More fallen soldiers from Guam and CNMI

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.

The Things You Learn on Twitter

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.

Reflections on the Way to the Capitol

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.

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

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.