NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

I haven't posted for several days and there is a very good and very incredible reason for not doing so. Over the weekend, more than 60 Chamorros, Guamanians and other allies, from around the country and from Guam gathered together at the Sons and Daughters of Guam Club in San Diego, to discuss the future of their people and their islands. The title of the gathering was Famoksaiyan: Decolonizing Chamorro Histories, Identities and Futures. The energy of this event was incredible, and so I'm still kind of hungover from that many people getting together working towards similar goals, as well as the 25 people that were playing Apples to Apples in my house the last night of the conference. What did we discover from this event? First and foremost, and most important in getting people activated, out there moving, working and organizing, is "ti maisa yu'" or "ti Hagu ha' na maisa." "You are not alone." Meaning, you are not alone in the way that you ...

Este un nuebu na kanta-hu, Hu tuge' este para un bunita na palao'an nigap. Un bunita na kanta, para un bunita na palao'an. Hu ayao i "tune" yan noskuantos na palabras ginnen i kanta "Gravity" ginnen i anime Wolf's Rain. Yanggen sina hao, kanta agang este na palabras yan i orihinat na dandan, gof bunita. Ti hu chagi pumula (trumanslada) i palabra "gravity" sa' gof ya-hu i "sound"-na, achokka' puru ha' Chamoru gi eriya-na. Pi'ot i utimo na "lines" siha. Guaha humahalla (something is pulling me), Kao este i gravity ( is this the gravity?) Guinaiya (of love). Hu diseseha na i palao'an ni' hu tugiyi este, ya-na. Un bunita na palao'an, un bunita na kanta. "Gravity" Annakko' i chalan-ta desde nai humita kao i chiku-mu ayu'us tai'agupa'? I etten labios-mu guiniefe-hu Lao ngai'an mohon mumagahet este? Sina gi i mamailan na pilan Ti matto i ichan ya i inina muna'unu hit...

Didide' ha' tiempo tetehnan esta ki i Dinanan Famoksaiyan guini giya San Diego. Gof magof hu nai sa' achokka' taya' salape' este na fine'nina chinagi, meggai taotao pau fanmatto, mas ki 50 yanggen dinanche i emails hu risisibi. (Yanggen mas ki 60, dimalas, sa' i catering u na'haspok 50 ha', siempre bai hu famahan KFC) Ti hu hulat muna'komprende i minagof-hu yan inexcitment-hu put este. Ti gefsaga' yu' put kosas material, ya parehu ha' para este na dinana, menos di un mit pesos para todu, i ligat, i nenkanno', i printing. Put este na pinepble, ti meggai na sina hu guahayi i manmatto. Lao ti hu na'atok este, ti hu chagi pumuni na "grass roots" hit. Hu diseseha na todu ma komprende este a ma li'e i minachalapon-na este na konfrensia! Kinase' ha'. Estague i mas pa'go na schedule yan listan mamafa'nu'i siha: FAMOKSAIYAN: Decolonizing Chamorro Histories Identities and Futures April 14 – 15th, 20...

I just read the article posted below about a man in Malaysia receiving a $218 trillion phone bill. Naturally I feel very relieved. That $217 trillion phone bill I received from Cingular last week, doesn't seem to bad now. April 10, 2006 KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - (AP) A Malaysian man said he nearly fainted when he received a U.S. $218 trillion phone bill and was ordered to pay up within 10 days or face prosecution, a newspaper reported Monday. Yahaya Wahab said he disconnected his late father's phone line in January after he died and settled the 84-ringgit (U.S. $23) bill, the New Straits Times reported. But Telekom Malaysia later sent him a 806,400,000,000,000.01-ringgit (U.S. $218 trillion) bill for recent telephone calls along with orders to settle within 10 days or face legal proceedings, the newspaper reported. It wasn't clear whether the bill was a mistake, or if Yahaya's father's phone line was used illegally after his death. "If the company wants to seek ...

Someone needs to take Glenn Beck's land, force him into a reservation, and then speak patrionizingly about his cultural loss. Ai sina taiguihi mohon, magof yu' siempre... Why are things such as ethnic studies necessary? Because even though "race" has supposedly been taken out of the realm of law (for example, Civil Rights legislation), racism has not at all disappeared. We now have what Balibar has called, "racism without race." We can see it in the following report, and all around us, such as the news coverage around Hurrican Katrina. Although racism cannot openly be admitted to, as such, it nonetheless seeks out particular moments for justification, and latches onto them. Zizek discusses one such moment in his article "The Subject Supposed to Loot and Rape," where unverified reports from New Orleans after Katrina, claimed massive beatings, killings and rapings were taking place, were simply reported by the News Media. It later turned out that the...

Here's a silly question that I came across, that was one of the Guampdn's recent polls. Guampdn poll: Should political status issues be more strongly incorporated into high school Guam history classes? What this question is really achagigu asking and resisting is this, Should reality be taught in schools? First of all, reality should be taught in schools, especially this particular way of thinking about reality. The way Guam relates to the United States is what makes life in Guam, largely the way it is. How Guam relates to countries around it in Asia, to the islands around it in Micronesia is all filtered through a privileged and fairly uncritical colonial relationship with the United States. Why is there so much fear and dread surrounding discussions about things on Guam, whether it be government efficiency/corruption, poor economic possibilities, littering, as potentially being "third world?" School and media are prime locations for answering these questions. We are...

There are two main reasons why my academic work is obsessively about Guam. The first is that I am obviously ethnocentric. Although I would definitely place my people as one of the most ridiculous in the world (how freakin patriotic can we get?), I nonetheless love them. We were after all builders of towering acho' megaliths, and consumate navigators and sailors, and today we are some of the best barbequers in the world, and appear to have incredible genes for acoustic guitar playing (does my half haoleness show in the fact that I did not inhereit this particular gene?). This is why of course I love stuff like Malafunkshun, and allow O.G.G. as a discourse to continue (without slipping into psychotic frustration) despite my knowledge of its origins and how and why it became hegemonic (see colonization for more information). I am very proud of the fact that we have survived centuries of colonization, and that despite Americanizing pressures to forget our language and relinquish the c...

I'm thinking about doing a paper on Cowboy Bopeep/ Cowboy Bebop for an anime journal. The theme of the issue is "The Limits of the Human." This of course usually translates into Ghost in the Shell type interventions which question the status of humans as the products of our knowledge reveal the horrifying lack of a gap between our loves and hopes and science. (The opening quote taken from Tomorrow's Eve, " If our Gods and our hopes are nothing but scientific phenomena, then let us admit it must be said that our love is scientific as well.") To be truthful however, these types of interventions do get tiresome after a while. What I would want if I do write this article is to focus on the limits of the human within the human. One finds a plethora of examples of this in Lacanian theory, through Zizek's articulations most frequently around issues of ethics. If for example the human is demarcated through pleasure and pain, then in the death drive we find the l...

Okay, okay, I admit it, I have been re-reading Michael Hardt and Tony Negri's texts, Empire and Multitude again. The reason being, I got ahold of a coopy of Empire's New Clothes: Reading Hardt and Negri, and really enjoyed the essays. There's one by Ernesto Laclau, another by Peter Fitzpatrick, one by Slavoj Zizek, and a number of others. While all must attest to the obvious and overall correctness of Empire, they nonetheless pinpoint of number of theoretical weakpoints in the duo's theories. For example, Laclau's intervention asks in its title, "Can Immanence Explain Social Struggles?" putting into question the theoretical edifice and genealogies of Hardt and Negri that leads them to their concept of multitude, and whether or not politics is still possible under it. In Zizek's essay "The Ideology of Empire and Its Traps," he makes a similar critique, "Does the Deleuzian theory that forms the philosophical background of Empire provide th...

Here are 10 "words" which I will be incorporating into my speech this week, as if they had always already been there. They originated as a number of different things, slips in speech, botched attempts at greatness, accidentally kismet or resonance, nothing in common becoming an obvious commonality. Remember nai, language is about expression, not communication. Tinaktak: To be well connected, especially in terms of getting employed in the Government of Guam. Origin: While saying that someone was "gof connected," Madonna misheard me and thought that I said that he was "tinaktak." "Kao un hungok put Si Bernadette, gof tinaktak gui'." Chahiro: Warm chocolate milk. Origin: Something my little sister Alina came up with after watching Miyazaki's Spirited Away. Not exactly sure how or why. "You guys want some chahiro before we watch Howl's Moving Castle?" Buntakun: A big dork, in particular someone who has either prima donna tende...

I received this email from a a woman named Liane Allen, telling me that Guam actually has the power to start impeachment proceedings against President Bush. The email has gotten me very excited and actually helped push my work in a different direction. She probably didn't know when she wrote this to me, that she had touched upon what is the repressed fantasy of nearly everyone in the colonies. As she wrote, "This is one of those rare instances when a Territory can have an actual influence on the US Congress." Life in the Guam is all about narrating yourself a place in a world that you are basically supposed to accept. You are given limits, clear limits, and your job as a good colonial citizen is to create a beautiful tapestry of colonial life (which paints a beautiful patriotic and devotional portrait of the colonizer) that does not in anyway threaten these limits. In other words, that does not threaten the US military and national interests in Guam. So, take Chamorro lan...

Yesterday I had so much fun, too much fun. I spent literally half the day, twelve hours straight eating, talking, sharing photos and -YES- dancing, with this beautiful girl. But one of my most common glitches soon emerged. The day hadn't started out as a date, just a lunch together. I love hanging out with this girl, for several reasons. First, she is the first Chamorro I've met at UCSD, although I had heard several rumors about others (yet another reason to believe that we are ghosts in this country that haunt America's history, "did you hear about the Chamorro in __insert academic department___?"). Second, she is passionate about the future of our people and working towards it (she is awesome, because this commitment entails writing legislation, as well as trying to make a Chamorro language soap opera! Olaha mohon umbee, olahao taiguihi mohon! ). Third and most importantly, sina fumino' Chamoru gui'! Did you catch that? If not, let me say it again, este ...

Published on Saturday, March 25, 2006 by the Madison Capital Times (Wisconsin) Feingold Stands Alone Again When Standing on Principle by Joel McNally By now it's no surprise when Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold steps out ahead of his colleagues in Washington on the most important political issues of the day. In the U.S. Senate, most politicians prefer to hide under their desks during any controversy until a clear majority is formed on one side. Then they crawl through the ankles of the crowd, stand upright and pose for smiling pictures at the front of the pack. Feingold is that rare politician who actually feels comfortable taking a principled stand even if it means standing alone. It's a leadership style that requires, well, leading. But it's definitely not for the timid. There are no potted plants to hide behind. The only satisfaction comes from being right from the start. Right about the war in Iraq, right about the attack on American freedoms launched under the cover of f...

Kuantos biahi debi di bai sangan hao na gof mangge este na boi, Si Julian? Pues, estague un biahi ta'lo. Gof malate' yan gof mangge. I Nasion Chamoru ~ The Chamoru Nation "State of the Nation" By Julian Aguon The noise of the militarism around us makes it hard to hear. But there are thoseamong us working desperately hard to quiet it down, at least long enough to callour people from the coffins of our apathy. I Nasion Chamoru (hereafter, I Nasion) is on the move again, moving among old wounds, but at the intersections of new dangers, such as an administration whose push to privatize too much of our infrastructure is threatening the integrity of our already burdened home, an administration whose negligence is made more dangerous by an alarming alliance between a corporate-controlled media and an out-for-profit-at-who-knows-what-cost business community called the Chamber of Commerce. The nation worked with bent back all last year trying to stop the mass privatization cam...

Here is one of my older Chamorro love songs. Alot of the words are actually pretty old and funky and I rarely find people who can understand them. Nai ilek-hu "bihu" pat "funky" ti kumekeilek-hu tahdong Chamoru na palabras ha'. Guaha lokkue antigu na sinangan Chamoru ni' manmaayao ginnen Fino' Espanot. Put hemplo, estaba hu chagi muna'setba "direchas kuetdas" lao kalang ni' hayi kumomprende, so pues para hafa! The oldness also relates to how I borrowed some of the phrases from old improvisational long songs that manamko' related to me. One reason why I'm posting this is because of an oddly romantic feeling this morning, no idea why. Maybe its because of a refreshing dream I had last night that I cannot remember in waking life. There are so many disparate threads of attraction in my life right now, but nothing secure, nothing certain. A number of beautiful women, linked to me through beautiful, yet naturally ephemeral moments. A ...

Several years ago I made for the Guam Communications Network and their publication The Galaide, a Chamorro Activist Quiz. In it, I provided a number of infamous Chamorro sayings throughout the past few centuries, with the list of the speakers randomly assigned along the left side of the page. The object of course, to read the quotes and then match them to their author. Naturally the task was incredibly difficult for most people, especially since The Galaide is primarily for the Chamorro community in the United States. Yanggen sumasaga hao giya Guahan, siempre un hungok put este na taotao, achokka' ti un tungo' put i sinangan. Lao yanggen taotao Amerika hao, siempre taya' tiningo'-mu put este siha. Although most people were impressed with it, and learned something from it, former Congressman Robert Underwood was the only person I know of who was actually able to complete it. Its funny, There were 18 quotes and 18 Chamorros, and I had two scales on which you could calcula...