NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Recently I visited the Faniyakan Sinipok or the Guam Department of Education Immersion school to hold a storytelling session with the families of the program's students.  Similar to the families for I Maga'låhen Hurao Charter School, while the children may progress and show great development in the Chamoru language, unless the parents are fluent or are working hard to learn Chamoru on their own, they will fall far behind and not be able to support the learning of their children.  I've seen it many times in the Hurao school where children begin to develop fluency, but they hit a ceiling because first, the limited amount of peers that they can speak and identify with, and second, because their family can't match their fluency or learning level. While their families are interested in having them learn Chamoru, the parents themselves are often not fluent or not actively committed to learning, and so their children will quickly hit a ceiling.  It is for this reason that when...

   Maila guinaiyå-ku Achokka’ chatangmak Sa’ esta mumamaigo’ i neni siha Pega i ilu-mu gi pecho-ku Ya bai hu chiku i gaputilu-mu   Maila guinaiyå-ku Achokka’ mumamaigo’ yu’ Na’suha i alunan siha Maila hålom gi guinife-hu Ya un toktok yu’   Maila guinaiyå-ku Achokka’ bula hulu yan låmlam Gi puengi Åsson gi fi’on-hu gi katre-ta Ya bai hu nginge’ i tiyån-mu

  My grandfather, the late Joaquin Flores Lujan or Tun Jack, dedicated half of his life to displaying, demonstrating and teaching about Chamoru blacksmithing. He taught more than a dozen apprentices and presented a hundreds of fairs and schools. He was recognized as a Master of Chamoru Culture for his dedication to the trade that he was taught by his father from the age of 9, and received many awards for his work in promoting it.   For years I would take grandpa to the Chamorro Village where he had a shop to display and sell his tools. He had on the walls photos, certificates, newspaper articles about himself. He also had tools from his father and examples of the tools a blacksmith uses and the stages different tools go through in their creation. He also had his many awards. On shelves and tables he had the several Governor's Art Awards, which later became the Maga'låhi Art Awards that he had received during the tenures of Governors Ada and Gutierrez.    For about 20...

I matai ha’ na taotao ti mangguiguife” or only a dead person does not dream. Not a common Chamoru wisdom saying, but one with profound meanings on two different levels. In the first, more practical way, everyone, from the richest, to the poorest, to the happiest, to the saddest, wants something more out of life. There may be dramatic differences, and what they want may be big or small. It may rip the fabric of social reality or do nothing more that create a minute ripple. Only those who have passed away are not capable of imagining themselves or the world differently. This saying is meant to nudge someone or remind them that the point of life is change, growth, evolution. That there will be plenty of time for the opposite in death. But the saying also holds extra, critical meaning for Chamorus people as a colonized people, where not just their lands, language and culture have been stolen or hijacked, but even their ability to dream for themselves or their people. Over centur...

  I have been around and involved in movements and organizations that do work around language and culture for more than 25 years now. Sometimes I think of my start in these discussions as beginning when I started to learn Chamoru 25 years ago while a senior at the University of Guam. But in truth, it started in small ways a few years earlier while I was helping my grandfather sell his blacksmith tools at this shop at the Chamorro Village in Hagåtña and at different cultural fairs. While I was by no means an expert and often times could care less about the conversations around me, because I was my grandfather's driver and his helper, I ended up participating in cultural politics years before I became passionate about them. Sometimes as I look back, given how involved I've been it is easy to feel that things have changed or things are different because I am so familiar with the issues that what might seem inconsequential to some or minor to others, seems major or significant to m...

This Saturday, September 20th, Independent Guåhan will be holding a Teach-In at Senator Angel Santos Memorial Latte Stone Park from 2 - 4 pm titled "From Hurao to Fanohge: 350 Years of Chamoru Resistance." This event is free and open to anyone. The title comes from two key events in understanding Chamoru history and resistance to colonialism in its different forms across time.   In September 1670/1671, Maga’låhi Hurao who had been gathering families who were frustrated with the new Spanish presence in the Marianas and forming a coalition to oppose their interference, was arrested by Spanish soldiers and taken prisoner in the church. Hurao's speech is meant to be an example of the rhetoric that he was using that was inspiring so many families to come forth and offer their spears and slingstones in support of his cause.   An estimated 2,000 warriors surrounded the church, which had been hastily transformed into a fort, to demand his release and the surrender of the ...