NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Gaige yu' pa'go giya Belau. Este i fine'nina nai hu bisita este na isla. Esta meggai hu taitai put Guiya. Meggai hiningok-hu put Guiya. Hu tungo' na este na nasion i fine'nina ni' tumachu kontra i dano' i atmas nuclear gi este na mundo. Ma pas gi i Constitution-niha i fine'nina na "taya' nukes" na lai. Siha i fine'nina fuma'tinas lokkue' un "fanliheng'an" para i halu'u siha gi i tasi. Achokka' maoriyayi yu' ni' Binelau, hu hahasso ha' iya Okinawa. Manhahami yan Si Yasukatsu Matsushima yan Si Ed Alvarez gi este na hinanao. Si Yasukatsu ha kokonne' magi i estudiante-na siha para u fanmanaligao giya Belau. Esta mambisita siha giya Guahan. Manmanaliligao siha put i islan Guahan yan i islan Belau, yan taimanu giya Guahan ti ma gubetnan maimaisa (ya i hiniyong na prublema) yan giya Belau put taimanu ma gubetnan maimaisa (ya i hiniyong maolek). Malago yu' mohon na bei fanngge...

Over the past few years I have been on many hikes here on Guam. I have seen so many beautiful things on these hikes. I have found artifacts that hundreds had probably walked by, but never noticed before. I have found latte stones that may have gone unseen for centuries before I stumbled upon them, literally. I have seen sunsets sitting on rocks that seemed to be created strictly for the purpose of allowing ones eyes to swallow the sky in massive gulps. I have seen the ocean in so many types of blue at a given moment that it both looks like one massive solid color and a multitude of disagreeing blues at the same time. Throughout these hikes the history and beauty of Guam has come alive in so many ways. I feel not only a stronger connection to the present day Guam, but also to so many versions of its throughout the past. Walking amongst latte stones where Chamorros walked hundreds of years before. Exploring caves where Chamorros and Japanese soldiers huddled hiding from American bo...

Published on Tuesday, August 6, 2013 by Common Dreams Remembering Hiroshima at Los Alamos, New Mexico by Rev. John Dear   In 1981, while traveling in Europe, some friends and I visited Dachau, the Nazi concentration camp outside of Munich. Most of it was razed to the ground, but the original fences and barbed wire remained, along with a few buildings. That was enough to send chills down the spine. It was too much for me to take in. It’s still too much for me to take in. Upon leaving, I noticed the beautiful suburban neighborhood surrounding Dachau. The houses, green trees, streets, shrubs, shops—it could have been any suburb in the U.S.—and it was right next to the Nazi concentration camp. I was shocked and asked the officials, “Was Dachau like this 35 years ago? Were these homes here?” Yes, they answered. They smelled the smoke--and went on with their lives. The normality of evil! The sub...

This Thursday at 6 pm at the Dededo Senior Center I'll be on a panel to discuss a rough cut of the documentary "Island Soldier." The film by Nathan Fitch is about the experiences of FSM Citizens who serve in the US military. I have been hearing about this film for quite a while from its director and I'm very excited to see what he has created. Micronesia is often dismissed by the world due to its smallness and its distance from places that are considered to be naturally important. What can there be of value here expect for those things which people associate with smallness, isolation and getting away from the "real" world. But one thing that this part of the world and the American Empire can claim is to have overwhelming per capita enlistment statistics in the US military. It is something that anyone who knows the United States in terms of its statistics or numerical reality is aware of, but is unsure how to process. The collection of islands that the US...

I've been successful this summer in going on a hike at least every two weeks. I've been referring to these as my "Secret Hikes" Here are some pictures of the last four:

I was racking my brain recently to determine what was the first ever Chamorro song that was featured in a motion picture. Noon Sunday was the first every motion picture to be filmed primarily on Guam, prior to that some minor filming had been done on Guam for World War II and Godzilla films but nothing substantial. Noon Sunday was not set in Guam, but it was the first film to feature extensively the island of Guam. Guam was the locale for a fictional Pacific island that was being taken over by a menacing Asian power. Almost all the speaking roles went to people from off-island (from the US or the Philippines), and Chamorros ended up playing most of the "extra" roles. As a result the film didn't feature any Chamorro music. You do find documentaries and television programs, all locally produced that feature Chamorro songs of at least Chamorros singing songs. Guam's History Through Songs, made by the late Carmen Santos is a perfect example of this. For those of you u...

This banner was used by fans during a soccer match between Japan and South Korea. It reads "There is no future for a race oblivious to history." It was meant to reference Japanese colonization and brutality in the Korean peninsula prior to and during World War II. Japan has struggled since World War II with its memory, often times opting to forget large chunks of their history in order to remake themselves and reimagine themselves and their history. Japan was once a nation of aggressors now it thinks of itself as a nation of victims. It was victimized by Western powers in the war, had two nuclear bombs dropped on it and today is forced to shoulder the humiliation of having so many US bases in their territory. This matrix of "humiliation" is helpful in keeping history at bay and preventing people from being reminded of it. Japan is often pointed to as being somehow unique in terms of its "minaleffa." In some ways the 180 degree turn that Japan did a...

Published on Friday, July 26, 2013 by Common Dreams After 60 Years of Suffering, Time to Replace Korean Armistice with Peace Treaty by Christine Ahn Sixty years ago today, the United States, North Korea and China sat down to sign the Korean Armistice Agreement to “insure a complete cessation of hostilities.” Several provisions were to guarantee a peaceful settlement, including a permanent peace agreement, withdrawal of all foreign troops, and no new arms introduced into Korea. Six decades later, none of these have been honored. As such, war, not peace, defines the relationship between Washington and Pyongyang. Official commemorations are now taking place throughout Korea and United States, mostly honoring veterans who sacrificed their lives to fight the Forgotten War. Missing from this sanctioned remembering are the nearly four million Korean, mostly civilian, lives lost in just three years....

Lately I have been so busy that I don't have as much time as I would like to write up my thoughts on this blog. I spent an entire week in Taiwan and did not write a single post. I was too busy with meetings and traveling and found that by the time I would return to my room, I would immediately collapse onto my bed without typing a single word. The month of July is one of the strangest for Guam. It is the month where the most talking about remembering takes place, but the commemoration is naturally very selective and very uninformative about Guam's history or contemporary state. I was trying to write up my thoughts before Liberation Day, but life intervened and so I'm not finished yet. I was at least happy to see that the Liberation Day coverage was not uniformly taihinasso. The usual stories were trotted out and the usual narratives were stuck onto poles and waved about for everything to salute. But amidst it all an unexpected article from Japan emerged t...

When Pale’ Diego Luis San Vitores came to Guam to Christianize the Chamorro people he had one very important secret weapon. I Fino’ Chamoru. Prior to his arrival in 1668, San Vitores had enlisted the aid of a Filipino named Esteban who had been shipwrecked for many years in the Marianas and had learned to speak Chamorro. While sailing towards Guam to start their work, San Vitores worked diligently with Esteban to become fluent in Chamorro, even writing the first grammar work and several Chamorro religious texts. When San Vitores arrived, Chamorros were amazed at his ability to speak their language, something that no newcomer had ever achieved before. The Spanish often came to Guam in two distinct groups. There were those who stopped for a very brief period primarily to take on supplies, slaves or kill a few Chamorros. For them the local people spoke gibberish. The other group were shipwrecked sailors or people who had jumped ship, like the infamous Fray Juan...

US RETURNING TO SUBIC BAY US warship being serviced yesterday at the former US Navy base at Subic Bay By Bruce Gagnon Organizing Notes space4peace.blogspot.com http://space4peace.blogspot.com/2013/07/us-returning-to-subic-bay.html   My wonderful host and guide Corazon Fabros organized another great day for me on Sunday.   Five of us loaded into a van and headed northwest towards the beautiful green mountains near the former US Navy base at Subic Bay. Once on the MacArthur Highway we again passed miles of rice paddies and I saw many workers planting the rice in the wet fields.   As we got further into the rural areas thatched roof houses became more common alongside those with the rusty tin roofs. I learned that the Catholic Church currently owns many of the rice fields.   One veteran activist told me that after the US defeated Spain and...

In a few weeks it will be the anniversary of the dropping of the A-Bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I recently picked up a book, titled White Flash, Black Rain: Women of Japan Relive the Bomb, which features poetry and testimonials from Japanese women who survived the bomb. The language and imagery are haunting and chilling in the way writing about such an inhuman experience should be. ********************** The Sky by Horiba Kiyoko I I want you all to know how blue the sky was the sky toward which the millions of rain-struck and sunburned eyes were turned How blue the sky was the sky silently embracing moans of the inflamed earth a hell more cruel than hell instantly imprinted for eternity on the retinas of dead embryos How blue the sky was after the white parachute clouds flew away far beyond the mountain range their poison mushrooms floating away on our Acheron II August 6, 1945 The day that stains humankind that day the blue sky bloomed splendid cr...

"The Road to Nowhere" Michael Lujan Bevacqua Marianas Variety 6/12/13 Last week I wrote about “decolonization stagnation” on Guam and how for a variety of reasons the quest for decolonization, at the level of the world, the UN and the United States isn’t moving very quickly. This week I wanted to discuss more about the role of the United Nations and the United States in decolonizing Guam. Despite the fact that most people have become accustomed to speaking in universals, and speaking about this world that we inhabit, most on earth see themselves in a national framework, as attached first and foremost not to this planet, but to an imagined territory upon its surface. Because of this the United Nations can have great power symbolically, representing the world’s international potential, but has little practical value. Nowhere is this more true than for those 17 territories that the UN recognizes as still being colonized and still requiring a process of decoloniz...

Decolonization today Monday, 15 Jul 2013 03:00am BY MAR-VIC CAGURANGAN | VARIETY NEWS STAFF Hits: 211 (First of a two-part series) ON JULY 21, Marine Corp Drive will be filled with parades to mark the day the U.S. Marines took Guam in a bloody 1944 battle that liberated the island from the Japanese forces during World War II. Sixty-nine years since Guam’s liberation, political leaders are again seeking liberty – this time for self-governance. “Our journey will never be complete unless we undertake to resolve our political status and to decolonize Guam,” Guam Delegate Madeleine Bordallo said during her congressional address before the 32nd Legislature on May 30. “We must renew our determination to take the necessary steps that will define our political relationship with the United States, and to give the people of Guam the political dignity that they deserve,” she added. 17 colonies Guam is one of the 17 remaining colonies in the...