NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Sina un fahan i tiket-mu siha gi este na website: nihikids.org Gof maolek este na sho, sa' ha na'dadana' i lenguahi yan i kuttura yan i humuyong-na ma fa'na'na'gue i ume'egga' positive na values put i irensia-ta, komo tiningo', lenguahi pat guinaha yan tano'.

Several years ago the Muna Brothers started a website called Guamology. It was a pretty cool website, even if it only lasted for about a year. It had regular columns and features about Guam cultural activities and current events. I was a regular writer for it and some of my favorite pieces that I've written recently were conceived initially as articles for Guamology. The Muna Brothers would conduct regular interviews with people they felt were making a difference or had a positive and inspirational message to share. One such interview was with David Khorram, who wrote the book World Peace, A Blind Wife and Gecko Tails, drawn from a series of columns he did for the Saipan Tribune. If you haven't had a chance to read it, you can find copies of it had Bestseller and sometimes the UOG bookstore. On his blog Marianas Eye, he posted the transcript of that interview that you can read below.  ********************** Guamology Interview David Khorram Marianas Eye August 7, 2...

The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon is one of the books that has had a huge impact on me. You can interpret this book to be so many things, although people traditionally focus on the call for violent nationalist revolutions as a means of decolonization. For me I have used Fanon's work, in particular this book in order to articulate so many of my own ideas about social change, in particular in Guam. He wrote a time when decolonization was a tide and it was something that he both channeled and rode. In the context of that time, but also even today when so much of the world has banished his writing to echoes of a bloody and mistaken past, there is still so much power behind them. Here is his last chapter, his conclusion to The Wretched of the Earth, which more than anything shows the humanist and idealist of Fanon, and the promise that decolonization always holds. ************************ Now, comrades, now is the time to decide to change sides. We ...

The exhibit I worked on for the Guam Humanities Council titled Sindalu: Chamorro Journey Stories in the US Military is currently on display at the Isla Center for the Arts at UOG. As part of the exhibit I've given several scholarly tours to students, teachers and veterans. Although the exhibit itself features so many stories, the interaction with these groups often yields even more stories. Sometimes people will find themselves or their ancestors in the photos. They will offer up another perspective or another facet of someone's anecdote. Sometimes they challenge things and sometimes they express their gratefulness that an exhibit like this has been put together. I teach many aspects of the exhibit in my own classes, but I have appreciated the way the research and writing for the exhibit and then the way I have developed my talk for the tours has led me to really think about the progression of Chamorros and their relationship to the United States, through their military servi...

In terms of situating Chamorro pasts and giving a founding meaning to their history and identity, Fu'una and Puntan, the two siblings who created Guam and Chamorros are generally given that great honor. They are thought of more and more as being the founding spirits, whether you see them as Gods, historical figures, metaphors or fantasies. They are taking a key place of meaning in terms of rooting Chamorro identity today, not as a spirit that was created in 1521 or 1668, but as something longer and having its own distinct origin. Even those who refuse to believe in Fu'una and Puntan as being spirits, but see them as possible historical figures, who may have been the ones to lead a voyage to Guam long ago, nonetheless reinforce their primacy. In one of the earliest references that we have to Fu'una and Puntan, Fu'una herself is not even mentioned. Puntan is mentioned and so is his "sister," but she is hardly given a role. In this passag...

I miss having Robert Underwood in the US Congress. I often tell my students that the position of the non-voting delegate is where you can see so much of Guam's colonial position in action on a regular basis. While the delegate is supposed to be the tokenistic cover that hides the real existence of colonialism, it nonetheless constantly exudes that truth. The colonial position of Guam, its stupidity, its inequity, the sea of inclusions and exclusions are all realized in the strange existence of the non-voting delegate, and are all visible regardless of how many American flags or bald eagles they stand patriotically in front of. When Underwood ran for the Governor of Guam position in 2002 and lost, he gave a very important lecture series at UOG called "Thinking Out Loud." He discussed his time in office there, but most importantly discussed the need for Guam to re-imagine its relationship to the United States in a way that would be more productive and more closely relat...

I'll be posting more details, but for now here is the flyer. This is a program I am working on with Kenneth Gofigan Kuper and Edward Alvarez through the Chamorro Studies program. Jimmy Huang a linguistic professor at UOG initially conceived of the idea and is also assisting. We recently had a press conference/photo op for this project and we've had great public response. We'll be starting in the next month or two.

For the past year I've been working under Dr. Faye Untalan on the I Ma'adahen Fino' Chamorro gi Koleho project, a grant funded by the Administration of Native Americans to create a standardized curriculum for teaching Chamorro at the college level. I've been working with Chamorro teachers from the Marianas and Hawai'i to put together a draft curriculum and we are currently pilot testing it at GCC, NMC and GCC. With the drafting of this curriculum we've gone through months of editing and polishing. Hundreds and perhaps more than a thousand potential pages were produced for the curriculum thus far, and the majority of it has been edited and erased. These pages contained exercises, activities, drills, vocabulary lists, grammar lessons and of course dialogues. Alot of these materials I've been holding on to since it can always be used somewhere else, even if it doesn't make it into this particular project. Below is one of the dialogues that was cut. It w...