December 17, 2024 • 14 mins
A California-born CHamoru woman’s personal journey discovering how CHamoru became endangered and how Guam’s island community was restoring the language.
Show Notes:
Interviews included Antoinette McDaniel, Aunt and Professor studying Chamoru culture; Mark Mendiola, Director of Institutional Advancement University of Guam; Michelle Chrisostomo, Founder of Guahan Sustainable Culture; Anna Marie Arceo, Founder of Chief Hurao Academy; Jesse Charfauros, Father and lifelong mentor(Not included in final episode)Jimmy Teria - CHamoru Language and Culture Specialist Guam Department of Education
Research referenced in this episode.● National Park Service - Guam Study(https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/wapa/guam_study.pdf)● Bevacqua, M. L., & Cruz, M. L. (2020). The banality of American empire: The curiouscase of guam, usa. Journal of Transnational American Studies, 11(1), 127–149.https://doi.org/10.5070/t8111046995
● Aguon, J. (2021). The Properties of Perpetual Light. University of Guam ISBN978-1-935198-36-9● Combs, S. (2022, January 26). In WWII, the Japanese invaded Guam. now they’rewelcomed as tourists. History.https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/wwii-japan-invaded-guam-now-welcomed-touristsAudio Stories:● The Sunday Read: ‘The America That Americans Forget’:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbfkKeLKFZ0● PBS Guam - War For Guam:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moBvsySdCHs&t=2124sAcknowledgments for any music you used (artist, song title).(Pacha Faro, Car Ride)(Cranberry House, Cruxis)(The Caravan, Waiting At Dawn)(Sketchbook, Contrarian)(Earthmover, The Melt)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
It's the 50th anniversary of the NativeAmerican Cultural Center, a celebration
alive with the sound of drums, chants,and songs from all corners of Oceania.
I'm standing shoulder to shoulderwith students from Tonga Samoa,
Hawaii, United by a shared melody.
We sing in the languages of ourancestors carrying the weight of
(00:33):
our history, culture, and identity.
As soon as I step off thestage, my dad approaches me.
His eyes shining with pride,but his words break my heart.
What were you saying?
He asked me.
I just sung in Chiru, our nativelanguage, a language that should
(00:53):
have flowed naturally between us,but neither of us understood a word.
I knew why I couldn't speak Chamorro.
I was born in San Diego and mydad never spoke Chimo in our home.
But I hadn't realized untilthis moment why Chamorro
hadn't been spoken in my home.
Even though my dad grew up on Guanor Guam as it's commonly known now,
(01:16):
he couldn't speak Chamorro either.
I stood there feeling the weight ofgenerations between us aching for a piece
of my soul I didn't even know was missing.
Language at its core exists tocommunicate, to connect, but my father
couldn't speak or understand thelanguage of his people, and it made me
(01:36):
realize just how far I was from my ownheritage, how had English become not just
my father's first, but only language.
How could I connect with my heritagewhen I couldn't even speak the language
that was meant to be my birthright?
These questions nagged at me,driving me to search for answers,
to understand the forces that areslowly erasing the chamorro language.
(02:01):
My first impulse was to see ifsomeone in my family could speak
Chamorro, so I contacted my dad'ssister, auntie Antoinette to ask
if she could speak the language.
I thought that maybe one of his siblingslearned the language from my grandparents.
All I know how to sayin Chamorro is, hello.
Half a day to everything's good.
I love you.
Slow down.
(02:22):
My nana would be saying that to Tatabecause he was driving too fast,
but I realized those are all veryspecific sort of everyday sayings.
I did hear them speak Chamorro, butthey would speak it to one another.
I was not spoken to with theexpectation that I would be
answering or understanding.
When I asked her why my grandparents didnot teach Chamorro, she brought me back to
(02:45):
the days when my grandparents, my t nana.
We're still in grade school in Guam.
They were of the generation followingWorld War II where there was a
lot of intensive Americanization.
And so starting when they werelittle children in schools
and public schools, they werediscouraged from speaking in Shamar.
And actually, one story that Tata told meis that not only would they punished the
(03:07):
kids or spank them, in some cases theywould find them a nickel in the 1940s.
Guam was not a full wage labor economy.
So finding a child a nickel was thesame thing as charging them $10 just
for speaking their native language.
Wait, I need a backup.
Why were Americans finding Chamorropeople in the first place to understand
(03:29):
this, I called my family friendMark Mendola, who taught Chamorro
history in the Northern Marianas,the group of islands north of Guam.
Guam's history actually was under ColonialWorld, the Spanish for over 300 years, and
then in 1898, the American Spanish War.
Americans came ruled for up to 1941,the Japanese occupation, until 1944
(03:50):
when the Americans liberated Guam fromthe Imperial forces, the people of
Guam were granted their US citizenship.
This is one of the reasons why Americawas able to designate an English only
education system within the island.
The literacy rate at the timewas very low because the Spanish,
they used them as helpers,farmers, and all this other stuff.
There was very limited upwardmobility for some of these folks.
(04:10):
When the Americans came through,they set up the system of governance.
What that basically did was expose themto the education system in America.
Before Guam became an American territory,many tomorrow, people were never formally
educated for jobs above manual labor.
So initially, American educationseemed to offer economic opportunity.
But the system had a dark underbelly.
(04:32):
Learning English meantunlearning chamorro.
In 1917, Americans made Englishthe official language of Guam
and banned speaking chamorroin schools until the mid 1970s.
At the same time, the Chamorropeople citizenship status allowed
the American government to seize landfrom the Chamorro families Today.
25% of the island is usedfor US military installation.
(04:55):
These were the other unsettlingconsequences of becoming US territory.
We're thought in, in the Americanlegal system we're US citizens,
but we're not fully incorporated.
They used terms that said thatyou are race aliens and you're not
mature enough to govern yourselves.
That's kind of like that indoctrinationof you're not mature enough
to think the way Americans do.
Of course, Chamorro parents,especially after World War II,
(05:17):
would want the best for their kids.
And if they're taught by the educationsystem, that Chamorro puts them
at a disadvantage economically.
They're gonna choose to protecttheir kids from this risk, even
at the cost of their culture.
And this loss is felt through generations.
The land, the language, the people.
Those are the three tri trifectain my humble opinion about
(05:40):
what's makes our culture.
'cause if we don't have the land.
What are we gonna do?
We can't show the laie stones,we can't show the birds.
We can't show the sling stones.
And, and that was ourconnection to our ancestors.
And you take away the language.
We've just annihilated a whole race.
Mark's, words stayed with me.
I keep thinking about the trifecta.
He mentioned land language and people.
(06:02):
They're what connect us toour past, to our ancestors.
But I'm living proof that thoseconnections have been broken.
I've experienced a sense ofcultural dysphoria before.
It's what I felt in kindergarten.
Every time I was asked whatI was, how could I explain?
I was chamorro when I had nevereven experienced the island.
If I cannot speak the language, if Iwas born in California, if chamorro
(06:26):
was never even spoken in my home, maybethe imposter syndrome, I felt then
what I feel now is really just griefand not being able to connect with my
grandparents with a chamorro community.
A language that is not onlytheirs, but ours all my life.
Guam was a place I longedfor, but I never visited.
(06:46):
Chamorro was a language lost to me.
So last year when I learned about asummer internship that the Stanford
Native American Cultural Centersponsored that could take me to Guam,
I jumped at the opportunity to go.
That summer I spent my birthdayin Guam and I finally got to feel
connected to the land and theway that I longed for my mentor.
Michelle CMO took me out to anunderground pool called Poot Caves.
(07:09):
It's one of the only places thatyou can find cold water in Guam.
You can see the stites and STA mitesshimmering in the dim light underwater.
Right before we went deeper.
I mentor M.
Prayer.
(07:36):
She told me that whenevershe says it, she feels safer.
Ancestors, may we walk through and visityour land and when you come to our land,
we will welcome you to do the same.
Standing there listening to theprayer echo softly around us.
I finally felt like I belonged.
I was finally in this placegetting to know its people,
including my own Chamorro family.
(07:58):
But I still couldn't speak the language.
I couldn't accept that fadingaway was the only outcome.
Somewhere out there, there were otherswho saw preserving our language as a
mission, a way to ensure the voicesof our ancestors wouldn't be lost to
the silence, and I would find them.
And so a year after my first visit.
I went back to Guam this time tocomplete the trifecta and connect
(08:20):
with my language, and it's throughmy mentor, Michelle, that I learned.
The Chamorro community on Guam was hungryto reconnect with their culture too.
It was an overcast day withon and off sprinkling showers.
The air was so thick, you couldfeel it stick to your skin,
but that was normal weather.
In Guam, the estate was huge.
There were soccer fields,tennis courts, tens of condo
(08:42):
buildings with no one in them.
The resort was deserted and I wasn'tsure if I had been directed to the wrong
location by my family friend, but Icontinued deep into the basement of the
biggest building and I knew I was inthe right place as a stream of students.
All parents came out of theirlessons carrying woven palm leaves.
I found Ann Marie Ace, the founderof Chief Harra Academy, right as her
(09:05):
class was finishing up half a day.
Anna Marie Ace, they know me more as sfi.
I am the founder of Chief Harra Academy,which is the first RO immersion school.
When I first implemented,it was just an idea.
Anne-Marie was one of the few Chamorropeople in my dad's generation who
(09:25):
was taught to speak the languageby her parents for her teaching.
The Chamorro language was aresponsibility and purpose.
I always felt very confident about myidentity and I wanted to give that to
my children, even though there was alot of resistance in the beginning, to
the fact that I'm teaching them samuraas their first language with the stigma
(09:46):
of people believing that you need tolearn English in order to be successful.
One of the first barriers forAnne was finding other Chamorro
kids for her children to speak to.
Most kids didn't speak Chamorrobecause their parents, like my aunt
and dad, were not taught by theirelders when they were growing up.
They didn't have a lot of friendsto speak with, not even cousins.
(10:06):
And so they started, started tobecome lonely for them, and they
started to reject the languagebecause they didn't have anybody
to talk to besides each other.
Ann knew for the sake of her children'sfluency, and tomorrow she had to
create an environment where theycould have other kids to talk to.
So she made a decision to quither job, use her retirement money.
She had saved up and start her ownprogram to teach kids tomorrow.
(10:30):
And so I thought, okay, we'll just dosummer camp, first summer school, and
I thought I'd have like maybe 10 kids.
On the first day of registration,we ended up having almost 200 kids
line up to come for the program.
The community was hungryto reclaim their culture.
Parents wanted to give theirchildren what they had never
had the opportunity to learn.
(10:50):
Their native language.
There was something beautiful aboutChief Harral Academy's curriculum
and emphasize the importance of thefamily to their children's adoption of
the language we teach them at school.
But families have to come to our parentclasses and they have to get involved.
We encourage or almost require them tospeak tomorrow when they're on campus.
(11:11):
It's family immersion.
It's not just the child.
Parents need to keep up withtheir children in order for
them to succeed in the program.
And when both parents and studentsare committed to learning,
tomorrow something magical happens.
The kids start to remindparents to speak the language.
We started, you know, tellingher to say thank you in
tomorrow to say you're welcome.
And to say Please.
(11:32):
So just those three small words.
That's Michelle, who is aparent at Chief Harra Academy.
She enrolled her three-year-old daughterBodhi into the summer school program.
She'll say, Suzu Mai.
And I'll say, without even thinking,and I'm driving, I say, you're welcome.
And she will automatically correct melike, mom, Hamas, you have to say Ha Moss.
It's through these stories and thisprogram that I realized that the Chamorro
(11:54):
language can survive, and it made mefeel grateful that I could witness my
community not only learning Chamorro.
But practicing the values which makeChamorro people the generous, resilient,
and grateful people that we are, we tryto recreate that environment of en, which
is our culture, to make things good.
(12:15):
One of one another to helpone another to be neighborly.
We have like.
Maybe 12 students that have graduatedand they're here today teaching.
Even if they're only 17 or 18, I'm alreadyputting them in 'cause they're fluent.
Chief Harra Academy is teachingtomorrow kids not only how to
speak the language, but how to leadothers in reclaiming their voice.
(12:35):
In the past, the elders would teach thechildren how to speak our language, but
now I realize that it's a new generationwho get to take back our identity and
return it to those who came before us.
After meeting Anne Marie in Guam withmy father, I sat down with him to ask
him a few questions about the Chamorrolanguage and Chief Harra Academy.
I was very impressed thatthe teachers were kids.
(12:58):
It gives them a sense of pride tolearn the language, but it also
gives the kids that are teachingthe language a sense of pride to be
able to pass down a language that.
Their parents don'teven know in some cases.
What do you think aboutstarting to learn the language?
There's some online classes fortomorrow, and now that I've seen that
(13:18):
they're teaching it to kids, I thinkthat I want to at least try to learn
the language and I'm probably gonnago ahead and, and sign up for the the
Tomorrow class and learn it myself and.
Hopefully me and you can do that andwe'll be able to speak it ourselves.
It's not a lost language, and when wetravel there, I'll be able to talk to
all of my aunts and my uncles in theirlanguage in, in the tomorrow language,
(13:40):
in my language, in our language.
Back in San Diego.
I step out of my car andonto the Delmar Beach.
As the sequels fly overhead, I watch thesunset and the waves lap against as shore.
I'm an ocean away from Guam,from the people that I met
who were saving the language.
Yet, I don't feel separated from them.
My language, my culture,my community are alive.
(14:04):
I can only say a few words in Shamu,yet this doesn't mean I can't hold the
language and the culture with pridelike the children in Chief Harrell,
I'm part of the solution, even if I'mstill learning, as I dip my feet in
the water and look at the horizon.
I know I'm connected to Guan.
I'll continue to find not only mylanguage, but the Chamorro people
(14:25):
who help me discover my voice.
It's the 50th anniversary of the NativeAmerican Cultural Center, a celebration
alive with the sound of drums, chants,and songs from all corners of Oceania.
I'm standing shoulder to shoulderwith students from Tonga Samoa,
Hawaii, United by a shared melody.
We sing in the languages of ourancestors carrying the weight of
(00:33):
our history, culture, and identity.
As soon as I step off thestage, my dad approaches me.
His eyes shining with pride,but his words break my heart.
What were you saying?
He asked me.
I just sung in Chiru, our nativelanguage, a language that should
(00:53):
have flowed naturally between us,but neither of us understood a word.
I knew why I couldn't speak Chamorro.
I was born in San Diego and mydad never spoke Chimo in our home.
But I hadn't realized untilthis moment why Chamorro
hadn't been spoken in my home.
Even though my dad grew up on Guanor Guam as it's commonly known now,
(01:16):
he couldn't speak Chamorro either.
I stood there feeling the weight ofgenerations between us aching for a piece
of my soul I didn't even know was missing.
Language at its core exists tocommunicate, to connect, but my father
couldn't speak or understand thelanguage of his people, and it made me
(01:36):
realize just how far I was from my ownheritage, how had English become not just
my father's first, but only language.
How could I connect with my heritagewhen I couldn't even speak the language
that was meant to be my birthright?
These questions nagged at me,driving me to search for answers,
to understand the forces that areslowly erasing the chamorro language.
(02:01):
My first impulse was to see ifsomeone in my family could speak
Chamorro, so I contacted my dad'ssister, auntie Antoinette to ask
if she could speak the language.
I thought that maybe one of his siblingslearned the language from my grandparents.
All I know how to sayin Chamorro is, hello.
Half a day to everything's good.
I love you.
Slow down.
(02:22):
My nana would be saying that to Tatabecause he was driving too fast,
but I realized those are all veryspecific sort of everyday sayings.
I did hear them speak Chamorro, butthey would speak it to one another.
I was not spoken to with theexpectation that I would be
answering or understanding.
When I asked her why my grandparents didnot teach Chamorro, she brought me back to
(02:45):
the days when my grandparents, my t nana.
We're still in grade school in Guam.
They were of the generation followingWorld War II where there was a
lot of intensive Americanization.
And so starting when they werelittle children in schools
and public schools, they werediscouraged from speaking in Shamar.
And actually, one story that Tata told meis that not only would they punished the
(03:07):
kids or spank them, in some cases theywould find them a nickel in the 1940s.
Guam was not a full wage labor economy.
So finding a child a nickel was thesame thing as charging them $10 just
for speaking their native language.
Wait, I need a backup.
Why were Americans finding Chamorropeople in the first place to understand
(03:29):
this, I called my family friendMark Mendola, who taught Chamorro
history in the Northern Marianas,the group of islands north of Guam.
Guam's history actually was under ColonialWorld, the Spanish for over 300 years, and
then in 1898, the American Spanish War.
Americans came ruled for up to 1941,the Japanese occupation, until 1944
(03:50):
when the Americans liberated Guam fromthe Imperial forces, the people of
Guam were granted their US citizenship.
This is one of the reasons why Americawas able to designate an English only
education system within the island.
The literacy rate at the timewas very low because the Spanish,
they used them as helpers,farmers, and all this other stuff.
There was very limited upwardmobility for some of these folks.
(04:10):
When the Americans came through,they set up the system of governance.
What that basically did was expose themto the education system in America.
Before Guam became an American territory,many tomorrow, people were never formally
educated for jobs above manual labor.
So initially, American educationseemed to offer economic opportunity.
But the system had a dark underbelly.
(04:32):
Learning English meantunlearning chamorro.
In 1917, Americans made Englishthe official language of Guam
and banned speaking chamorroin schools until the mid 1970s.
At the same time, the Chamorropeople citizenship status allowed
the American government to seize landfrom the Chamorro families Today.
25% of the island is usedfor US military installation.
(04:55):
These were the other unsettlingconsequences of becoming US territory.
We're thought in, in the Americanlegal system we're US citizens,
but we're not fully incorporated.
They used terms that said thatyou are race aliens and you're not
mature enough to govern yourselves.
That's kind of like that indoctrinationof you're not mature enough
to think the way Americans do.
Of course, Chamorro parents,especially after World War II,
(05:17):
would want the best for their kids.
And if they're taught by the educationsystem, that Chamorro puts them
at a disadvantage economically.
They're gonna choose to protecttheir kids from this risk, even
at the cost of their culture.
And this loss is felt through generations.
The land, the language, the people.
Those are the three tri trifectain my humble opinion about
(05:40):
what's makes our culture.
'cause if we don't have the land.
What are we gonna do?
We can't show the laie stones,we can't show the birds.
We can't show the sling stones.
And, and that was ourconnection to our ancestors.
And you take away the language.
We've just annihilated a whole race.
Mark's, words stayed with me.
I keep thinking about the trifecta.
He mentioned land language and people.
(06:02):
They're what connect us toour past, to our ancestors.
But I'm living proof that thoseconnections have been broken.
I've experienced a sense ofcultural dysphoria before.
It's what I felt in kindergarten.
Every time I was asked whatI was, how could I explain?
I was chamorro when I had nevereven experienced the island.
If I cannot speak the language, if Iwas born in California, if chamorro
(06:26):
was never even spoken in my home, maybethe imposter syndrome, I felt then
what I feel now is really just griefand not being able to connect with my
grandparents with a chamorro community.
A language that is not onlytheirs, but ours all my life.
Guam was a place I longedfor, but I never visited.
(06:46):
Chamorro was a language lost to me.
So last year when I learned about asummer internship that the Stanford
Native American Cultural Centersponsored that could take me to Guam,
I jumped at the opportunity to go.
That summer I spent my birthdayin Guam and I finally got to feel
connected to the land and theway that I longed for my mentor.
Michelle CMO took me out to anunderground pool called Poot Caves.
(07:09):
It's one of the only places thatyou can find cold water in Guam.
You can see the stites and STA mitesshimmering in the dim light underwater.
Right before we went deeper.
I mentor M.
Prayer.
(07:36):
She told me that whenevershe says it, she feels safer.
Ancestors, may we walk through and visityour land and when you come to our land,
we will welcome you to do the same.
Standing there listening to theprayer echo softly around us.
I finally felt like I belonged.
I was finally in this placegetting to know its people,
including my own Chamorro family.
(07:58):
But I still couldn't speak the language.
I couldn't accept that fadingaway was the only outcome.
Somewhere out there, there were otherswho saw preserving our language as a
mission, a way to ensure the voicesof our ancestors wouldn't be lost to
the silence, and I would find them.
And so a year after my first visit.
I went back to Guam this time tocomplete the trifecta and connect
(08:20):
with my language, and it's throughmy mentor, Michelle, that I learned.
The Chamorro community on Guam was hungryto reconnect with their culture too.
It was an overcast day withon and off sprinkling showers.
The air was so thick, you couldfeel it stick to your skin,
but that was normal weather.
In Guam, the estate was huge.
There were soccer fields,tennis courts, tens of condo
(08:42):
buildings with no one in them.
The resort was deserted and I wasn'tsure if I had been directed to the wrong
location by my family friend, but Icontinued deep into the basement of the
biggest building and I knew I was inthe right place as a stream of students.
All parents came out of theirlessons carrying woven palm leaves.
I found Ann Marie Ace, the founderof Chief Harra Academy, right as her
(09:05):
class was finishing up half a day.
Anna Marie Ace, they know me more as sfi.
I am the founder of Chief Harra Academy,which is the first RO immersion school.
When I first implemented,it was just an idea.
Anne-Marie was one of the few Chamorropeople in my dad's generation who
(09:25):
was taught to speak the languageby her parents for her teaching.
The Chamorro language was aresponsibility and purpose.
I always felt very confident about myidentity and I wanted to give that to
my children, even though there was alot of resistance in the beginning, to
the fact that I'm teaching them samuraas their first language with the stigma
(09:46):
of people believing that you need tolearn English in order to be successful.
One of the first barriers forAnne was finding other Chamorro
kids for her children to speak to.
Most kids didn't speak Chamorrobecause their parents, like my aunt
and dad, were not taught by theirelders when they were growing up.
They didn't have a lot of friendsto speak with, not even cousins.
(10:06):
And so they started, started tobecome lonely for them, and they
started to reject the languagebecause they didn't have anybody
to talk to besides each other.
Ann knew for the sake of her children'sfluency, and tomorrow she had to
create an environment where theycould have other kids to talk to.
So she made a decision to quither job, use her retirement money.
She had saved up and start her ownprogram to teach kids tomorrow.
(10:30):
And so I thought, okay, we'll just dosummer camp, first summer school, and
I thought I'd have like maybe 10 kids.
On the first day of registration,we ended up having almost 200 kids
line up to come for the program.
The community was hungryto reclaim their culture.
Parents wanted to give theirchildren what they had never
had the opportunity to learn.
(10:50):
Their native language.
There was something beautiful aboutChief Harral Academy's curriculum
and emphasize the importance of thefamily to their children's adoption of
the language we teach them at school.
But families have to come to our parentclasses and they have to get involved.
We encourage or almost require them tospeak tomorrow when they're on campus.
(11:11):
It's family immersion.
It's not just the child.
Parents need to keep up withtheir children in order for
them to succeed in the program.
And when both parents and studentsare committed to learning,
tomorrow something magical happens.
The kids start to remindparents to speak the language.
We started, you know, tellingher to say thank you in
tomorrow to say you're welcome.
And to say Please.
(11:32):
So just those three small words.
That's Michelle, who is aparent at Chief Harra Academy.
She enrolled her three-year-old daughterBodhi into the summer school program.
She'll say, Suzu Mai.
And I'll say, without even thinking,and I'm driving, I say, you're welcome.
And she will automatically correct melike, mom, Hamas, you have to say Ha Moss.
It's through these stories and thisprogram that I realized that the Chamorro
(11:54):
language can survive, and it made mefeel grateful that I could witness my
community not only learning Chamorro.
But practicing the values which makeChamorro people the generous, resilient,
and grateful people that we are, we tryto recreate that environment of en, which
is our culture, to make things good.
(12:15):
One of one another to helpone another to be neighborly.
We have like.
Maybe 12 students that have graduatedand they're here today teaching.
Even if they're only 17 or 18, I'm alreadyputting them in 'cause they're fluent.
Chief Harra Academy is teachingtomorrow kids not only how to
speak the language, but how to leadothers in reclaiming their voice.
(12:35):
In the past, the elders would teach thechildren how to speak our language, but
now I realize that it's a new generationwho get to take back our identity and
return it to those who came before us.
After meeting Anne Marie in Guam withmy father, I sat down with him to ask
him a few questions about the Chamorrolanguage and Chief Harra Academy.
I was very impressed thatthe teachers were kids.
(12:58):
It gives them a sense of pride tolearn the language, but it also
gives the kids that are teachingthe language a sense of pride to be
able to pass down a language that.
Their parents don'teven know in some cases.
What do you think aboutstarting to learn the language?
There's some online classes fortomorrow, and now that I've seen that
(13:18):
they're teaching it to kids, I thinkthat I want to at least try to learn
the language and I'm probably gonnago ahead and, and sign up for the the
Tomorrow class and learn it myself and.
Hopefully me and you can do that andwe'll be able to speak it ourselves.
It's not a lost language, and when wetravel there, I'll be able to talk to
all of my aunts and my uncles in theirlanguage in, in the tomorrow language,
(13:40):
in my language, in our language.
Back in San Diego.
I step out of my car andonto the Delmar Beach.
As the sequels fly overhead, I watch thesunset and the waves lap against as shore.
I'm an ocean away from Guam,from the people that I met
who were saving the language.
Yet, I don't feel separated from them.
My language, my culture,my community are alive.
(14:04):
I can only say a few words in Shamu,yet this doesn't mean I can't hold the
language and the culture with pridelike the children in Chief Harrell,
I'm part of the solution, even if I'mstill learning, as I dip my feet in
the water and look at the horizon.
I know I'm connected to Guan.
I'll continue to find not only mylanguage, but the Chamorro people
(14:25):
who help me discover my voice.
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