The Insular Empire: America in the Mariana Islands

Blog Transfer

2010-05-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

The Insular Empire blog has been MOVED. Please visit theinsularempire.com for blog postings, background info, and updated information on The Insular Empire.

Many thanks to Lara Kroeker at Randomlink Interactive for revamping The Insular Empire blog and website!.

A New Battle for Okinawa

2010-05-20T11:22:00.000-07:00

Globalpost.com - which, by the way, is a great new online source for international news - just posted this excellent little piece about the ongoing protests to the presence of US military bases in Okinawa. Sadly, Guam gets only a minor mention - as the proposed location for the Marines the Okinawans want so desperately to get rid of. But since the Okinawans have been protesting, loudly, for eight years straight (or 60 years, depending on how you qualify 'protest'), I can see how they might get a bit more of the limelight. Guam's situation is so much more complicated, and so much harder to encapsulate in a short news piece...

Yapese Canoes Land on Guam

2010-05-12T20:41:00.000-07:00

Larry Cunningham, Guam historian and long-time supporter of The Insular Empire, sent me this recent news of a remarkable voyage using celestial navigation. He writes:

Two Traditional Navigation Society outrigger sailing canoes departed Lamotrek for Guam on Monday, April 26th. Their plan was to sail north and pass to the east of Guam, sailing between Guam and Rota to approach the Hagatna Boat Basin Channel from the North. But because of the strong current, this plan changed and they came to the Hagatna Boat Basin Channel from the Southwest, four days late, arriving on April 30th. The canoes had sailed over 400 miles of open ocean, braving strong winds, high seas and rainy weather.

The two large (over 30 ft. long) ocean-going canoes anchored at the TASI (Traditions About Seafaring Islands) canoe house, Sahyan Tasi Fachemwan, where they plan to stay, according to TASI President Frank Cruz. The key organizer in Guam is Former Federated States of Micronesia Yap State Governor Robert Ruecho, who is operating from the Office of Guam Governor Felix Camacho.

Lamotrek Master Navigator, Ali Haleyalur, is captain of the Simion Hokule’a, a canoe built on Satawal. He has a crew of 11. Maap (Island in Yap) Master Canoe Builder, Chief Bruno Tharngan is captain of the Mathow Maram. He has a crew of nine. Dr. Eric Metzgar is making a documentary film of this voyage from Lamotrek to Guam and then to Yap. Metzgar was an apprentice of Halayalur’s late father, Master Navigator, Urupiy. Metzgar has made several documentary films about Micronesia, including “Spirits of the Voyage.”

This voyage is unique because the crews are outer atoll Carolinians and high island Yapese. Also, the return voyage will be from Guam to Yap and this direct voyage of over 500 miles is not documented in credible historical accounts.

The purpose of this Carolinian and Yapese voyage is to put into practice the skills Ali is teaching in the programs of the Traditional Navigation Society in Yap. They aim to keep this tradition of non-instrument navigation alive. This is also the goal of TASI in the Mariana Islands. Chamorro, Yapese, and Carolinians have a strong tradition of voyages of discovery that predate Columbus and Magellan – not by a hundred or two-hundred years, but by over 3,000 years. Without these ancient seafaring skills there would not be the rich and diverse cultures found in Micronesia today. Contemporary voyages like the one undertaken by Ali and Chief Bruno honor that proud tradition and the cultural identity of all Micronesians.

Spanish colonization of the Mariana Islands in the late 17th century put a stop to the trade between the Central Caroline Islands and the Marianas. The Spanish-Chamorro Wars and the introduced foreign diseases made it dangerous to visit the Marianas for many years. After nearly a century, in 1787, Chief Lewito of Lamotrek re-opened the trading route from Lamotrek to Guam. He made the voyage to obtain iron tools. By 1804 the trading visits became annual events and in 1816 some Carolinians from Satawal and Elato settled in Saipan. The descendants of these Carolinians and subsequent migrations of Carolinians form a vibrant community in the Mairanas today.

Long Live the Navigators!

Standing Army

2010-05-11T09:59:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure how I missed this - but I can thank Evergreen State College professor of Geography Zoltan Grossman for bringing a new documentary to my attention: Standing Army, by Thomas Fazi and Enrico Parenti. While The Insular Empire explores the human face of American empire in the Marianas, Standing Army connects the dots of America's 766 military bases worldwide. As Chalmers Johnson says in an interview for the film, "The unit for the American empire is not the colony, it's the military base." What makes the Marianas so complicated, of course, is that they are both.

Prof. Grossman, in an interview for the film, asks a question that helps explain everything that's happening right now in Okinawa and Guam: "Are these bases being built to wage the wars - or are the wars being waged to build the bases?"

Evergreen State College Screening

2010-05-06T16:48:00.000-07:00

Tuesday's screening at Evergreen State College was a huge success. Sponsored by the college's Asian Pacific Islander Coalition, and spearheaded by Evergreen student and Guam native Jayanika Lawrence, the screening was well-attended by both students and faculty. Ms. Lawrence had put together an information table full of books on the Marianas and American colonization, and also created a panel - comprised of herself, myself, and one other student from Guam - to answer questions from the audience after the screening. Their questions were incisive and intelligent - ranging from issues around the current military buildup and Guam's relationship with Okinawa, to questions about why we chose not to address environmental concerns (such as Guam's notoriously invasive brown tree snake) in the film.

Evergreen is an odd place - nestled in a rain forest, its 70's era cement brutalist buildings look inward at each other, ignoring the lush thickets surrounding them - but the people there were warm, welcoming, and very much engaged. One faculty member in particular, Dr. Zoltan Grossman, mentioned during the Q&A that he was planning to use the film in his course on a People's Geography of American Empire - a more fitting title than any I could have invented myself - and suggested that they might want me to come back again next year. I told them that I'd be delighted.

Yours truly (Filmmaker Vanessa Warheit) with Jayanika Lawrence (third from right) and members of Evergreen's Asian Pacific Islander Student Coalition.

Two West Coast Screenings This Month

2010-05-02T14:40:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to announce two public screenings of The Insular Empire happening this month:

Evergreen State College
Olympia, WA
May 4th, at 4pm
Vanessa Warheit will be at this screening to answer questions afterwards.

Cal State University East Bay
Hayward, CA
May 15th, at 4:30pm
Dr. Hope Cristobal will be at this screening to answer questions afterwards.

For more information on the Hayward screening, see the Famoksaiyan blog.

Newsy.com has found Okinawa... Let's hope they find Guam next.

2010-04-30T11:30:00.000-07:00

Newsy.com - a kind of online video news aggregator - just ran this story on the Okinawa base relocation. Unfortunately, this story didn't include Guam's (fairly major) role in the relocation debate - but maybe the next one will?

Earth Day - from San Francisco to Okinawa and Beyond

2010-04-27T11:13:00.000-07:00

My son asked me the other day, "Mommy, what's Earth Day?" When I explained it to him ("Well, honey, it's a day when we celebrate the Earth and try to remember to help keep it healthy"), I felt a little bit ashamed. Without the Earth there is nothing - so why do we only give it one day?

On the other hand, Earth Day does give a lot of groups who are fighting for the Earth a platform to get the word out. This past week (Earth Day seems, happily, to be bleeding into Earth Week) there were many actions to draw attention to the US military's plans for increased presence in the Asia-Pacific region.

Famoksaiyan, in collaboration with several other organizations, held a press conference across the street from the EPA’s Earth Day Festival at Yerba Buena Garden. "The massive build up on Guam directly contradicts efforts to protect our environment from global warming,” said Reverend Deborah Lee, a member of Women for Genuine Security, the local chapter of a global women’s network that works to protect the health and safety of communities around US military bases. “The US military has an enormous carbon footprint which must be addressed for the health of local communities and the security of our entire planet.”

Meanwhile, on Okinawa, nearly 100,000 people turned out to protest the planned relocation of the US military base from Futenma to Henoko (or anywhere else in Okinawa). In South Korea, Catholic fathers held a Peace Missal against proposed construction of a nuclear weapons naval base on Jeju Island. There were also solidarity rallies held in Washington, DC and in Hawaii.

Casino Jack Hits the Big Screen (x2)

2010-04-26T12:52:00.000-07:00

Several years ago, a Washington lobbyist named Jack Abramoff got himself - and some high-up politicians like Tom Delay - into a whole lot of trouble. I am familiar with the Abramoff story because one of the many unsavory episodes in his outrageous career involved lobbying to keep US labor laws out of the CNMI. When the scandals broke, a lot of people were suggesting that I turn my documentary lens on Abramoff. It was tempting - it was a story almost too good to pass up - but I'd already shot most of The Insular Empire and didn't have the resources to start a new film from scratch.

But it appears some other filmmakers recently picked up that ball. Next month will usher in not one but two films about Abramoff -- with distinctly similar titles: Casino Jack (a narrative feature starring Kevin Spacey) and Casino Jack and the United States of Money (a documentary by Alex Gibney).

The Gibney film looks fantastic (the narrative feature still doesn't have a trailer posted). But I'm curious to see how Gibney will treat the issue of the CNMI and its attempt to maintain control over its labor laws. So far, I have yet to see anything about the Abramoff CNMI scandal that addresses the fundamental, underlying problem of the CNMI's political status, or its colonial history. Similarly, it will be interesting to see how the Indian tribes (for whom Abramoff also did a lot of dirty work) are treated in the film. The level of audacity and flamboyance in Abramoff's dealings - including massive bribes and outrageous kickbacks - seems to have overshadowed any real investigation into the root causes that forced these indigenous groups to rely on people like Abramoff to begin with. The jury is still out on whether these new films will finally change that trend.

Radiation? What Radiation? Happy Earth Day!

2010-04-22T10:48:00.000-07:00

What a great way to celebrate Earth Day: According to an article in today's Marianas Variety, "Guam Vice Speaker B.J. Cruz is protesting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s policy decision to not require radiation testing for dredged materials from Apra Harbor that would be dumped into the proposed ocean disposal site."

As Vice Speaker Cruz stated in his letter to the EPA: “It is common knowledge that the U.S. Navy discharged radioactive material into Apra Harbor on more than one occasion. It is imperative, then, that no dredging of the harbor take place until adequate radiation testing independent from that reported by the U.S. Navy has been conducted on proposed dredge sites.”

Last week, after learning that the EPA was requesting public comments on where to dump the 'dredged waste' (aka 71 acres of living coral reef, some of which may or may not be radioactive) from the bottom of Apra Harbor, I wrote the following letter to the EPA:

To: ota.allan@epa.gov
Subject: designation of an ocean disposal site outside Apra Harbor

Dear Mr. Ota,

I would like to express my surprise and dismay at reading in today's Guam Pacific Daily News that the EPA is requesting recommendations for a place in which to dump dredged material from Apra Harbor. It is my understanding that the EPA recently ruled that the military's plans to dredge 71 acres of coral reef within Apra Harbor were in violation of the Clean Water Act AND the Endangered Species Act, and that the project was of “sufficient magnitude that EPA believes the action should not proceed as proposed.”

It is also my understanding that the DoD DEIS -- which claims that "there will be no overall unacceptable adverse impacts to water quality with ocean disposal" -- does not address the issue of radioactive sediment in Apra Harbor. Is the EPA seriously considering allowing the military to use radioactive dredged material for landfill -- and then finding some place in the ocean where this dredged material will create 'no overall unacceptable impacts to water quality'?

Finding such a site is not only ecologically reprehensible in itself - it also sends the message that the dredging is still possible. I'm not sure what mechanisms are at your disposal, but I strongly urge you to refuse to consider ANY disposal site designation entirely, until the issue has been resolved of whether or not to dredge the harbor in the first place.

Thank you for your time and attention,

Vanessa Warheit

Memories of Saipan

2010-04-21T10:27:00.000-07:00

Shortly after The Insular Empire aired on KCTS, I got a phone call from a viewer who wanted to correct something she thought was inaccurate. Pete's story had indicated that there was no high school on Saipan - but she herself had attended high school there. I asked her what year that was, and she told me it was in the late 60s. I explained to her that Pete was older than she was – he attended high school in the 1950's – and that it wasn't until the Kennedy administration and the lifting of the security clearance in the Marianas that Saipan finally got a high school.

The viewer, whose name turned out to be Sue Morrow Flanagan, followed up later with a wonderful email describing more of her experiences in Saipan during that time. Here is an excerpt:

"Our family moved to Saipan as part of a business venture that didn't work out for my father. Until I spoke to you this afternoon I hadn't realised the Kennedy period was a period of such transformation. Although, the greatest measure of transformation came on my last flight home. We boarded a crowded flight from Guam to Hawaii. I was moved to a seat away from my family and tucked in next to a Navy man. He was Capt. McLinnis who was returning to Pearl Harbor to accept command of the USS Ticonderoga and would then return to Vietnam.

I should explain that I became a journalist to cover for my socially inappropriate curiosity. Indeed, my mother swears my first word was "Why?" I was grilling the Navy officer immediately. He turned the tables and asked about Saipan. He knew every landmark I mentioned from our home in Garapan to Capitol Hill. Finally, I asked him when he was on Saipan and for how long.

"I have never been there." He replied. Of course I maintained that was impossible. How could he know so much detail?

"I bombed it for weeks from an aircraft carrier." he grimaced. To my horror, he described the utterly ravaged landscape. Another carrier group had inflicted severe damage in another Micronesian island group as well, he said with a strange mix of sorrow and grief. Captain McLinnis didn't speak for a minute or two, staring out the window.

I watched his clenched jaw. I had described a landscape healing its war wounds while he was going on to another war. Despite being a naive, spoiled 16 year-old, I began to understand at a visceral level---- the radical changes Saipan had endured from the Spanish to the Japanese sugar plantations to the war and then our tanga-tanga Americanization. Who knew that hurricanes, Japanese business and Chinese labor exploitation lay ahead? Yet, now, none of that is as disturbing as Hope's daughters not speaking their native tongue. I was in Fiji when they claimed their independence and in Apia, Western Samoa soon after their independence. Both nations reveled in returning to traditional garb, heritage and language. Heritage is a priceless treasure. The loss of language seems to me a far greater loss than all the other catastrophes. I do hope your film inspires the Chamorro and Carolinian people to reclaim their heritage. They are an extraordinary people."

Seattle, Screening, and Samoan Slap-dancing

2010-04-19T22:39:00.000-07:00

I had the opportunity to screen The Insular Empire at the University of Washington this past weekend, at the 4th Annual Chamoru and Micronesian Research Conference. After the film, I added a screening of this short video I made in collaboration w/ the folks at We Are Guahan, about the proposed military buildup of Guam:

And on a lighter note: I also got to attend the Seattle University annual Fiesta - where I saw some awesome Chamoru chanting performers. Unfortunately I didn't have the presence of mind to get any good footage of them -- but I did get my camera out in time to shoot the Samoan slap dancers, who reinforced my belief that Samoan dancing men are one of the finest things on the planet:

Free Seattle Screening THIS SATURDAY, April 17

2010-04-15T15:02:00.000-07:00

I will be screening The Insular Empire at the 4th Annual Chamoru & Micronesian Research Conference this Saturday. The film will be screening at 3pm at the University of Washington's Ethnic Cultural Center - 3931 Brooklyn Ave NE, Seattle - in the Black Room. Many thanks to Migetu Tuncap for making this possible at the last minute!

Please join us if you can...

Sign the Petition - Halt the Guam Buildup

2010-04-13T11:37:00.000-07:00

On Earth Day (April 22), several groups will gather outside the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 9 Building in San Francisco, demanding a halt to US military expansion on the Pacific island of Guam. They will present a petition, urging the White House to:

* halt current plans for the military buildup of Guam

* re-write the military's Draft Environmental Impact Statement

* limit the military to its current footprint on Guam

* clean up existing military contamination on Guam

* increase federal funding to strengthen Guam's inadequate infrastructure.

As this blog has discussed earlier, the EPA ruled earlier this year that the military's current plans for Guam are "of sufficient magnitude that EPA believes the action should not proceed as proposed." The proposed buildup would (among other devastating effects) destroy 71 acres of coral reef, overwhelm Guam's fresh water supply, wipe out endangered species, and turn protected ancestral lands into a live-firing range. It would also cost US taxpayers $9 billion.

Please sign the petition, and ask your friends and family to do the same.

Saina ma'ase (thank you) to Erica Benton of Famoksaiyan for creating this petition and for bringing it to my attention!

"Red Pill Tour" of O'ahu - Part Two

2010-04-12T14:47:00.000-07:00

This is a long-overdue continuation of the amazing - albeit sobering - tour of O'ahu I took with Lino Olopai and Dr. Hope Cristobal. Terri Keiko'olani and Kyle Kajihiro of DMZ Hawaii were our tour-guides, and like all good tourists, we started at the USS Arizona memorial. The US Parks Service has recently installed at the memorial a giant outdoor map of the Pacific (showing, as Kyle pointed out, America's "Pacific Lake"). Lino and Hopie put their feet on their respective islands - and Lino had a long and interesting conversation with some folks visiting from Kiribati.

I was totally confused by the names of the islands on the map (Kiribati wasn't even listed), until I realized that the map represents not how the world is today - but how it was in 1941. (The USS Arizona is, after all, a history museum.)

Then Kyle took us off the paved path, to a section that other tourists didn't seem to notice: the edge of the lagoon itself. Here is a video (shot with my iphone - forgive the technical shortcomings) of what we learned there:

After Pearl Harbor, Kyle and Terri took us for yummy plate lunch - and then to the dry west side of the island, to see how the military and the native Hawaiians are not-so-peacefully coexisting outside of the visible tourist areas. But that story will have to wait for another post...

Japanese Subtitles (日本語字幕）

2010-04-06T15:18:00.000-07:00

I want to give a shout-out to two incredible Japanese translators, who have generously donated their time, expertise, and energy to translating The Insular Empire into Japanese.

Masumi Mukai is a member of the Japanese group Translators United for Peace. She took on the task of translating the film's transcript, reviewing it with other TUP translators for accuracy, and sending me a finished Japanese transcript for The Insular Empire.

Shoko Hata, a student here in Vancouver at Simon Fraser University, has been my personal babelfish, sitting with me for long hours to help place Masumi's translation into subtitles on The Insular Empire DVD. I plan to have the Japanese translation complete this week, and Japanese-subtitled DVD's ready for sale soon after.

Thank you!!

Next on my list: Spanish subtitles. Please contact me if you're interested in translating The Insular Empire into Spanish!

University of Hawaii Law School to Host Talk on Proposed Guam Buildup

2010-03-29T10:24:00.000-07:00

Desiree Taimanglo-Ventura recently posted this notice of a discussion to be held at the UH Manoa Law School on April 1st. (And no, don't get your hopes up that the proposed buildup will be revealed as a massive April Fool's joke!) Vice-Speaker B.J. Cruz of the 30th Guam Legislature is the keynote speaker. He will be joined by Dr. Wendy Wiltse of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (Region 9).

The Guam Military Buildup:
Examining Potential Impacts on Culture, Environment, the Economy and the Larger Community

University of Hawai'i Law School Moot Court Room

WATCH IT LIVE, ONLINE: www.KaHuliAo.com

Hawai'i Standard Time

Thursday, April 1, 2010

12:45 – 1:55 p.m

Chamorro Standard Time

Friday, April 2, 2010

8:45-9:55 a.m

Guam Buildup: Environmentally Unsatisfactory

2010-03-26T11:47:00.000-07:00

The DoD's proposal to increase its already-massive footprint on the island of Guam recently received the EPA's lowest rating: Environmentally Unsatisfactory. While "unsatisfactory" to me calls up benign images of less-than-optimal spelling homework, this milquetoast language in fact represents a scathing indictment of the proposed buildup – and a serious roadblock to the military's expansionist plans.

We Are Guahan has posted a great ten-point summary of the EPA's findings on their website. The problems identified by the EPA include:

contaminated drinking water
"unacceptable," island-wide water shortages
endangerment of Guam's aquifer
"unprecedented" destruction of Guam's coral reefs
inadequate protection of endangered wetlands
lack of commitment to energy efficiency, renewable energy, and cleaner fuels
over eight TONS of hazardous waste generated
lack of mitigation to likely PCP contamination
no discussion of treatment of radioactive waste
significant noise impacts
invasive species introduction

... and the list goes on and on. You can read it yourself - the report is a handy 101-page download, with a succinct table of contents outlining the 1,001 reasons why THIS BUILDUP IS A REALLY BAD IDEA, from an environmental standpoint.

Of course, it's a really bad idea for a number of other reasons too. For instance, it threatens to overwhelm the island's indigenous population and to further erode the Chamoru culture and language. But the US government doesn't have an Indigenous Culture Protection Agency to make these points.

The current focus on environmental issues calls to mind a conversation I had, several years ago, with the late Carlos Taitano. He said that he was frustrated when the two-legged Guam Rail raised so much concern among environmentalists, who seemed to have no concern for the local population. "What about the two-legged Chamorro?" he asked.

Admittedly, it's frustrating when environmental concerns trump the concerns of a people, culture, and language. However, in the case of the Guam buildup, I think that environmental concerns may dovetail nicely with the needs of the local population – whose drinking water, air quality, and health are being so overwhelmingly threatened by the DoD's proposal. Since the US military wouldn't dream of trying to impose this kind of a project on mainland Americans, it's my hope as well that the proposed buildup will bring Guam's colonial status out into the light of day. Because sunshine is the best – and the most environmentally friendly – antiseptic .

(Photos courtesy of Desiree Taimanglo-Ventura at The Drowning Mermaid, and David Burdick at the US All Islands Coral Reef Committee)

Obama: The Velvet Imperialist

2010-03-23T14:15:00.000-07:00

The ever-helpful Jean Downey just forwarded me this article in the Huffington Post by John Feffer.

In it, Feffer describes a recent Congressional hearing on currently-strained US-Japan relations - in which a Pentagon official was unable to come up with the number of US troops stationed in Japan (47,000), or to explain why the US needs more than 700 overseas bases worldwide. (I thought the number was just under 900, but who's counting?) Feffer writes:

"The Pentagon official couldn't satisfy either Rohrabacher's anti-China tirade or Faleomavaega's probing questions about the U.S. empire of bases. And that's precisely the problem with the Obama administration's Pacific policy. We are trying to maintain the exact same force posture as previous administrations but at the same time emphasizing our new commitment to multilateralism and our new status as a "global partner." It's like Arnold Schwarzenegger going from Terminator to Kindergarten Cop in the space of a year: Audiences above the age of seven are just not convinced."

Obama, Feffer argues, is trying to run an empire with velvet gloves - an approach that will be fruitless for either building or dismantling it. We shall have to wait, he says, for "an insider who knows the system," such as Andrew Bacevich, to "pull the plug" and offer real Pentagon reform.

I also really like the Swiftian 'modest proposal' that Feffer concludes with. What shall we do with all those US Marines in Futenma? Why, move them to Washington, DC!

"If the prospect of having U.S. Marines involved in promoting democracy, maintaining stability, and responding to humanitarian crises at home makes you squeamish," he concludes, "you can begin to understand how the Okinawans might feel."

The Washington Post Finally Discovers Guam

2010-03-21T16:37:00.000-07:00

It was bound to happen eventually - The Washington Post finally ran a comprehensive (and pretty critical, I might ad) article in tomorrow's paper on the proposed military buildup of Guam. (Yes, that's right. Tomorrow. Today is the 21st, and the by-line is the 22nd. Don't ask me. Maybe it's an international dateline thing.)

Anyway. My favorite quote in the article is from Simon A. Sanchez II, chairman of Guam's commission on public utilities:"We don't mind being the tip of spear, but we don't want to get the shaft."

And I'm thrilled to report that the final quote is from none other than the fabulous Dr. Natividad:
"This is old-school colonialism all over again," said LisaLinda Natividad, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Guam and an activist opposing the buildup. "It boils down to our political status -- we are occupied territory."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/21/AR2010032101025.html

Taking the AFSC "Red Pill Tour" of O'ahu - Part One

2010-03-18T16:45:00.000-07:00

I first met Kyle Kajihiro and Terri Keiko'olani at a No Bases conference in Washington DC last spring. They form the small but effective office of DMZ Hawai'i and the Hawai'i branch of the American Friends Service Committee, and they were generous co-sponsors of The Insular Empire screening in Hawaii last month.

The day after the screening, they organized a peace action at Camp Smith (headquarters of the US Military Pacific Command). A group of about two dozen people were there (many of whom knew about the action because they had attended the screening the night before), including Dr. Hope Cristobal and Lino Olopai. We also had people there representing countries from as far away as Turkey and New Zealand, all gathered peacefully in solidarity with the people of Guahan to present the Base Commander with a request to cancel or mitigate the proposed military buildup.

A fool's errand, it might have seemed - and I confess to feeling scared as we all parked our cars on the road outside and unfurled our peace-declaring banners in front of the gate. But Kyle and Terri were calm and unflappable, and there was something empowering in being there, with a group of like-minded peace-loving people, simply stating our desire for peace and social and environmental justice to a group of heavily armed, very young American soldiers.

We were joined too by an amazing woman (whom I had also met briefly in DC last spring) named Mary Ann Wright. Ann is a former Army Colonel and diplomat, who resigned her high-level diplomatic post in protest over the Iraq war. She is now a committed peace activist, working with organizations like CodePink and US Military Violence Against Women. The soldiers at the gate to Camp Smith took our request to speak to the Base Commander seriously, most likely because of her presence (they were all very deferential when they found out she was a retired Colonel), and we stood outside for almost an hour while our request was taken at the gate and then passed up the line.

Despite press releases sent to all local media outlets on Oahu, the only ones documenting the event were ourselves -- and the military. After we had been waiting a little while, a uniformed photographer came out and began taking pictures of us, laughing and claiming that he was from Guam. (We were all a bit confused by this, since he was clearly African-American, but he did seem to know the names of several local families.) He couldn't tell us which village he was from, though, so we eventually presumed that his saying the family names was simply a way of getting close enough to us to get some good photos. At any rate, for better or (more likely) for worse, all of us who were there that day have now been photo profiled by the US military.

Eventually, a military policeman came out and spoke with the representatives of Fight for Guahan (Hope Cristobal, Angela Cruz, and Kisha Borja-Kicho'cho). They collected the photos the group had prepared, showing the beautiful and historic places on Guam that the proposed buildup threatens to destroy. Ann asked them if they were Marines, and they responded that they were actually civilians 'who reported to the Marines' -- which we all found more than a bit creepy.

They were very polite and respectful, however, and took careful notes, and the whole event was quite civil. The exchange ended with Ann informing the policemen that we would be following up, to make sure the documents made their way up the chain of command, and with them assuring her that they would pass the documents up appropriately.

After the action, Kyle and Terri offered to take Hopie, Lino and me out to lunch, and to show us a few military landmarks on the way. But that story will have to wait for another post...

Hawaii Panel Discussion

2010-03-17T16:04:00.000-07:00

I've finally had the opportunity to post some of the video footage from the panel discussion at the Feb. 21 Honolulu screening. (Many thanks to Oren, AFSC, and PIC for making this video possible!) Here are a few highlights...

Dr. Jon Osorio really seemed to *get* the film, which was both a huge relief and a real honor. What I found particularly interesting was the parallels he drew between the people of the Marianas and the people of Hawaii (especially of his parents' generation, back when Hawaii was still a territory).

Kisha Borja-Kicho'cho, Chamoru poet, activist, and MA Candidate at the UH Center for Pacific Islands Studies, spoke eloquently about local responses to military colonization on Guam, and the Chamoru concept of 'inafamaolek'.

A former Peace Corps volunteer asked me why the film focused so much on Chamorus, and not on Carolinians. This was my response (in which, asking Lino's forgiveness, I misspoke: I meant to say 'no offense intended').

Dr. Hope Cristobal, Terri Keiko'olani, and Lino Olopai also made excellent remarks at the event - but unfortunately none of them were on the tape I received in the mail from Hawaii. :(

That Dog Does Not Hunt

2010-03-10T16:14:00.000-08:00

Many thanks to Martha Duenas for forwarding me this interview with Richard P. Lawless, former deputy undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Defense in charge of Asia-Pacific affairs. Anyone who doubts the seriousness of Japan's reluctance to agree to move the Futenma base from Okinawa should really read this article.

"This is not about a Marine air base," says Lawless, "it's about the United States' ability to sustain a critical military presence in Japan."

The interviewer astutely points out to Lawless at one point in the interview that he appears to be more hard-line than the Obama administration... to which Lawless responds "My views are my own, but they are informed by eight years of determined work trying to make the alliance better and sustainable. My comments are further informed by active dialogue with senior serving U.S. officials... Frustration with Japan is broad and deep."

"On the flexibility of the Obama administration," he goes on to say, "the suggestion here seems to be that the U.S. must now find a way to compromise on this issue to accommodate Japanese domestic politics, and that once flexible, we will be on our way to a better alliance relationship. As we say back in Illinois, 'That dog does not hunt.'"

In reading this interview, and other coverage of the US-Japan alliance, I am continually struck by how the fundamental premise always seems to be fear - one of the basest and least constructive of human emotions.

"Is there any evidence that the reduction of our capabilities in Japan and the weakening of the alliance, which will happen, in any way increases security for Japan?" asks Lawless. "The actual result will be different. It will embolden China. And it will embolden any country, such as North Korea, that wants to pick a fight or do something negative related to Japan."

In other words - if we don't flex our muscles, spend a staggering amount of money on weapons we can't afford, and destroy an irreplaceable coral reef and entire species in order to have some runways for our military aircraft, someone else might do something bad to our 'friends' in Japan. (Who, by the way, are trying to politely say they'd like us to leave.) Something about this just doesn't add up. And it isn't just the US federal deficit I'm thinking about.

Clearly, simply shutting down the base and leaving is not enough. We have to do something - maybe even spend a tiny fraction of the $6 billion earmarked for the Okinawa move - to build trust and peace in the region. But agreeing to simply shut down the base sounds, to me, like a really good start.

ANPO

2010-03-09T09:46:00.000-08:00

I'm way behind in my blogging... every day I come across something else I want to share with the world - but I'm in the middle of a gigantic move (home and office), plus my pre-schooler son is sick with a nasty cold and my husband is back to work full-time plus. Which helps to explain why I haven't yet even posted any of the amazing material I collected in Hawaii...

But in the meantime, I have five minutes this morning to share one of the many cool things I've recently come across.

It's becoming increasingly clear to me is that the Marianas military buildup is not happening in a vacuum - there is a much wider Asia-Pacific militarisation happening, which is (like Guam) part of a long-standing US military approach to the Pacific Ocean as an "American Lake". Linda Hoaglund is making a film about Japan and Okinawa, and the role of US military bases there, called ANPO. Check out the ANPO website and blog for more info and a long but very compelling trailer...

Craig Santos Perez Is Not an Activist

2010-03-04T22:43:00.000-08:00

It truly is a small world. A friend of mine in Vancouver just stumbled upon this poetry website featuring the work of Craig Santos Perez -- and the speech he read aloud as a panelist at the San Francisco screening of The Insular Empire. What are the chances?

Reading Craig's speech made me appreciate all over again his talents as a writer. If you want to know what's happening on Guam, you should really read this speech - the part that he read at the UN, and the part he read at my screening. In a few minutes he managed to link past with present, and to draw metaphors with deft precision. You kind of have to read the whole thing to appreciate his skill, but here's a paragraph I found particularly moving:

"Instead of the DEIS marking the end of our people, it has ignited our strength and united so many of us. Despite being caged by colonialism and militarization for so long, we are rising up. We are Guahan. When we do finally achieve sovereignty, we will look back at this time as a pivotal point towards our decolonization. We reject the future the military plans to cage us in. The voice of a decolonized Guahan has become too strong."

I remember him reading these words, surrounded by people united in their concern for these islands, and feeling - for once - a sense of hope. Because it's true: this buildup has galvanized people. Dr. Vince Diaz once told me, "The Japanese military did more to help the US colonize these islands than the US ever could"... and now the US military is doing more to help decolonize Guam than anyone ever thought possible. Push hard enough, I guess, and the people are bound to rise up and push back.

Craig's two books of poetry ("from unincorporated territory" - volumes 1 and 2) are available here and here. You can check out his blog here.

Bay Area Screenings a Big Success

2010-03-03T11:31:00.000-08:00

I confess to being pretty anxious beforehand - but both Bay Area screenings went off without a hitch. It couldn't have happened, though, without Famoksaiyan. They put together two amazing screenings - one at the very last minute, both on a shoe-string budget, and all with grace, yummy food, lots of information, and an incredible turn-out. Here are some of the organizers at the Feb. 14 Valentine's Day screening in Oakland:

The San Francisco venue was smaller, but we managed to pack folks into the screening room, and the gallery space also housed Martha Duenas ever-expanding exhibit on Marianas history and political status. I call it her 'museum in a suitcase' - one friend of mine who attended the San Francisco screening didn't realize (until she saw Martha dismantling it at the end of the night) that the display wasn't a permanent fixture at the Galeria!

I even got (after a nail-biting weekend) the long-awaited DVD's -- and managed to sell all of them! I also got the Insular Empire t-shirts, which look and feel amazing (and make great gifts).

After San Francisco, we packed up our bags, and headed off to Hawai'i...

The Insular Empire - Launch Week

2010-02-12T14:41:00.000-08:00

I'm super excited (and a little stressed-out) to be finally premiering The Insular Empire next week in California and Hawaii. (See sidebar at right for screening dates, times, and locations.) The film was actually completed last fall, but it's taken this long to pull everything together for a proper launch.

And since, in the meantime, SO MUCH has been happening with the proposed military buildup on Guam, I decided that audiences might need a little update. So with the generous help of Jason Triplett and the folks at We Are Guahan, I've edited together a short video about the buildup resistance, to screen after The Insular Empire and before our panel discussions.

For those of you who want to join the Famoksaiyan listserv, here is the link.

This Valentine's Day, Come Show Your Love in Oakland!

2010-02-04T11:08:00.000-08:00

The rockin' folks at Famoksaiyan have decided to add a second screening to The Insular Empire's Bay Area premiere... Evidently we had more RSVP's than seats at the Galeria! So for those of you in the East Bay, please come check out the film on Valentine's Day, February 14...

SMACC Youth Center
1608 Webster Street
Oakland, CA

The show will start at 5:30 pm, and we'll have t-shirts, DVDs, artwork, photography, literature, and books on display and for sale. And (because hey, it's a Chamoru event) there will likely be super yummy refreshments to boot!

This is a family-friendly affair – I'll be bringing my mom and my son and my long-suffering husband – and best of all, Famoksaiyan is offering the event for FREE. (Though it would be super if you could plan on making a donation to them of whatever you can afford, as they are incurring significant costs to make this event happen.)

Please spread the word! You can download the flyer here.

See you at the movies!

Hafa Adai, Mr. President! Can we have our island back, please?

2010-02-01T10:05:00.000-08:00

Marianas Variety just published an article on Obama's upcoming visit to Guam. The fact that the US President has decided to fly 9000 miles to visit the Marianas is HUGE news... and speaks to how vital these tiny islands are to America's global strategy.

On the same day, the Associate Press reported this story about thousands of protestors in Tokyo (not Okinawa - Tokyo), asking the US military to GO HOME.

Something tells me these two things are related.

The real question now is: how do we get Obama to watch The Insular Empire? I've read Obama's book Dreams From My Father, and I really believe that Obama understands, first-hand, what it means to be colonized. I'd like to believe that if he understood the Marianas' colonial history, he'd start doing something to help the people of Guam - and the Northern Marianaas - achieve true self-determination.

Personal Stories from the CIA

2010-01-25T22:00:00.001-08:00

It occurred to me recently that, if people only watch the first five minutes of The Insular Empire, they might not get a sense of how much the characters' personal stories drive the narrative of the film (once you get past all the history that's up at the front). Plus, so many people have been asking to see the movie that I thought at least I could give you all a little teaser. Enjoy!

US Military Buildup on Guam Worries Islanders (and Me)

2010-01-23T12:59:00.000-08:00

Hope Cristobal Sr. recently forwarded me this article – it's a good overview of what's going on right now on Guam in terms of the local response to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), issued recently by the Department of Defense for their planned military buildup of the island.

My mother, Virginia, has been doing a lot of work reviewing the DEIS and helping the folks on Guam with ideas on ways to respond. She's a retired city planner, which means she spent about twenty years reviewing development plans and EIS reports. What she's finding are plenty of holes in the DEIS: the EPA, for instance, has said that it contains "Insufficient Information" and recommends an alternative be evaluated.

But the Government of Guam seems slow to realize that the buildup is NOT a done deal - and NOT the only way to boost Guam's flagging economy. The people of the CNMI seem similarly willing to let the US military take their precious land and reef, to use up as if it were a disposable wasteland and not the homeland of a proud and civilized people, and the home of numerous endangered species. Even many of the people who don't think the buildup is a good idea aren't willing to speak up against it.

The last two paragraphs of the Buildup article bring this point home:
"I refuse to dignify this whole charade," resident Filamore Alcon Palomo said.
"Attending public hearings would just be a waste of time because I know -- everybody knows -- this is a done deal. The military won't listen to us. They will do what they want to do."

One thing my mother said to me recently: "I keep reading this document, and I keep thinking - how did they think they were going to get away with this?" And my response to her was, "The US military has been getting away with whatever they wanted on Guam for the past century. They think they can just keep doing it."

"But they're wrong," said my mom. "There are people now on Guam who are college educated and can smell a rat, and speak up for themselves. They won't get away with it this time."

I surely hope she's right. I keep hearing Carlos Taitano's voice ringing in my ears: "Don't blame them - remember, we have been colonized for over 500 years!"

A message from Governor Felix P. Camacho

2010-01-19T14:21:00.001-08:00

I love this. It's kind of like watching a train wreck.

February Screenings: San Francisco and Honolulu

2010-01-15T16:40:00.000-08:00

It's official - The Insular Empire will be screening soon in both my home town of San Francisco and on the campus of the University of Hawaii at Manoa (Honolulu)! February never looked so good. :)

Thursday, February 18, 2010 7:00 pm
Galeria de la Raza
2857 24th Street, San Francisco

FREE screening
with special guest panel:
Deboráh Berman Santana
Dr. Hope Cristobal, Jr.
Craig Santos Perez
Vanessa Warheit
Angela Tennison

Sponsored by Famoksaiyan and made possible by
Galeria de la Raza’s Grantwriting for Indigenous and Native American Artists (GINAA) program

**********

Sunday, February 21st, 4:00 pm (doors open at 3:30pm)
UH Manoa Architecture Auditorium (room 205)
Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii

FREE screening
with special guest panel
Lino Olopai
Dr. Hope Cristobal, Jr
Angela Hoppe Cruz
Terri Keko'olani
Vanessa Warheit

Sponsored by:
The Hawaii Council for the Humanities
UHM Center for Pacific Islands Studies
UHM Dept. of Anthropology
Hawaii People's Fund
Pacific Islanders in Communications
AFSC Hawai'i
UHM Marianas Club

Refreshments to follow

PBS broadcast in the US Virgin Islands

2010-01-13T14:35:00.000-08:00

I've just gotten word that the first PBS station to program The Insular Empire is WTJX, in the US Virgin Islands. Many thanks to Dr. Carlyle Corbin for writing them a letter requesting an airdate!

Dr. Corbin's letter included this line:
"The Insular Empire is important for a variety of reasons, especially for Virgin Islanders because it deals with the complex issues of territorial status in our sister territories in the Pacific region with clear implications for the US Virgin Islands."

WTJX will be airing the film on Saturday, Feb. 27, at 9pm. If there any Virgin Islanders out there reading this, please let me know how you like the film!

What's at Stake

2010-01-08T12:32:00.000-08:00

Koohan Paik has assembled a fact sheet about the proposed military buildup on Guam. This concise document distills the intimidating 11,000 page EIS document (released in November by the military) into something the average person can wrap their head around.

The results are chilling. Just a few of the many disastrous effects outlined in the EIS:

* Depletion of Guam's fresh water supply
* Destruction of historic archaeological and sacred cultural sites
* Dredging of 2.3 million square feet of fragile coral reef (that's 40 football fields!)
* Destruction of the largest mangrove forest on US soil
... and the list goes on and on.

In addition to the obvious environmental disaster this buildup portends, I think it's really important to keep in mind the threats it also poses to the endangered Chamoru culture. I'm posting here two videos highlighting traditional island culture - they are inspiring, and remind us all of what is at stake.

Despite hundreds of years of colonization, Chamoru culture has managed to survive, largely because there has continued to be a homeland for the Chamorus in the Mariana Islands. Much of that land was taken away and/or polluted by the military after World War II, with devastating effects (including loss of farming traditions, loss of fishing traditions, loss of language, and loss of traditional housing customs). The added land-takings being proposed - and the contamination of those lands - could well be the final nail in the coffin of this beautiful and resilient culture.

So what can you do to help? First and most important, get the message out there. Bookmark this blog and forward the link to your friends. Read the Fact Sheet and forward it widely. Check out the list at right for ways to get involved, and visit the blog links posted here. The more people who know about what the Marianas are facing, and why, the more power we will have to change the direction the islands are currently headed.

We have a small window of opportunity right now to help stop this: Japan and the US are currently in disagreement over how and when this buildup will happen, and who will foot the fill. I will continue to post information here about things we can all do to help as they arise.

Si Yu'us maase, Olomwaay, and thank you!

The Drowning Mermaid: Hi, We're Guam. Nice to Meet You.

2010-01-07T16:37:00.000-08:00

Desiree Ventura has written another amazing, heartfelt, insightful, inspiring post at her blog The Drowning Mermaid. Anyone who wants some insight into Chamorro culture would do well to start here.

She also mentions something in this post that I never knew: evidently, even though Guam is supposed to be "American soil," if you're born on Guam - but outside of a US military base - you cannot run for president. Here's her (hilarious) take on this little tidbit:

"There's part of me that thinks it's funny when stateside mothers end up giving birth here. Whenever it happens, I feel the sudden urge to inform the family that their child will never grow up to be president. When I see an American woman walking around heavy with child, I find myself hoping she'll go into labor just so this fact can pop up and bug her later in life. I know. It's pretty immature. I'm working on that."

New Look, New Year, and lots more News

2010-01-06T16:49:00.000-08:00

Over here at Horse Opera Productions, 2010 has gotten off to a rousing start.

The first good news - we have a National PBS Airdate! On February 27, 2010, NETA will feed The Insular Empire nationally to PBS. The good folks at NETA have even posted the first five minutes of the film on their website (and on YouTube)! But you can just watch it right here:

While this is great news, it unfortunately doesn't mean the film will AIR nationally... because PBS stations will only decide to air it IF THEY THINK IT IS RELEVANT TO THEIR VIEWERS. So, gentle reader, if you want to see The Insular Empire on your local PBS station, please take a moment to email your local PBS affiliate. It only takes a moment, and it really does make a difference!

More good news - The Insular Empire national premiere will be in San Francisco on February 17, 2010, at Galleria de la Raza, at 7pm. I will be there, along with a panel including Hope Cristobal, Jr., and I can't wait! I'll post more information here as the date draws nearer. You can put yourself on our nifty new mailing list (highly secure, I promise, and used only for The Insular Empire mailings) if you want to have this kind of information delivered to your inbox.

And even more good news - The Insular Empire will be screening in Honolulu the week of February 21st. The event will be co-sponsored by the Hawaii Council for the Humanities, the Center for Pacific Islands Studies, AFSC Hawaii, and the Hawaii People's Fund, and will include a panel discussion afterwards. I'll post more information on that, too, once we have a date and venue in place.

And lastly... a lot of you have been asking "how can I get my hands on a DVD?" Well it looks like we'll have DVD's ready for sale in time for the premiere - possibly earlier - so I'm starting to take pre-orders now. Send me an email if you'd like to place an order!

Thanks to all of you who read this blog for your continued confidence and support. I wish you all a very Happy New Year!

Thoughts on the Patty Arroyo Interview with Dan Ho

2010-01-06T15:32:00.000-08:00

Since my first trip to the Marianas, I've struggled to reconcile what I realized were two very different audiences for The Insular Empire: people on the mainland who don't know anything about the islands, and people from the Marianas. The recent NOW/PBS show about the Guam military buildup was clearly aimed at the former. So how are folks on Guam responding to it?

Yesterday I listened to an interview with PBS Guam's Creative Director Dan Ho on the (Guam-based) Patty Arroyo show, about the recent NOW/PBS broadcast. During the interview Dan mentioned that he was, "speaking as a son of Guam," disappointed in the show, because he felt it made Chamorros look like they didn't understand their status as a territory. (I actually disagree with this assertion, but that's not the point here.) He felt that it was a "huge disservice not to show the seat of power," (the Guam Governor's office at Adelup), which would have "provided the opportunity for viewers to see that Chamorros can run themselves."

To me, this raises a couple of interesting issues:

1) The racist and long-outmoded idea that Chamorros can't govern themselves lives on primarily in the laws that govern the islands, and in the psyches of the Chamorros themselves. In all the conversations I have had with mainlanders about the Marianas, I have never, once, encountered anyone who assumed that the Chamorros couldn't govern themselves. The problem with a mainland audience is not convincing them that Chamorros are competent human beings; rather, it's educating them about the fact that the Chamorro people are currently, under US Constitutional Law, prohibited from governing themselves while living in their homeland. Most mainland Americans, when they do find out about the lack of control given to the territories, are shocked and outraged. To my mind, the problem with the NOW/PBS piece was simply that it didn't give enough information. But in 25 minutes, with so much new information to convey, they didn't do a bad job.

2) The Guam Governor's office at Adelup is, when it comes to the Guam buildup, NOT the seat of power. The seat of power, unfortunately, is the White House (or the Pentagon, depending on how you look at it). Guam is, whether Dan likes it or not, an unincorporated territory, and I think it's simply naive to say that the people of Guam could change their political status whenever they want to. Don't get me wrong: I think the people of Guam do have power – but it is a power of the people to organize and resist, not a power that is vested in its current governmental structure.

And on that note - I'm pleased to see that the folks at the We Are Guahan Facebook site have been organizing a town hall meeting about the buildup. Keep up the good work!

A New Year, A New Cool Guam Blog

2010-01-01T20:16:00.000-08:00

You know, for a little island, Guam sure has a lot of cool blogs. Which, if you've spent any time in the Marianas (a place that is NEVER boring) isn't that surprising -- but still.

Anyway, the latest cool Guam blog I've found is called Chamorro Language, and it's chock full of great tips on just that. I just learned how to say Happy New Year (Felis Año Nuebo). Check it out!

In Need of a Good Graphic Designer

2009-12-27T20:12:00.000-08:00

Just before Christmas, I was lucky enough to speak at length with Suzanne Romaine, a seasoned PBS station relations professional at KQED in San Francisco. She gave me all sorts of tips on how to get The Insular Empire broadcast on as many PBS stations as possible. One of the many pearls of wisdom that fell from her mouth: "Get your program announcement out to stations on January 5th."

Hello good advice – goodbye Christmas vacation!

As a former graphic designer, I know that a good program announcement needs to convey the graphic identity of the film. So this afternoon, over turkey leftovers and a big glass of hot chocolate, I sat down to try to come up with a 'look' for The Insular Empire. The good news is, I now know what I want. The bad news is, I can't do it myself.

Yes, I did say that I used to be a graphic designer... but that was about ten years and eight versions of Photoshop ago. So, I'm looking for someone who is a (current) master at Photoshop who can help me. This week.

Here's the mockup I've come up with:

If anyone out there knows of a good graphic designer who is available to help me implement this properly, THIS WEEK, please let me know! Thanks.

Military to Guam: Now that we've taken all your public land... just go bowling!

2009-12-27T14:35:00.000-08:00

The Marianas Variety recently published an article about recommendations included in the Guam military buildup Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), in which the military is recommending that the local people take up indoor activities once all their public land has been taken away.

I'm serious. I couldn't make something like that up. Check it out for yourself. There are so many things wrong with this I don't even know where to begin.

My mother (a retired city planner) says that if an EIS includes 'mitigation' activities it is more likely to get passed - which is probably why they stuck this provision in. But she also says that Guam needs to give the EIS back to the military, saying that there are all kinds of problems with it and that they need more time to assess it. If anyone out there wants to pick her experienced city planner brain on the specifics of this, just send me an email.

David Letterman skit on Guam

2009-12-14T19:32:00.001-08:00

This skit basically sums up what most Americans know about the Marianas. Maybe I should send a copy of The Insular Empire to David Letterman?

Guam to be featured on NOW/PBS - THIS FRIDAY -Dec. 11

2009-12-09T19:38:00.000-08:00

This Friday, December 11th, at 8:30pm, Now on PBS will debut an episode about the planned military buildup of Guam. (PBS stations program their shows independently, so be sure to check with your local stations for exact times and dates.) It focuses on the military's plans to bring 79,000 new residents into Guam by 2014 as part of their $15 billion militarization of the Marianas. I know the producers of this show interviewed Hope Cristobal (and many others involved in Guam's response to the buildup), and I can't wait to see it!

The show can also be viewed on the web after 8:30pm EST on Dec 11th, at www.pbs.org/now.

Japan to Propose Adding Environmental Regulations to US Bases Treaty

2009-12-07T14:32:00.000-08:00

Until reading this recent article in Japan's Mainichi Daily News, I was unaware that US military bases in Japan are not subject to any environmental regulation. I've become familiar enough with how the US military conducts business in US territories that this didn't entirely surprise me -- but how could a first-world, industrialized, independent country like Japan allow unmitigated environmental contamination on its own soil by the US military?

Part of the answer may lie in the simple fact that the US/Japan Status-of-Forces agreement was signed in 1960, based on the Japan-U.S. treaty of mutual cooperation and security - back when environmental regulations weren't top of mind. (And far from being popular with the Japanese, the treaty was, in fact, violently opposed by many in the Japanese Diet; mass opposition riots even led to the resignation of Japan's Prime Minister, Nobusuke Kishi. The treaty only passed by default, when Japan's House of Councillors failed to vote on the issue in time.)

As to why no one has bothered to amend this agreement in the intervening fifty years and add in some environmental protections - that answer may lie in the simple fact that the vast majority of US military bases in Japan are located in Okinawa. While Okinawa has been a part of Japan since 1879, and is represented in the Japanese legislature, the Okinawan people have a distinct language and culture from the rest of Japan. Many Okinawans feel that they have been colonized -- both by Japan and, with Japan's blessing, by the US military. Okinawa was, in fact, under US administration for 27 years -- from 1945 until 1972 -- meaning that, technically, all those Okinawa bases weren't part of Japan when the Status-of-Forces agreement was signed in 1960. And the Okinawans have, until recently, held little political power in Tokyo.

The good news is that the new Japanese government is finally paying attention to the Okinawans. And getting the US military to take responsibility for the environment it operates in is one of the bargaining chips being put on the table. The question now is, will Washington pay any attention?

Another Interesting Marianas Blog

2009-12-04T20:26:00.000-08:00

This one is in the CNMI:

http://saipanwriter.blogspot.com/

I particularly like her editorial at the bottom of this post about the dire state of affairs in Saipan, and who is to blame. While I do agree in part with the commentator (and it would be nice to know who this person is), that Saipan's current mess is in part their own doing, I also believe that the islands still have a lot going for them. And I believe that while their leadership may have succumbed to individual greed and/or malfeasance, the problem is much bigger and deeper rooted -- and until people understand these underlying issues, the same problems are likely to persist.

Good leadership, under the best of circumstances, is hard to come by. When you've been someone else's colonial subject for generations, when you come from a culture that thinks about power and wealth and reciprocity in a radically different way than the culture of the colonizing countries, and when you've got the world's biggest military power breathing down your neck... well, let's just say true leadership isn't likely to flourish. Not impossible, but not likely. Ghandi's are few and far between.

But I also believe that the islands have everything they need to turn things around for themselves. I've been impressed with the new generation of local activists rising in response to the military buildup on Guam. And the northern Marianas holds a wealth of cultural knowledge that they can share with their cousins on Guam - a wealth of knowledge to help restore faith in themselves as a unique and important people. The Mariana Islands and their people are resilient - they just need to believe in their own power. And -- and this is probably the hardest part -- they need to come together and put aside petty differences and old hurts. Progress will come when the people recognize that they need to be the ones to help their islands, because no one else is ever going to do it for them.

The Drowning Mermaid: Honk if You Hear Me!

2009-12-01T10:37:00.000-08:00

The Drowning Mermaid: Honk if You Hear Me!

I just discovered a wonderful Guam blog by Desiree Taimanglo-Ventura -- a truly gifted and accomplished writer, with a passion for her tiny island that is heart-warming and inspiring. Check it out!

H.R. 3940 - Education for Self-Government on Guam

2009-11-24T16:37:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I posted this article on Congresswoman Bordallo's efforts to get some education for self-government funding for the people of Guam. I'm delighted to report that her efforts - with the support of virtually every Chamoru rights group on Guam - have paid off, in the form of H.R. 3940.

The bill evidently made its way out of the House Committee on Natural Resources by unanimous consent. According to Congresswoman Bordallo, "The full committee’s approval of H.R. 3940 signals that political status education for non-self-governing territories is a priority for the committee that has jurisdiction over the territories."

More information on H.R. 3940, including joint testimony in support of the legislations, can be found here.

So far as the Obama Administration is concerned, “Change” doesn’t apply to Okinawa.

2009-11-17T12:00:00.000-08:00

Douglas Lummis (a political scientist living in Okinawa and the author of Radical Democracy) recently published this excellent article on the proposed military realignment in Okinawa and Guam. Many of us have been wondering - with an increasingly sinking feeling - what, if anything, Obama will do to 'change' what is to the Okinawans an untenable situation. It looks from Lummis' article like the answer is "not much."

Yes We Can (But We Won't): Obama, Hatoyama and Okinawa

GHC Comes to Vancouver

2009-11-12T21:43:00.000-08:00

I finally had the pleasure today of meeting Kimberlee Kihleng -- Executive Director of the Guam Humanities Council. We've actually been working together for over four years now, but since I haven't been back to Guam in all that time, Kimberlee finally came to Vancouver to see me. (Actually, she came here to see her sister, who runs the Vancouver Art Gallery. But she was nice enough to invite me out for tea.) :)

One of the things we discussed was bringing The Insular Empire to Guam for a premiere screening in the spring, as part of the GHC's NEH-funded civic engagement program around the impending military buildup. According to Kimberlee, "the purpose of the project is to allow Guam residents at the community level the opportunity to discuss the impending expansion and its implications in a meaningful, non-confrontational way through the use of "texts", i.e., poems, excerpts from short stories and essays, and film. With the project, we want to provide a space to encourage residents to talk with each other openly and reflectively about the buildup so they can be better informed and more civically engaged."

(Now of course, IMHO, giving the good folks of Guam a vote in Congress, or at least giving them some say in how, when, and if the buildup occurs, would be a better idea... but the NEH doesn't fund that sort of thing. So I guess you have to just take what you can get.)

The GHC is planning on screening The Insular Empire as a part of this project, and they are inviting me and some of the film's participants to Guam to speak with audiences there. I really am honored to be included in this project, and I can't wait to finally bring the film back to Guam!

US Base Feud Hits Nerve Ahead of Obama Visit

2009-11-06T12:14:00.000-08:00

Check out this recent Reuters Article on the Okinawa-Guam base realignment.

For those of us interested in the US military buildup on Guam, it's interesting to see how the planned realignment affects larger geopolitical affairs. Come to think of it, Guam has been a lynchpin in large geopolitical affairs for centuries... and STILL it gets only the tiniest mention. (one word, actually, in the Reuters article). Of course the article doesn't say much about Okinawa, either...

New PBS Trailer

2009-11-05T20:52:00.001-08:00

We've cut a spanky new trailer for PBS... check it out!

Bordallo Asks Congress to Fund Guam Self-Government Education

2009-11-05T20:16:00.000-08:00

The Overseas Territories Review blog recently posted this article on a bill by Guam's non-voting US Congressional Delegate Madeleine Bordallo. The bill would "authorize the Secretary of the Interior to extend grants and other assistance to facilitate a political status public education program on Guam."

O-kay... sounds like a good idea (if a hundred years late)... but my first question is: why now? Ms. Bordallo has been in Congress for a long time, and Guam has needed an education for self-government program since, well, since 1898. Why is the good Congresswoman putting this on the table now?

Hope Cristobal (Sr.) has a possible explanation:

"This could be very likely part of the "unified Guam" campaign to keep the restless natives calmed before the military bases expansion begins in 2010..."

Aha. Bordallo has always been very pro-military. But still -- maybe this is a good thing? Guam could sure use a political education program. How much does one cost, anyway?

"I believe the Congresswoman is asking for an allotment of about $300,000, not much compared to what Guam spent for the Guam draft commonwealth act that was turned down by Congress Oct 1997."

PBS National Broadcast - At Last!

2009-11-02T09:42:00.000-08:00

Some good news to report: last week, NETA agreed to pick up The Insular Empire for a national PBS feed. What this means is that sometime in January or (more likely) February, 2010, The Insular Empire will go out on NETA's satellite feed to most of the PBS stations in the American Public TV system.

However - and this is where you, dear reader, fit in - it's up to the individual stations whether or not they choose to grab the show and air it. So if we want this film to have a truly national broadcast, it's going to be up to us to make sure it happens - by letting our PBS stations know that we want to see The Insular Empire on Public TV. As soon as I have a feed date from NETA, I will be posting a letter here that you can print out and send directly to your PBS stations, telling them about the show and urging them to air it.

So stay tuned for more info to come...

Thanks, Si Yu'us maase, and Olomwaay for your continued support!

Interesting new website

2009-09-20T16:16:00.000-07:00

Hope Cristobal (Sr.) just alerted me to a great new website about the US military and its relationship to the Marianas:

www.milmarianas.com/

Check it out!

It's done!!

2009-08-08T16:12:00.000-07:00

Next month it will be exactly eight years since I started this project... and yesterday (on my birthday, no less) I officially finished the festival version of The Insular Empire. (The PBS version, unfortunately, had some problems with the closed captioning, which will be fixed next week.)

The last few weeks have been a blur, but somehow it's all come together... with help from Force Four's amazing post supervisor Jackie Sidoni and online editor Mike Addison, and the amazing Sound Mixtress Erica Chard Landrock (who went way above & beyond last week, sliding in some last minute music for the end credits). And speaking of music... Cinta and Gus Kaipat found the PERFECT song, by JJ Concepcion, called Marianas Faluwei (thanks Guys!). We were having a hard time getting our hands on a high-quality copy of the song... but it turns out that JJ lives practically around the corner from my in-laws down in Washington, where I was at a family reunion last week -- so we just drove by and picked up a CD. (And we got to meet JJ and his lovely family in the process.) Small world!

So now... what's next? Finishing the film is like having a baby... the end of one long process, and the beginning of another. Now that the film is done, I need to make sure it has a long and happy life out in the world. Getting the film into some festivals and onto PBS is currently top priority. Plus developing a graphic identity for the film, and putting together a DVD (Hooray! Finally a chance to use all those fabulous clips that didn't fit into the film!), and then figuring out how to distribute the film to educational and home video markets.

But for now - starting tomorrow - I'm gonna go on a much-needed vacation. :)

ISO: Chamorro end credits music

2009-07-28T07:59:00.000-07:00

I'm in the online edit now, finishing The Insular Empire with rock star editor/After Effects wizard Mike Addison at Force Four here in Vancouver. But we've run into a snag: my fearless team in the CNMI hasn't been able to track down the rights to the song we'd been planning to run over the end credits of the 58 minute (festival/educational) version.

So... now, in the 11th hour, we’re looking for a new song for the end credits. It has to be sung in Chamorro, and ideally it should be about the Marianas as homeland.

If anyone out there can suggest a song, please email me – and please attach the song (or a link to the song) so I can hear it. And if you know who has the rights to it, please let me know that as well.

Si Yu’us maase!

More fallen soldiers from Guam and CNMI

2009-07-09T12:39:00.000-07:00

I've identified three more soldiers killed in the US "war on terror". That brings the total from the Marianas to 26.

Iosiwo Uruo

Derence Jack

JayGee Ngirmidol Meluat

Please notify me ASAP if you know of any others! Thank you.

News from Indian Country - and More Fallen Heroes

2009-07-09T10:05:00.000-07:00

Hope Cristobal just pointed me to one of the best articles I have read in a long time about Guam and the US military buildup happening there. Published on a news site called News from Indian Country, and written by journalist Beau Hodai, who has worked for both the Pacific Daily News and the Marianas Variety, the article documents the self-censorship of Guam's corporate-controlled media.

It also documents the heavy burden the Marianas are carrying in America's wars overseas. I'm not convinced that Hodai's numbers are accurate, but according to Hodai, the Marianas now have lost 46 soldiers, giving "Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands, with a population of under 300,000, the dubious honor of being the region of the United States with the highest number per capita of such casualties."

I am collecting the names and photos of these fallen soldiers for the film. So far, I have photos of the following 23 soldiers:

Christopher Fernandez

Jose Charfauros, Jr.

Adam Quitugua Emul

Christopher Jude Rivera Wesley

Eddie Chen

Gregory D. Fejeran

John D. Flores

Jesse Castro

Jonathan Pangelinan Santos

Kasper Allen Camacho Dudkiewicz

Leeroy Camacho

Michael Vega

Richard D. Naputi, Jr.

Henry Hank Ofeciar

Victor Fontanilla

Wilgene Lieto

Ferdinand Ibabao

Brian Leon Guerrero

Samson Mora

Tony Carbullido

Christopher Quitugua

Joseph D. Gamboa

Anamarie San Nicolas Camacho

If you are aware of anyone not on this list who should be, please email me [vanessa-at-horsopera.org] immediately. We are locking picture in less than a week!

Double Your Donation - and More Good News

2009-06-25T14:48:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to announce that an anonymous donor has pledged up to $2,000 in matching funds... meaning that right now every dollar you donate to The Insular Empire will automatically be doubled. Yes - doubled! Already we've received a $250 contribution -- meaning there are still $1,750 in matching funds available. So if you've been thinking about donating, but thought you couldn't afford it -- well, now you can just lower the amount to whatever you can afford, and send that in, and it'll automatically be doubled to something even better. Think of it as a 50% discount!

I'm also pleased to announce that after a nine-hour marathon recording session yesterday, with sound goddess Erica Chard Landrock at the controls and the mellifluous voice of Lesley Ewen on the microphone, all of the narration for the film has been recorded. Professionally. By someone who is WAY more qualified than I am. :)

The Things You Learn on Twitter

2009-06-18T21:01:00.000-07:00

I finally decided to devote some time to learning how to use Twitter. (Yes, it's a procrastination tactic - God knows I've got plenty to do - but also, in theory, it's a way to find a bigger audience for The Insular Empire, out there in TwitterLand.) And look what I found: a news report from The Onion about how the recession is forcing the US to 'dip into Guam'.

Do the folks at The Onion know that that's not actually a joke? I mean, how much $$ would the US have to pay for all that military land they're holding, if they were to compensate Guam's rightful land-owners? And what about the millions of $$ that the courts have demanded from Guam because of the landfill debacle? Sounds like a good money-making venture to me...

The good news is there are a bunch of people out there tweeting about Guam and the CNMI. Which is cool. But (not surprisingly) a search for "Marianas" just calls up a bunch of tweets about the Marianas Trench -- a pop-punk band from, of all places, Vancouver. Go figure.

Guam is Crying

2009-06-09T10:28:00.001-07:00

There's a really powerful short documentary up on YouTube, made by Chamoru filmmaker Alex Munoz. Check it out!

Guamology Interview

2009-06-08T10:07:00.000-07:00

Kel Muna of the cool new website Guamology just published an interview with me, about my motivations for making The Insular Empire and what it's like to be a documentary filmmaker. It's an odd feeling, to be on the other side of the camera (so to speak). But he did kinda make me look good. :)

California Update (#3)

2009-05-14T10:58:00.000-07:00

I think it's safe to say that last night's screening was an unqualified success. We had a great turnout, and everyone seemed genuinely moved and pleased with the film. We raised $500, and several people offered to throw house parties to help raise more money to help get the film finished. I also got to catch up with Hope Cristobal, Jr., and Amy Robinson, and a bunch of other friends and family I hadn't seen in a long time.

I also succeeded in shooting photos for Kunal, the film's animator. I took photos of Ben Servino, his daughter Emily, Martha Duenas, and an unsuspecting but gracious Frank Flores (who didn't know until he got there that he'd been volunteered as a model).

Today I'll finish up working with Todd and Gus on the music -- and then take some much needed time off...

California Update (#2) - Parking

2009-05-12T14:23:00.001-07:00

For those of you coming to the screening on Wednesday -- please park in Lot B on the CSU Hayward campus, right across from the screening venue (Old University Union, Room #102). Ben Servino has gotten us free access to this lot from 4-8pm.

See my post below for maps and directions to the screening.

As we gear up for tomorrow, all is going well. Todd (and Alex, his assistant) and I finished up our spotting session this morning, and I'm even more excited to hear what they come up with. Gus will join us tomorrow to infuse the score with some local flavor...

California Update (#1)

2009-05-08T14:34:00.001-07:00

After three days on the road, we made it safely to Quincy, CA, where the weather is GORGEOUS... (man, I do miss the California sunshine!) We're going to soak up some sunshine, have a visit with my family, and then hit the road again on Sunday.

Ben Servino has found us a venue for the fundraiser screening, which will be held on Wednesday, May 13, 6-8pm, at the Cal State Hayward campus, Old University Union, Rm. #102.

Gus Kaipat, who will be in California helping me with the film's score, has graciously agreed to perform before the screening. (Thanks, Gus!)

Driving directions to the CSUEB campus are here.

Here is the link for the campus map.

And here is the facebook page for the event.

And lastly, after much discussion and consultation (and many thanks to all of you who participated in my surveys)... I've decided to stick with the original title of The Insular Empire: America in the Marianas. No, it's not perfect -- but it seems to be closer to perfect than anything else we were all able to come up with!

California, Here I Come...

2009-05-02T10:24:00.000-07:00

We're packing up and getting ready to head south! After almost 8 years of planning, shooting, editing (and re-editing and re-editing), we are LOCKING PICTURE on Monday, putting the files on my laptop, and driving it down to California. Yeeha!

A zillion details still to sort out, but the film at least is finally solid, and I'm feeling really good about it. I showed it to my TV-director friend Mona last week and she said, "wow, it's really good... and definitely one of the best docs I've seen made by someone I know!" (Since she went to USC film school and worked in LA for years, this does actually mean something.)

We're driving down to SF in Nik's trusty VW Westphalia, aka Verne the Van, and stopping along the way to visit family in Seattle and in Quincy, CA. We'll be in the Bay Area by next Monday, where I'm going to be working with Todd Boekelheide (Academy-award winning sound designer and composer) and Gus Kaipat (recording artist and ukulele player from Saipan) on the film's musical score. With the help of Martha Duenas and Hopie Cristobal I'm also going to be setting up a still photo shoot, to get photos of Chamorro faces for my animator Kunal Sen to use in the animations... AND it looks like Ben Servino of Cal State East Bay is going to set up a fundraising screening for Wednesday, May 13th at the Hayward Campus. (So if any of you want a sneak peek at the film, and want to help get this thing DONE and on the air, come on out and show your love!) I will post more details on the screening once he's nailed down a time and venue.

It should be a very full and very productive week, and I'm really looking forward to it. But now... back to the grindstone. Lots to do before we leave...

One time in Madrid...

2009-04-23T10:02:00.000-07:00

We spent many, many hours with Carlos Taitano -- but this is still one of my favorite Carlos moments:

Money, money, money

2009-04-16T16:05:00.000-07:00

It seems that the closer I get to the finish line with this documentary, the more financial hurdles get thrown in my path. Who knew it would cost $2500 for 25 seconds of archival footage from Japan? And $3000 just for a lawyer to help me get E&O insurance? (Not to mention the $5000 for the insurance itself?)

Undaunted, I am soldiering on... but a small voice in the back of my head (along with the clearly audible voice of my husband) keeps asking, "Hey, how are you going to pay for all that?"

What I am saying, dear reader, is that we are not yet out of the woods. We need money to finish this film. So if you have even $5 or $10 to spare -- please donate. If you have more, so much the better (here at Horse Opera we are experts at stretching pennies, so even small donations can go a long way).

Other ways you can help:

If you know of a funding source we should apply to, please let me know.
Throw a fundraising party! It's fun, it'll make you really popular, AND it will help us out. Send me an email and I'll send you a DVD screener w/ info on how to collect donations. It's that easy!
Tell other people about the film and show them how to donate. Hey, it's tax deductible! It's good for the economy! It's good for the planet! And it's easy.

Donating is good for your karma and will make you feel good all day. Plus helping us to finish this film will be really, really good for the people of the Marianas, who have been getting the shaft for a very, very long time.

Thank you for reading this, and for your support.

Adios, Tun Carlos

2009-04-03T14:18:00.000-07:00

It is with real sorrow that I am blogging today about the passing of Carlos Pangelinan Taitano, who died last week at his home in Los Angeles at the age of 92. The Guam Pacific Daily News published this obituary for him -- but they've left off many details from his long and illustrious life.

Many people don't know, for instance, that Carlos was a professional dancer during his high school and college years in Hawaii, or that he was one of the first Chamorros to receive a college degree (in, I believe, 1940 -- though that might be off by a year). He was one of the first (if not the first) Chamorros to become an attorney, and that distinction opened many doors for him back on Guam -- including becoming the official bottler for Coca-Cola throughout Micronesia. Carlos served as a legislator in the Guam Congress (in which he eventually served as Speaker of the House), and he led the congress in the now-famous Walkout of 1949, which led to the Organic Act of Guam.

Later in life, Carlos returned to his passion for dance by researching the historic dances of Guam's original Tao Tao Tano people, reconstructing cultural practices that had been all but erased by five hundred years of colonization. This research forms the foundation of many of the dances now performed by Guam's Chamorro cultural organizations, such as Pa'a Tao Tao Tano. Right up until his death, Carlos remained active -- speaking publicly about the need for change on Guam, and continuing his research on Chamorro and Austranesian culture and history.

I was lucky enough to have seen Carlos only three weeks before he died, while I was in Los Angeles for the preview screening of The Insular Empire. While he was too weak by that point to attend the screening, I am pleased to say that I was able to show the film to him in his hospital room, and that he seemed quite pleased with the way it portrayed him. I'm also pleased to report that -- even in the hospital, as weak as he was -- he seemed happy and alert, and not in any pain. He even asked for a pen and paper, so that he could take notes while watching!

The Insular Empire would not be the film it is with Carlos' support and participation. He was unfailingly generous with his time, and allowed us to interview him (twice, at length) as well as giving us complete access to his extensive personal archives. He was also gracious about letting us follow him around with a camera, on occasions too numerous to mention. His family, too, was open and helpful, and we owe them a debt of gratitude as well.

We are culling some of Carlos' finer interview segments from the many hours of footage we collected, and this weekend I will post some of that footage here. For now, I offer up my sincere condolences to his family, and a short prayer for Tun Carlos – may his spirit go in peace.

Okinawa

2009-03-22T20:21:00.000-07:00

Hope Cristobal (Sr.) forwarded me an op-ed article today from the Japan Times, by Kiroku Hanai. The article outlines the current debate raging in Japan about the proposed base realignment which would result in relocating US marines, their families, and support personnel to Guam.

Most of the local folks on Guam are pretty pissed off about this plan -- not having been involved in it, or asked their opinion about it, despite the fact that the buildup would severely and adversely impact their already over-burdened island. But it appears that the local folks on Okinawa are also pissed off. I met with a contingent from Okinawa at the Security Without Empire conference last month, and after watching The Insular Empire they came up and told me how similar the Marianas story was to their own... because evidently the planned military move doesn't actually remove the US military from Okinawa -- it merely moves one US base from one location (Futenma) to another (Nago) -- AS WELL as moving the marines to Guam. The proposed Nago site is also something of an environmental disaster: it would fill in almost 2 square kilometres of ocean, including habitat of the endangered 'dugong' sea mammal. (Think baby beluga meets manatee.) And the Japanese taxpayers are supposed to be footing 60% of the bill for all of this.

Well, I can hear you all saying, isn't the New Age of Obama going to change all this? I would have liked to think so, but in fact Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton's first official overseas visit was to Japan, where -- as the Japan Times article points out -- she did her best to push through plans for the move, despite growing protest from Japan. (And Guam. And Okinawa. The Okinawans, in fact, have been holding a daily sit-in at the proposed Henoko site since 1997. That's twelve years. Every day. They even go out in kayaks and do sit-ins on the tower construction sites off-shore. They *really* don't want that base there.)

Kiroku Hanai writes: "Clinton's visit to Japan and the execution of the Guam transfer agreement can only be interpreted as an attempt by Washington to secure its vested rights to maintain military bases in Japan. If so, it will undoubtedly come as a big disappointment to those Japanese citizens of sound judgment who earnestly hoped that President Obama would depart from the belligerent policies of his predecessor."

Indeed.

PEER goes after Air Force for Guam Environmental Crimes

2009-03-18T20:41:00.000-07:00

A recent post on Commondreams.org reported on serious environmental infractions on Guam by the US Air Force. PEER -- Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility -- issued a "whistleblower disclosure" on the part of Nancy Mitton, Natural Resources Specialist at Guam's Andersen Air Force Base. Ms. Mitton has evidently been trying, for years, to draw attention to problems caused, or permitted, by the Air Force. Problems like rampant poaching, lack of protection of endangered species, paving beaches, and stripping vegetation from the habitats of nesting turtles. She finally gave up going through regular channels and took her grievances public.

I'm not in the least surprised that any of this is going on (her most common allegation is of 'abuse of authority'). But it struck me in reading her announcement that it is GREAT that Commondreams is paying attention to Guam's environment.

Now how do we get them to start paying attention to Guam's people?

This isn't an entirely facetious question. For while Ms. Mitton's exclusive focus on the environment could -- from a local, Chamorro perspective -- be infuriating (she makes no distinction between the local 'poacher', who is probably hunting on his family's ancestral lands, and the Air Force officer who is blythely paving beaches), it also offers the opportunity for some much-needed publicity, and maybe even some useful coalition-building.

Here's the current situation: the military holds most of the power, the Chamorus have almost no international recognition, and their environment is in dire straits. Given this sorry state of affairs, my personal feeling is that it would be politically astute for local people to jump on the environmental bandwagon. Yes, the environmental protection laws are made by people who know nothing about Chamoru custom or culture. Yes, the people enforcing those laws are usually just as ignorant. But protecting the environment serves everyone's long-term interests -- especially the Chamorus', because when the military is long gone, the Chamorus will still be there. And if there aren't any turtle or fruitbats or coconut crabs left, it's going to hurt them more than anyone.

So, as an interim first step, I think it would be smart for Chamoru Nasion et al to build a coalition with the environmental folks. What they lack in cultural understanding (and probably in understanding of the Treaty of Paris and other relevant political facts), they make up for in U.S. government clout AND scientific knowledge related to species survival. (And hey, the EPA is finally getting some teeth again under the new administration! Woohoo!) Plus, if the locals work WITH the environmentalists, and help them, it's an opportunity to educate them, and maybe even to get them on board to help further the cause of Chamoru self-determination. You never know. It sure beats having your beaches paved.

Los Angeles - Screening #2, CSU Long Beach

2009-03-17T20:17:00.001-07:00

After the UCLA event -- which I can now say was officially our last feedback screening -- I felt so DONE, and so pooped, that I did something really stupid. In the parking lot outside, I gave the last DVD copy of the film to my friend Kathy, who wanted to show it to some of her colleagues at the UCLA law school.

Now, I did this knowing that I'd lost the VGA adaptor for my laptop back in DC, and that without the DVD I basically had no way to show the film again until I got home. And a little voice in the back of my head said 'you know, it's really not a great idea to give away your last DVD like that'... but hey, I was done, right? So out of my bag it went, into her waiting hands. We said goodnight, and I went back to Hermosa Beach with my friend Lela, and she -- and the DVD -- went back to her house in Studio City. (For those of you who don't know LA -- these two places are in opposite directions from UCLA, about an hour apart.)

Then I woke up the next morning, and realized just how truly idiotic I had been. I had a large fundraising screening planned for Sunday. In 24 hours. And I now had no film to show.

Luckily, I was with the unflappable Lela, who spent the rest of the day letting me use her phone and driving me all over Los Angeles to retrieve the DVD. She even came with me to a Doculink party, which was really fun. (There were WAY more people than Vancouver's small and somewhat dysfunctional Doculink community ever gets together, and I even got to salsa dance with a persistent Latin sound guy whose name I didn't catch. And I finally met fellow doc filmmaker Jonathan Skurnik, in person -- who offered to lend me his VGA adaptor. Bless his heart.)

So by Sunday morning, I was set. Keith Camacho, Prof. of Asian American studies at UCLA, originally from Guam and a long-time advisor to this project, picked me up with his lovely partner Julianne and drove me down to Long Beach. We got there late, and people were already showing up -- groups of people, people with kids, teenagers, folks wearing Kutturan Chamoru t-shirts... I was the only haole in the room, and I started having a vague feeling that I had suddenly landed, just like that, back on Guam.

Pita Taase, head of the CSULB Pacific Islanders Association, had some of his students there to help us, and we managed to get people fed and to start the film only about 1/2 an hour late. (Which is prompt, if you're on island time.) It was unfortunately a little hard to see the screen -- the room, which was otherwise perfect, had a big window at the back, and of course the LA sun was shining -- so I think the audience didn't get the best viewing experience... but overall, they really seemed to like it.

There were a lot of questions afterwards -- but almost always prefaced by a thank you. One guy expressed how deeply validating it was to see his people up on the big screen. And after the Q&A, people kept coming up to me with money, stuffing it into the envelope Pita had provided for donations, and telling me how much they enjoyed the film.

Pita was great, and I owe him and his students (seen here eating Nachos) a deep debt of gratitude for their help. I have to give a special shout-out to Keith, too. He introduced the film (AND supplied most of the food, AND drove me all over LA, AND fed me dinner), and he helped to start off the Q&A afterwards, with some incisive and thought-provoking comments. I met Keith back when he was a grad student, seven years ago when I was just beginning this film -- and it was fun and deeply satisfying to see him, now an esteemed professor, leading a discussion (with some serious authority -- that man can SPEAK) about a film that is now, basically, done.

With about 40 people in the audience, we ended up raising almost $700, which was more than I had hoped for -- and enough to pay for the cost of my trips to DC and LA. I got some very valuable feedback, saw some old friends (like my dear friends Kathy and Jonathan, who also housed and fed me and schlepped me all over LA), and most importantly I made new connections with people that are interested in seeing this film get out into the world. Now that I'm back home again, it's time to hunker down and finish the home stretch!

Los Angeles - Screening #1, UCLA

2009-03-17T19:35:00.000-07:00

I'm late in posting to the blog these days... the last two weeks have been something of a blur -- first a sun-soaked week in LA, and then a week of catching up (and SLEEPING) here in Vancouver. My apologies to those of you who have been wondering what I've been up to...

But LA was, I think, an unqualified success. Our first screening, at UCLA, was organized by a Hawaiian UCLA grad student named Pua Warren, and was intended to garner feedback on the film from people who knew nothing about the Marianas. (Which is, of course, our principal target audience.)

We didn't get as many filmmakers as I would have liked -- but we had about 20 people, which was what I had hoped for. About half were either Pacific Islander or 'other indigenous,' but only four people had more than a little knowledge of the film's subject, and overall, everyone seemed to like it a lot. No one could find any places that felt boring or slow, and everyone was able to follow the story -- even one woman who had come in late and missed the opening. My friend (and music editor extraordinaire) Vordo gamely gave us some very thorough and well-articulated feedback from a white male mainlander perspective (despite being the only white male in the room), which I think will prove useful to us in the final edit. AND he liked my music choices for the soundtrack! :)

The jury is still out, though, on the title. A few people loved it. A few people thought it was too oblique. One person simply put 'meh' on her questionnaire. But no one recommended an alternative. So if anyone out there has any ideas for a better title, please comment!!

Next up, a report on the CSU Long Beach screening...

To See the President (Sort of) – Part II of a Brief Sojourn in the US Capitol

2009-03-04T10:08:00.000-08:00

I’m staying in DC with my good friends Rob and Elisa, whose hospitality never ceases to amaze me. I met them years ago in Guatemala, when I needed an emergency root canal. They took me in and gave me a place to stay, and we’ve been friends ever since. This time, they’ve put me up in their lovely basement guest room in Northwest DC, and I’m deeply, deeply grateful.

I ended the conference over a delicious French dinner with Lisa and a lovely woman named Lotus, an activist from Berkeley – but I woke up the next morning to four inches of snow and a case of the flu. Rob and Elisa’s kids went sledding, while I sipped hot tea and went back to bed. Tuesday I wasn’t feeling much better, but I managed to get myself out of the house in order to get some paperwork signed at the Department of the Interior.

To get there, I took a city bus that dropped me off near the White House. I was delighted to see that the barricades erected during the Bush/Cheney years are now gone, and the White House is once again visible from the street. There were even some people protesting in front of the gate, without police harassment, including a very effective group dressed as prisoners from Guantamo Bay.

As I made my way closer to the Department of the Interior, I began to notice more and more police cars on the street, then cars from Homeland Security and Federal Protective Services.

Men in suits with curly wires in their ears stood in clumps around the building. The security around the building was a lot tighter than it appeared at the White House! When I got up to the entrance, I was told it was closed, and that I’d have to retrace my steps two blocks to the back entrance. Turns out, I’d picked March 3rd to run my errand – the 160th anniversary of the Department of the Interior – and President Obama had decided at the last minute to come and make a speech at the anniversary celebrations. Go figure.

I retraced my steps to the back entrance, dropped off my paperwork (the guy I wanted to have sign it was busy waiting for the President), then I waited in the icy cold hoping to spot President Obama as he walked in. After half an hour I finally gave up and hailed a cab – but no sooner had I closed the cab door than the sirens started and traffic stopped, and a few minutes later the motorcade passed in front of us. I grabbed my camera, and this is all I was able to see:

But I’ve zoomed in on this photo, and I think I see the President’s silhouette in the window. I swear he’s looking right at me, and smiling.

Once the motorcade passed, the cab took me to the National Museum of the American Indian, where I met an old friend for lunch. The Museum is a treasure, and worth a visit if only for a delicious meal served in its magnificent cafeteria – all of the food indigenous, and organized by tribal region. (They didn't, of course, have any Chamorro food. Maybe someone should suggest it. How cool would that be, to get chicken kelaguen on the Mall?!) I only had an hour and a half to spend visiting the museum itself, which was nowhere near enough time to take in all the stories, exhibits, films, artifacts… but enough to know I need to go back again.

Security Without Empire: Part I of a Brief Sojourn in the US Capitol

2009-03-01T18:56:00.000-08:00

I came to DC to meet a woman named Lisa Natividad. She teaches social work at the University of Guam, and is one of the key people right now working for Chamorro self-determination.

I met up with her at American University, where AFSC and the Institute for Policy Studies has put on a conference called Security Without Empire. The conference is intended to coordinate the efforts of various groups that are trying to reduce (or eliminate) the number of US overseas military bases. There are delegates here from as far away as Hawaii and Okinawa, Puerto Rico and the Middle East, representing people from all corners of the globe. They share a common vision of peace, and of freedom from US military presence in their lands.

Lisa turns out to be lovely, articulate, and smart. It was worth the trip just to meet her. After some less-than-ideal scheduling snafus, we managed to screen the film twice, and the response was overwhelmingly positive. Several people (Lisa included) were even moved to tears. (Definitely an odd feeling, as a filmmaker: satisfaction in making people cry.) The delegation from Okinawa descended on me afterwards to ask how they could bring the film to Okinawa this summer. I’ve also met a lot of people interested in showing the film to their various constituencies – from Puerto Rico to New Orleans to Honolulu – and made contacts that I hope will help with the film’s outreach once it’s done.

At the end of the conference, American University host professor David Vine led us all to a closing ceremony at the far edge of the AU campus, at a small clearing next to an ugly construction site. I was beginning to question his sense of spatial aesthetics (why were we having a closing ceremony between a construction site and the bus depot?) when he began explaining that the clearing was actually a toxic military clean-up site.

Evidently, AU stored chemical weapons for the US military back in World War I – and during the mid-90s, construction crews unearthed unexploded chemical ordnance. A clean-up was conducted – but ten years later, more unexploded ordnance were again discovered. The site next to us was the latest effort at removing the toxins, left there almost 100 years before.

The ceremony ended with Lisa pouring a bowl filled with water brought by participants from the many different oceans of the world, at the base of a tree in the clearing. We all placed roses on the tree, and a Kanaka Maoli delegate from Hawaii said a Hawaiian prayer for peace. I felt badly for the tiny bulb shoots around the tree that the group was inadvertently trampling underfoot (you had to be a gardener from northern climes, I guess, to recognize the tiny budding life in the wintry landscape), but the ceremony did leave us all with a sense of peace and common purpose.

And now – time to visit the Department of the Interior, and to see some of the city.

Reflections on the Way to the Capitol

2009-02-27T18:58:00.000-08:00

Sitting on an airplane, en route to DC, I have the opportunity to catch my breath for a few hours, and to reflect on just how much we've accomplished over the past month. For starters, Laurie and I have carved out a 57 minute rough cut of the film -- something I thought couldn't be done -- and the proof is on three DVDs, safely tucked into the carry-on bags at my feet.

I've also updated our website (at long last, and with late-night help from my unbelievably helpful husband Nik). If you haven't checked it out lately, please do: www.horseopera.org. It's bare-bones, and nothing fancy, but it's clean and up-to-date. I'm hoping to work on a much bigger, richer website in the months to come...

Other accomplishments from the whirlwind of the last two weeks: I've nailed down a venue in LA for a fundraising screening next Sunday (more info on that in my next post), sent in two more funding applications, upgraded my organizational and financial systems, and finally found a good bookkeeper. I got a screening time at the AFSC/IPS conference being held in DC this weekend (hence the flight I'm on), and I even managed to get my hair cut. I'll drink a toast (ginger ale and pretzel snacks, please) to the end of February... may March be just as productive, but a little less hectic!

As for what's up next... this is my first trip to DC in many years, and only my second trip to the US since Obama's election. I am curious to see how things may have changed in my absence. And part of me, lately, is very very homesick... I have been in Canada now for over four years, and I feel like my American identity is slowly fading. Here I am, making a film about what it means to be American, and I myself no longer know. So part of this trip will be trying to figure that out.

Three important things to know about Laurie

2009-02-12T13:53:00.000-08:00

Since the Horse Opera website is in the process of being updated and doesn't yet include our whole team, I thought I'd just post a quick note here about one of the most valuable members of the Horse Opera crew: editor Laurie MacMillan.

Things to know:

#1: Laurie is a GREAT editor. She has taken my vision, and my overly long and complicated rough cut, and made it sing. WE LOVE LAURIE!

#2: Laurie has a great attitude. Here is a picture of Laurie, editing The Insular Empire in what has come to be known as "the world's smallest editing bay." And yet look how cheerful she is! Amazing.

#3: Laurie loves Trader Joe's -- maybe even more than I do -- and has been in severe withdrawal since her arrival here in Vancouver. Our recent trip to Seattle replenished her store of Trader Joe's Tom Yum cashews... let's hope they hold out until I can buy her more next month in LA...

Post-Seattle Update

2009-02-05T11:31:00.000-08:00

I had meant to post something here prior to the Seattle screening, but things were just too crazy for that to be feasible. I'm happy to say, though, that we got the latest cut ready in time for the screening, and made it down to Seattle without a hitch. Our host Scott Lipsky was very generous and made his beautiful home on the West Seattle waterfront available for two screenings, which went quite smoothly.

Overall, the feedback was really useful. It looks like the changes we made in response to the Vancouver screening are working (no slow spots anymore - hooray!), and we got some really good feedback on ways to improve the look of the animation sequences. Most importantly, the audience, on the whole, seemed to GET the idea of the film.

What was interesting was that the idea itself -- the inherent complexity of the relationship between the Marianas and the US -- was hard for many viewers to accept. Similarly, our decision to give equal weight to each of the film's four characters (and their often conflicting viewpoints) seemed to make many of the mainland viewers uncomfortable. But I think this just goes with the territory. The Marianas ARE complicated, and their relationship to the US is extremely conflicted. This is not something most (non-indigenous) Americans have had to think about before. All the more reason we need to develop a really amazing website, that can help answer a lot of the questions the film raises.

And speaking of amazing websites... I should mention that I've started working with a really great designer here in Vancouver, Lara Kroeker, of Randomlink Interactive. I'm about to start a new fundraising campaign, to help pay for her services in creating the Insular Empire's digital outreach campaign.

What a great screening!

2009-01-22T12:57:00.000-08:00

Last night was a big success -- we had about 30 people show up at Raw Canvas (standing room only) to watch the screening, which went off without a hitch.

We got a lot of GREAT feedback -- first in a lively discussion afterwards, and then poring over the feedback forms everyone had filled out for us. The feedback, overall, was very positive: the consensus seemed to be that the first half and the ending were working really well -- but that the film lagged at about the 2/3 mark. Laurie and I went out for beers afterwards and brainstormed a bunch of ideas on how to fix that... so now we're heading back into the edit bay to see if we can't iron out these last wrinkles over the next week.

Another thing that became clear to us during the discussion was that the audience was almost entirely Canadian; and since our intended audience (at least for the current PBS cut) is really American, we've decided to schedule another screening, for next weekend (1/31), down in Seattle. My next post will include more details for that screening... stay tuned!

DOC screens IE rough cut, day after tomorrow

2009-01-19T12:13:00.000-08:00

I sit on the board of the Documentary Organisation of Canada, BC chapter (DOC-BC), which runs a monthly screening of local independent documentaries and works-in-progress. The "DOC-screens" committee has agreed to have their next event be a rough cut screening of The Insular Empire, at a very cool little cafe/artist space in Yaletown, called Raw Canvas. My fellow DOC-BC board member, Adelina Suvagau, has also agreed to feature the screening in her weekly show on Omni, Rompost TV.

I'm so excited! Laurie has been editing away for the past two months, and this will be the first public screening of her work on the film. We're really looking forward to getting feedback -- specifically on whether or not we should keep this longer version for festival distribution.

What better way to end 2008...

2009-01-05T14:54:00.001-08:00

than with another finishing grant? This one from the Northern Mariana Islands Council for the Humanities, in the form of $10,000. News of the award came on New Year's Day -- what a great way to ring in the New Year!

The NMICH was instrumental in providing production funding, and now they are providing the last amount needed to complete the film. My heartfelt thanks go to NMICH acting Executive Director (and crack historian, AND former Peace Corps volunteer) Scott Russell, for his help in shepherding this project through to approval - twice!

At last! Finishing Funds!

2008-11-20T14:58:00.000-08:00

With joy (and great relief), I am happy to announce that The Insular Empire: America in the Marianas has received a $50,000 completion award from Pacific Islanders in Communications. PIC has been a long-time supporter of this project, providing Horse Opera with vital production funding back in 2003. With this new award, PIC is once again enabling us to move ahead, this time bringing the film to a fine-cut stage and preparing us to – finally – launch The Insular Empire out into the world.

We are still looking for that last piece of funding, to pay for all the technical necessities you need to put a film on national PBS, and to pay for the film's distribution and outreach. (If you want to help us get there, please visit our site at reelchanges.org to make a tax-deductible donation.) But the light is now shining brightly at the end of the tunnel, and I am 100% confident that The Insular Empire will be completed in 2009. Si Yu'us Maase and Olomwaay to PIC, and to all of you who have made this impossible dream a reality!

Julian Aguon Turns Up the Heat on the UN

2008-05-30T11:23:00.000-07:00

Julian Aguon of Guam recently gave an impassioned speech before the UN's Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, imploring the UN to do something about the impending US military buildup on Guam. If the Forum doesn't pay attention to THIS, every one of us is in trouble...

Julian's riveting speech can also be viewed at the Peace and Justice for Guam blog.

Finally: A (Non-Voting) Delegate for the CNMI!

2008-05-14T21:52:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, May 8, President George W. Bush signed into law Senate bill S.2739, the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008. It's ironic - if no longer a surprise to those of us familiar with the way the United States treats its offshore territories - that a bill on "natural resources" contained legislation addressing immigration and representation for the people of the Northern Marianas - who until now have been able to control their own immigration laws, but who have had no voice at all in the US Congress.

Tucked into this omnibus bill - which designates and expands wilderness areas and national parks, funds some water projects, and modifies two existing energy programs - are provisions federalizing the CNMI's immigration laws, and creating a non-voting delegate from the CNMI to the US House of Representatives. (Makes sense, right? Parks... energy... immigration? Anyone?)

Pete A. Tenorio, who is featured in The Insular Empire, has served as the CNMI's Resident Representative to the US (a position with no real power within the US federal system - and one that, with the passing of S.2739, is now obsolete) since 2002. He is now deciding whether or not to throw his hat in the ring for the new Delegate spot.

"Too many people are saying that my support for the immigration portion of this law was a trade-off for the delegate seat,” said Tenorio in a recent interview with Marianas Variety. “The choice before the House Subcommittee on Insular Affairs and myself was to apply federal immigration laws with or without a delegate — either way federalization of immigration was going to happen.” Given the current Democratic Congress, the long-standing stink over labor abuses in the Northern Marianas' garment industry -- championed by Democratic congressman George Miller -- and the subsequent Jack Abramoff scandal, I would tend to believe him.

Pete's been trying to get the CNMI a delegate since he set foot in Washington six years ago. And who can blame him? It's a no-brainer that the US citizens of the CNMI should at least have the same (marginal, non-voting) representation that the other unincorporated US territories have. When we spent time filming Pete in DC back in 2004, he was lobbying hard for it - but back then he had the support of some top-ranking (and mighty shady) Republicans, like Richard Pombo. Ironically, it took a Democratic congress to pass the legislation that Pombo was helping Pete to champion four years ago. Politics, as they say, makes strange bedfellows.

But what about the other part of this bill -- federal control of immigration? On the one hand, it cleans up a messy situation, in which the US citizens of the CNMI have become outnumbered by foreign "guest workers" -- workers who had few rights within the CNMI and who were often subjected to labor abuses by factory owners (who themselves were often non-residents, mostly from Asia). But on the other hand, applying US immigration to the tiny islands of Saipan, Tinian, and Rota is like having surgery done by a surgeon located 9000 miles away from the operating table, using a remote-control chainsaw. After looking at what has happened to the local indigenous people of Guam -- where they are also outnumbered in their homeland, but have absolutely no recourse to change the situation -- I for one am very worried about how this law may adversely affect the indigenous culture of the Marianas as a whole. My distinct impression (despite what people from Guam have to say on the matter), is that the NMI has become the cradle of Chamorro culture -- and, in particular, the Chamorro language. It is also the homeland of the Refalawasch people -- who share ties with the Caroline Islands, but who for many generations have called the Northern Marianas home. It seems to me that the last barrier between the preservation of this homeland, and its total absorption into the homogenized, anglo-centric, consumerist, individualistic American empire, is Article XII of the CNMI constitution, which comes up for a vote in a few years.

Guam's Women Leaders Say No to U.S. Military Build-Up

2008-05-09T17:19:00.000-07:00

By 2014, the United States plans to spend $10 billion to move 8,000 Marines and their 9,000 dependents from Okinawa to Guam. This move will more than triple the military's already massive presence on the small island of Guam (population 172,000), flooding the island with an additional 40,000 people associated with the military build-up.

The decision to increase the U.S. military presence on Guam is being made without the consent of Guam's people. On August 13, 2007, a group of Guam's maga'haga* - or women leaders - met with U.S. Congressional representatives to protest the buildup, and Eklectiyk Creative Media created Maga'haga, a short film documenting this meeting. Maga'haga illustrates the unwavering strength and determination of the island's women to preserve their island home, and to make their voices heard.

Maga'haga (the film) can be viewed on youtube in two parts:

Part one
Part two

*In Ancient times, "maga'haga" were the eldest daughters of a clan, who shared the responsibilities of running the clan's affairs and governing its resources with the "maga'lahi," or the eldest sons. Today, the term refers to a strong female leader.

Welcome note from the Director

2008-05-09T16:09:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Horse Opera's spanky new blog for The Insular Empire: America in the Marianas. In the weeks and months ahead, I will be posting updates and information here regarding the film's progress.

Currently The Insular Empire is at a rough cut stage -- meaning the basic structure is in place, but there's still a lot of work to do. The rough cut is 78 minutes long, and the final film festival version will probably be about 75 minutes. But to get on PBS, it has to fit in a 56:46 window -- which means I somehow now need to hack out 22 minutes.

To get the film done, out to festivals and on the air (and into the hands of community organizers like Famoksaiyan), there's still a lot of work to be done. And the first task is to raise money. Six proposals are currently in the hands of funders, and more are being written. And of course, I'm continuing to accept donations from everyday people like you, who are willing to lend a hand because you want this story to be told.

Once the financing is in place, next steps include:

More editing. Bringing the festival version to a fine cut - and hacking out 22 minutes for the PBS version.
Animation and graphics. I am desperate to find a good animator here in Vancouver. (Send me your recommendations! I'll be posting a job description here shortly.)
Music. The amazing Todd Boekelheide will start on the film's score as soon as financing is secured.
Archival. The Insular Empire is FULL of fantastic archival... all of which needs to be procured in original format and cleared for distribution.
Sound mix, online, color correction, and a lot of other technical hoo-ha that broadcasters require.
Distribution strategy. How can we get the most people to see this film??

Wanna help make it happen? It's easy! Just click here and follow the easy instructions to make a donation. No amount is too big or too small! And if you can't afford to send money our way... send us your emotional support. This has been a long, hard, labor of love -- and your good wishes mean a lot to me.

Please feel free to share your comments and add your voice to this blog. I look forward to hearing from you.

- Vanessa