#Guåhan

[elea-mar]

From Laos

To Palestine

[whenua-and-moana]

The po'ouli was one of ten "American" bird species declared officially extinct by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2023. Eight were from Hawai'i, one from Guåhan, and one from the mainland USA.

(A note: the drawing of the Maui 'ākepa is actually a Hawai'i 'ākepa, a separate and still living species. The Maui 'ākepa was green.)

Also declared extinct were the little Mariana fruit bat (of Guåhan), two species of mainland USA fish, and eight species of mussels.

From the Wikipedia article on the Kaua'i 'ō'ō:

It was the last surviving member of the Mohoidae, which had originated over 15-20 million years previously during the Miocene, with the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō's extinction marking the only extinction of an entire avian family in over 500 years.

The last po’ouli died in an unusual nest. Too weak to perch, the brownish-greyish songbird rested in a small towel twisted into a ring. He was the last of his species, the last in fact of an entire group of finches, and occurred nowhere on Earth outside his native Hawaii. For weeks, as scientists tried to find him a mate, he had been getting sicker. The only remaining po’ouli had just one eye. Alone in the towel, alone in all the world, he closed it.

Extinction Obituary for the quiet and beautiful Hawaiian po’ouli

[keeeyneni]

Little dump from work.

[zvaigzdelasas]

14 Aug 23

With the deadline for residents to weigh in on the proposed 360-degree missile defense system for Guam passing Friday, demonstrators gathered at the Chief Kepuha Park roundabout in Hagåtña for a protest for peace. Members of activist group Prutehi Litekyan: Save Ritidan and Independent Guåhan, as well as other concerned citizens, stood along the roadside holding signs emblazoned with the slogans "No war for Guåhan," "Defend the sacred!" and "No more imperialist war games" as the evening traffic rush ramped up.[...]

Beyond raising concerns regarding the environment, natural and cultural resources, and land that the group has raised with previous military construction projects, Flores said she doesn't believe the system will bring more security for Guam. "It's really important that we ask ourselves what genuine security means," she said. "It ... definitely means more than national security. It means having clean water, living in our homeland without the risk of war ... and we feel that the missile defense system definitely makes us a bigger target for war."

Though the system is being sold as a way to protect Guam, its purpose is to help use Guam as a base for the U.S. military to project force and protect the nation, she said.[...]

U.S. Indo-Pacific Command has called the Guam Defense System the top national defense priority for the region.

19 Aug 23

[solipseismic]

2023 poetry rec list

technically a day late but who cares! i don't. it's gonna be a long one this year too despite not having read or written as much poetry as of late; i'm putting my overall fifteen favorite + poetry book recs up here and the rest below a cut to spare your dashboards :)

2022

2021

books:

calling a wolf a wolf (kaveh akbar)

cinema of the present (lisa robertson)

dictee (theresa hak kyung cha)

pilgrim bell (kaveh akbar)

prelude to bruise (saeed jones)

the crown ain't worth much (hanif abdurraqib)

top 15:

abecedarian requiring further examination of anglikan seraphym subjugation of a wild indian reservation (natalie diaz)

about eight minutes of light (robert king)

at luca signorelli's resurrection of the body (jorie graham)

ginen the micronesian kingfisher [i sihek] (craig santos perez)

gods, gods, powers, lord, universe-- (chen chen)

kupu rere kē (alice te punga somerville)

look (solmaz sharif)

ode to the 9,000 year old woman (@/goodbyevitamin)

one art (elizabeth bishop)

petitioning the patron saint of childbirth (danielle boodoo-fortuné)

so mexicans are taking jobs from americans (jimmy santiago baca)

the death loop (jon lovett)

the difficult miracle of black poetry in america: something like a sonnet for phillis wheatley (june jordan)

the madwoman as rasta medusa (shara mccallum)

vocabulary (safia elhillo)

& the gun echoed for centuries; interlude with drug of course; & the light devours us all (yasmin belkhyr)

a brother named gethsemane (natalie diaz)

a map to the next world (joy harjo)

between autumn equinox and winter solstice, today (emily jungmin yoon)

cherish this ecstasy (david james duncan)

coffins (derick thomson)

conflict resolution for holy beings (joy harjo)

failing and flying (jack gilbert)

ginen tidelands [latte stone park] [hagåtña, guåhan] (craig santos perez)

how to be a dog (andrew kane)

i love you to the moon & (chen chen)

i'm sorry birds (@/quezify)

insomnia and the seven steps to grace (joy harjo)

i was sleeping where the black oaks move (louise erdrich)

i watch her eat the apple (natalie diaz)

moth wings and other things (@/grendel-menz)

my father (ollie schminkey)

my soldier, my stranger (scherezade siobhan)

new year's day (joan tierney)

october (louise glück)

praise song for oceania (craig santos perez)

praise the rain (joy harjo)

real estate (richard siken)

sharing a cigarette with joan of arc (dante emile)

song of the anti-sisyphus (chen chen)

table (edip cansever, transl. richard tillinghast)

tear it down (jack gilbert)

temporary job (minnie bruce pratt)

the blue dress (saeed jones)

the lesson of the moth (don marquis)

the universe, as in one last song for the lonely hearts (michelle hulan)

throwing children (ross gay)

untitled (joan tierney)

voices (naomi shihab nye)

when i die i want your hands on my eyes (pablo neruda)

why i am not coming in to work today (jess zimmerman)

wolf moon (nina maclaughlin)

yes, it was the mountain echo (william wordsworth)

[kingskrazzyart]

"--And with the utmost of my strength / I offer myself to protect and to defend the beliefs / the culture / the language / the air / the water and the land of the Palestinians." -Guåhan's (Guam's) Inifresi modified in solidarity with Palestinians.

A while ago, I saw videos of palestinians throwing stones at IDF tanks and soilders, however what surprised me was that some used slingstones. I am indigenous CHamoru and in our culture the slingstone is our signature weapon. So much so that the stone itself, the åcho’ atupa, is what inspired the shape of the Guam Seal.

It is the responsibility of indigenous people everywhere to fight against genocide and ethnic cleansing. When one of us are attacked, we must lend our stones in solidarity. If you can't attend protests, call your politicians. Can't call your politicians? Then donate. Can't donate? Then Boycott. Can't Boycott? Then spread the word. Can't spread the word in person? Then do it online.

Colonization is painful. Losing ones culture is painful. March is Mes CHamoru/Pulan CHamoru (CHamoru heritage month). Matå'pang was a måga'lahi (male village leader) who fought against Spanish colonial rule. All Indigenous people are owed their freedom from their oppressors.

CEASEFIRE NOW.

FREE PALESTINE.

[fatehbaz]

The archipelago of uplifted coral that is my mother’s homeland surfaced during the earth’s ancient cycles of glaciation. The early people came in sakmans, carried by wind and seas, guided by stars and clouds and bioluminescence, the fragrance of flowers, the flight paths of birds. Settlers lived and fished and farmed in this part of Oceania for thousands of years, but the naming history issues forth at the moment of subjugation. Islas de los Ladrones -- the Islands of Thieves -- they were called by the first Europeans who came. Then Islas de las Velas, the Islands of the Lateen Sails. Then the Mariana Islands, in honor of Spain’s queen regent. Before it was Guam, Guåhan was known, under Japanese rule, as Omiya Jima, the Great Shrine Island. [...] Elsewhere, settlements recall the body of the creation god Puntan: Tiyan, his flat stomach. Hagåtña, his blood. Toto, his resting back. Mongmong, his beating heart. [...]

These small islands have grown crowded with denotations, I try to tell a friend, except it comes out as detonations. [...]

---

I am reading from a passage on CHamoru history and culture. Kåntan Chamorita is an ancestral form of call-and-response, a spontaneous sung dialogue. [...] Thumbing the texts, I brandish our histories: the brutality of Japanese rule; the architectural colonization that drove the CHamoru from los antiguos, their dwelling places in latte houses; the violation of natural resources brought about by American occupation.

She [mother] tsks, waves impatiently. Hekkua’. An expression that means at once “I don’t know” and “Forget it.”  [...]

In 1917, the U.S. Navy banned the CHamoru language in the Mariana Islands. A few years later, by order of U.S. naval captain Adelbert Althouse, all CHamoru dictionaries were burned. The language was said to represent a cognitive deficiency. The adoption of English would ensure, among other things, mental well-being.

The ban has since been lifted, but my mother hid her language for so long, it’s become hard to find.

What is the word for sky? I ask her.

She shakes her head. Nothing word for sky. Only heaven: långet. [...]

---

And so did we sail out. For more than ten years [...]. We moved into other countries where other languages had been suppressed and where other people had been made invisible. There were signs [...]. In New Zealand, where I went to kindergarten, Ma¯ori children were beaten for speaking te reo in schools. Bislama was prohibited in Vanuatu, but I only remember the quietness of the bay, the great banyan trees, the malaria pills. In New Caledonia, where I went to elementary school, the Kanak languages were banned from the education system from 1863 until 1984. Gendarmes in Nouméa stood on street corners with machine guns slung across their chests. [...]

My mother is telling us something exciting. She trips happily over the words, her face laughing. [...] My mother did not want me speaking like her. She wanted me to be better than that, which is to say better than her. [...]

Kao piniten hao? -- Have you been hurt?

Hunggan. Mayulang, yu’ -- Yes. I’m breaking.

My mother corrects me: mayulang only applies to a thing that’s broken, not a person. You can be hurt, she tells me, but not broken. [...]

---

The etymology of translation refers to the removal of a saint’s body to a new location, to bearing bones and words, both sacred, across. As if anything can be moved whole [...].

We never heard the end of my mother’s stories. [...] These days, she is happy to let most of her sentences go unfinished. [...]

She raises her eyebrows, juts her chin.

I tell her, You’re a book of lost endings.

Which one? she asks.

---

It’s too small here, I said. It’s boring, hot. It’s too small. [...] We spent two years sleeping on my auntie’s living room floor. Unrolling futons and lying under the weeping air conditioning unit and peeling paint. We ate Spam and rice with ketchup. [...]

Lately, I have been confusing the CHamoru word for flight, malagu, with the word for flee, falagu. [...]

I dream now of the islands and wake with my head barely above water, my mouth filling with salt. [...]

Mamaolek ha’? -- Are you doing okay?

Maolek. I’m doing okay.

---

Text by: Hannah Dela Cruz Abrams. “Moving the Saints: Passages from a deconstructed homeland.” Orion Magazine. Spring 2023. [Some paragraph breaks and contractions added by me.]

[guess-how-i-stole-this-body]

For the longest time, We, as CHamorus have felt small. We are tiny. Insignificant. Truth be told, I cannot even be sure if there even is a "we" in this equation. I remember being told how most Americans don't think we exists. How they think we use sand paper dollars on an uncivilized island. How when Mawar ripped through our island, I was Guamanian and not CHamoru and Military men should get resources first above the Locals who's homes were destroyed (military men live on base where everything is cheaper). I cannot believe I am supposed to be grateful to a country that does not care.

America "saved us" from Japanese concentration camps during WW2 only to force us to sell land for less than 20 bucks.

I am supposed to be grateful when the main reason I love a good life is because of the military?

I am supposed to be thankful when that same military funds a genocide? For what? For who? If there are voices who need to stand with Palestinians the most, it's CHamoru voices. It's indigenous voices. It's those who will never know what it's like to cry because a kids show mentioned your island.

Happy Mes CHamoru

Biba Guåhan.

[chpasifiku]

Hulio 11, 2023

Yigo, Guåhan 🌧 24°C 30°C 25°C

Surat Thani, Surat Thani, Thailand ⛅ 25°C 39°C 28°C

Hat Yai, Songkhla, Thailand  💧☔ 25°C 41°C 27°C

Jimenez, Misamis Occ., Filipinas  🌥 23°C 31°C 24°C

Okinawa, Ryukyu, Chapan ☁ 29°C 46°C 33°C

Zamboanga City, Filipinas ☁ 26°C 34°C 27°C

Islan Wake, EEUU, Pasifiku ☁ 19°C 31°C 20°C

Bacoor, Cavite, Filipinas ☁ 28°C 41°C 29°C

General Santos City, Filipinas   ☔  25°C 35°C 26°C

Siaton, Negros Or., Filipinas ⛅ 26°C 42°C 27°C

Haruyan/Sungai Buluh, Kalimantan, Indonesia ⛅ 25°C 46°C 26°C

El Chalten, Santa Cruz, Athentina  🌞  -11°C -11°C -11°C

Pejarakan, Bali, Indonesia ☁  23°C 32°C 25°C

Eriste, Huesca, España 🌞 14°C 19°C 15°C

[sumahi]

Laso’ Fouha - Fouha Rock, Humåtak, Guåhan

[sunflower-shell]

Also! Free Borikén/Puerto Rico! Free Hawai'i! Free Guåhan/Guam! Free the "Virgin Islands"! So many of y'all usamerican leftists are willing to advocate for freedom from imperial domination until it comes to the US's own colonies!

Don't forget it's still free Palestine, Congo, Sudan, Yemen, West Papua, Tigray, Haiti, Burma/Myanmar, Uyghurs, Syria, Kashmir, Cameroon, Armenia and Kurdistan.

Regardless of who you are or where you come from, if you do not feel outrage, anguish, and grief for these innocent lives lost, something is amiss, and you must consider why you lack the drive to take action.

Their fight should be considered our fight, as it is one for human rights.

[harriswalz4usabybr]

Sunday, September 22, 2024 - Kamala Harris

In Guam to spend some time in the last of the Pacific territories, Vice President Harris accompanied by US Senator Mazie Hirono, Secretary Deb Harland, Governor Jay Inslee, and US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will be spending two days in the territory hosting two events each day. Below is the 'official' schedule for today.

Event #1 Event Location: Roy's Restaurant Event Type: Lunch with Local Leaders Event Time: 13:00-15:30 ChST *The Governor and all 15 members of the Liheslaturan Guåhan (Guam's Legislature) as well as justices of Guam Judiciary and the lone Chief Judge of the Federal Court were invited to share a lunch with the Vice President and campaign surrogates. This lunch was about listening to what is happening here in Guam and what the Harris-Walz administration could do for the territory once in office.

Event #2 Event Location: Capitol Kitchen Event Type: Dinner with Troops Event Time: 18:00-21:00 ChST *The campaign invited troops stationed in Guam to swing by Capitol Kitchen to have dinner with them. We had several discussions with the troops about their service and what it means for them to be stationed in Guam and what they think a president should be doing to support the US troops.

~BR~

[ayquebella]

Vintage Guam Guåhan Great Seal of Guam Island Bamboo-Style Framed Sterling Silver Pendant Charm

Gorgeous and sophisticated, sterling silver pendant charm representing Guam, Tano I’ ManChamorro (“the Land of the Chamorros.”) Guam is the largest and southernmost island of the Mariana Islands chain and because it is the easternmost point and territory of the United States, along with the Northern Mariana Islands, and because of its proximity to the International Date Line, the beautiful island is often referred to as “where America’s day begins.” Due to Guam’s remarkable history and the resilience, strength and innovation of the Guamanian people, the island’s population enjoys a rich, multicultural, modern, and urban diversity.

This stunning and petite pendant charm is of the Great Seal of Guam which portrays Agaña Bay near Hagåtña, a local sailboat and a coconut palm tree with the beautiful name of GUAM. A bamboo-style frame border surrounds the outline of this gorgeous pendant charm, and it has an undisturbed, natural patina that enhances its beauty tremendously. It will be a very elegant conversation starter when worn!

[guess-how-i-stole-this-body]

It's ridiculous how people will notice dying cultures, acknowledge the need to preserve them, and turn around and blame immigrants and not colonial powers. This is coming from someone who lives in a melting pot AND has a dying culture. Our Philipino neighbors, Chuukese classmates, Polynesian, and Melanesian friends don't destroy CHamoru culture. But y'know what does? The shitty 30 minutes a day CHamoru classes only for elementary students. The fact the USA taxed the use of OUR OWN LANGUAGE in public places. In the 70's when we developed a better education system for learning CHamoru (one that was SUCCESSFUL) suddenly the federal government no longer had the money to fund it. The Spanish demonization of our TåoTåomo'na (the literal ancestors before). The Christianization of our Island (Guåhan).

Immigration adds more color to the culture scene. Colonization destroys it, then pits populations against one another.

How much you want to bet certain people will use "post colonialism" and "anti-colonialism" to justify anti-immigrant/xenophobic attitudes and say people should never visit much less stay in other countries and should just stay in their own land i.e promoting isolationism?

Oh but people have been. That's not a new sentiment or act, unfortunately.

[chpasifiku]

Måyu 11, 2023

Yigo, Guåhan ☁ 26°C 29°C 27°C

Surat Thani, Surat Thani, Thailand ☁ 23°C 42°C 28°C

Hat Yai, Songkhla, Thailand  ☁ 25°C 43°C 27°C

Jimenez, Misamis Occ., Filipinas ⛅   24°C 32°C 26°C

Okinawa, Ryukyu, Chapan   ⛅   17°C 28°C 18°C

Zamboanga City, Filipinas ☁ 27°C 43°C 38°C

Islan Wake, EEUU, Pasifiku ⛅ 21°C 30°C 22°C

Bacoor, Cavite, Filipinas ☁ 28°C 40°C 29°C

General Santos City, Filipinas   ⛅  24°C 46°C 28°C

Siaton, Negros Or., Filipinas ⛅ 27°C 42°C 28°C

Haruyan/Sungai Buluh, Kalimantan, Indonesia ☁ 25°C 46°C 26°C

El Chalten, Santa Cruz, Athentina   🌞 0°C 4°C 1°C

Pejarakan, Bali, Indonesia ☁  25°C 46°C 26°C

Eriste, Huesca, España 🌞 -1°C 10°C 0°C

[weirdestarrow]

@aloha-from-angel Maohi and Guåhan

start normalizing long hair as androgynous. long hair can be gender-neutral too.