistfully recalls a tender moment during his favorite war film, The Dam Busters, involving the hero pilot, Wing Commander Guy Gibson. “Before he goes into battle, he’s playin’ with his dog,” says Brent. “Nigger,” says his sidekick, Gareth (Dwight in the States), recalling with glee the name of the dog. Brent flinches, eager to mitigate the slur. “Yeah!… it was the ’40s,” he says, “before racism was bad.” The problem with the illusion of a postracial society is that at almost any moment the systemic nature of...

Another big project came my way and it is one of those rush jobs that consume much of my life for the next few days. It is an interesting job to say the least, translating materials dealing with fishing and local fishes. For someone who does not come from a familian peskadot by any means, I am learning quite a bit as I translate. As the Reel Big Fish song says " meggai guihan gi tasi," but unfortunately, ti hu gof tungo' i na'an-niha! At the end of this project I will know alot more about fishing regulations and the names of fish then I learned in the first 30 years of my life. So while much of my time for the next few days will be consumed with this project, the labor will be happy and useful in the end. Don't know if I'll be posting much until I hit my deadline this Friday. After posting pretty consistently in December and in January I've hit a lull this month, as so many deadlines loom around me. Once I finish this project however I'll work on be...

“Beautiful Scars” Michael Lujan Bevacqua 12/14/11 The Marianas Variety For me there is only one certainty in raising a child, and that certainty is both inspiring and depressing. Your child will do many things. It may let you down. It may surprise you. It may accomplish all the things you never did, or leave your bucket-list untouched on the ground near your grave. Your child may love you a lot, or it may hate you. It may admire you, honor you, or spit on your grave and curse the day you were ever born or allowed to breed. But no matter what you do, how well-intended of a parent you are, or have loving and nurturing you are, you will scar your child. You will do something to them which will traumatize them, which will become a primal force in whatever formations their identity takes for the rest of their lives. If you don't love them enough, if you love them too much, anything you do, the smallest or largest thing can become a wound in the life of that child. It may becom...

The concept of Liberation is something so intimate to Guam, but the way it is intimate here is so skewed that I find it so tragic sometimes. Liberation in the non-religious sense comes in the past few centuries of human thought and human events. As humans begin to see themselves as possessing things which are either God-given or exist apart from the direct machinations of a grand deity, they see themselves as having other abilities save for those that come from God's design. For example, if you believe strongly that God has an order for everything, or that everything should be left up to him or her, than why do you attempt to improve yourself or change your lot in life? If you are born poor, should you stay poor? If you are born rich, shouldn't you stay rich? Religion generally stands in the way of changing the world because even if the world appears to be wrong or unfair, there is a world behind the world we cannot perceive or appreciate, and therefore it is best that we leave...

This past Saturday I took my Guam History students for a historical scavenger hunt in the historic area of Hagatna. It was a fun experience as I gave them 10 vague clues that were connected to different things in hopes of forcing them to go around and try to find what connections I was referring to. My students learned far more than they probably thought they would, the most important lesson being a simple one; history is everywhere, and it is always there in layers upon layers. Just because you drive by it or have a vague idea of what is there, it doesn't mean that you know it or understand it. People who have been to Hagatna countless times, found that they basically knew nothing about it. While I was waiting for the students to finish their rounds I decided to take some pictures of different sites around Guam's capital and formerly largest village. I found a couple things I hadn't noticed before, which is always nice as a historian. Although I may know more than most a...

I don't follow sports much anymore, unless you include eSports as I am an avid spectator of professional Starcraft 2 gaming. I did catch this though earlier on MSN and so I thought to post it here. It isn't really about sports, but more so about politeness and respect for differing opinions and the role that Facebook and other social media plays in terms of creating the public identities of people. As people create a virtual world that is an overlay of their everyday lives, is something lost when they tend to favor their Facebook world instead of the world around them in terms of their expression and the meaning they find in their lives? For example, is something lost when you are sitting in a room with friends talking, but you are continually on your phone chatting with people on your Facebook? Or are both circles the same? Can they co-exist or does favoring one make you value less the other? I always wonder about this as it is becoming increasingly difficult to get students...

Check out this article below from KUAM. It deals with meetings that the Federated States of Micronesia Association of Guam had in order to draw up some plans on how to deal with violence and crimes that are being attributed to the Micronesian community of Guam, in particular the Chuukese. They even created an education plan with alot of ideas on how to alleviate the social problems within Micronesian communities and those which spill out into the general public. I don't want to speak to the specific issue of Micronesians in Guam, as the available language and ideas makes it almost impossible to have a productive conversation. The "Micronesian problem" is what it is usually referred to as, and it is a textbook example of how a class or group of people become associated, in a way which becomes too commonsensically and too natural, with the ills of the world. Every society has problems, and every ethnic group has problems or roles in creating those problems. The problem...

Last year I was confirmed as the new Chairperson for the Independence Task Force for the Commission on Decolonization for Guam. The Decolonization Commission is tasked with guiding the process by which Chamorros will exercise their right to self-determination and select the next future status for the island. As part of the Commission there are three task forces, one for each of the three potential options: independence, statehood and free association. There is pretty much taya' support nowadays for these task forces, but I'm trying to do my best to get things started without any budget. A temporary website will be up soon that myself and my girlfriend are working on. A meeting will hopefully be taking place before the end of the month of Task Force members to start work on creating a position paper on why independence is the best option for Guam. I'm also creating a listserv for events and news related to decolonization and independence. I have also decided to start a i...

“The World, Deeply” Michael Lujan Bevacqua The Marianas Variety 12/28/11 Every once in a while I leaf through the pages of “The Book of Five Rings” by legendary 17th century samurai warrior Miyamoto Musashi. This text, famous for the way it brings together philosophy and strategy, is where I sometimes turn to when seeking some pidasun finayi, or fragments of wisdom. For example, when I find myself at a crossroads in terms of activism, or needing a hint of guidance on how to approach some aspect of community engagement, empowerment or consciousness raising, I find that Musashi sometimes has some great, profound, sometimes vague insights. Last year during the ideologically turbulent DEIS comment period on the Guam military buildup, I found some solace through Musashi’s notion that you should (in Chamorro) "Tungo’ i enimigu-mu, tungo’ i sapblå-ña." Or, in English, “Know your enemy, know his sword.” Part of the wisdom of this quote is that in order to defeat your enemy, ...

I love going to Anao in Yigo. I've only been there a few times, but I really enjoy it each time I go. For those of you who haven't heard of Anao, it's north of Hanom, almost on the edge of Anderson. In order to get there you hike for about 20 mins through some jungle and then get to the cliff's edge where a trail will take you down several hundred feet to the rocky limestone shore. There are some pretty cool features once you reach the limestone shore for those who love natural beauty. There is a massive rock that some people call "the pinnacle" that sticks conspciously out of the rest of the fairly flat limestone. When I took my History of Guam and World History 2 students to Anao last week, we explored to the north and found a pretty neat cove. There was a large rock, well over twenty feet high that stuck out past the shore, and was connected by a narrow land bridge. Several of my students and I climbed up it to take pictures. I recommend visiting Anao...