Tuesday, 21 October 2008 00:00 by Zita Y. Taitano | Variety News Staff
A GROUP of educators and historians gathered last week to discuss the influence of the Spanish not only in the Mariana Islands but alsoMarie Lourdes Joy Onozawa, environmental planner/architect from Cebu, Philippines, speaks before a group on Friday on the importance of gathering resources during the International Conference on Spanish Heritage in Micronesia.
Close to 100 people attended the International Conference on Spanish Heritage in Micronesia for three days last week and over the weekend to go over the historical impact Spain had for 400 years and how we as islanders can preserve that part of our heritage.
Co-coordinator for the conference, Dr. Judy Flores, said the conference is funded by a grant from the Spanish program for cultural cooperation and is from the Spanish government.
"Their idea is to help preserve, promote, publish materials about the Spanish heritage in the Pacific," Flores said.
The $20,000 grant was intended only for the village of Inarajan, which is still rich in history from the Spanish era. However, the grant has since been extended to include the CNMI and Micronesia.
On the first day of the conference, which was Thursday, representatives from the Philippines presented information about how residents can help preserve part of the Spanish culture.
Later on that day, representatives from Palau, Guam, CNMI, and the FSM discussed what resources their islands have.
On Friday, one of the speakers, Marie Lourdes Joy Onozawa, environmental planner/architect from Cebu, Philippines, conducted a workshop that would assist the participants in identifying their resources.
The conference concluded on Saturday with a tour and on-site workshop in Inarajan where participants had a chance to see how Guam is able to gather resources and document them for historical purposes.
Flores said all the information gathered from the conference will be put together and published in a few months.
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Monday, October 20, 2008
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Sharing Guam's History With Our Children
Letter to the editor: Sharing Guam’s history with our children
The Marianas Variety
12/12/07
A FEW months ago, I had the pleasure of taking my then four-month-old daughter Sumåhi around the island, and photographed her at different historic sites. I took photos of her atop a canon at Fort Soledad, in front of the Protestant Church her great great grandfather helped build in Inarajan, and helped find the names of her relatives on the memorial wall at the Asan overlook. Each site was accompanied by a boring but informative lecture on the importance of this location, and what lessons Chamorros today can gather from each site. Oftentimes the lessons would be difficult, especially around issues of Spanish violence, Japanese imperial brutality and American colonial racism.
People told me that it was silly to be dragging her around the island and teaching her the island’s history when she’s too young to remember any of it. But the value of this first trip as I see it, isn’t in what is happening now, but rather the way this “silly” trip would hopefully help start a dialogue between my daughter and me, about the history of her island and people, which will last the rest of our lives.
My hope is that she will grow up to be well informed and clear eyed about the world around her, and therefore be willing to make difficult decisions about its future. Our island is in such difficult times right now because so many of us refuse to pay close attention to our island’s history over the past 100 years.
This is most noticeable with regards to the proposed military increases on Guam, and the reactions of most people on Guam. These increases are celebrated with almost frightening optimism, hope and trust.
Whatever the military says must be true, what they are doing must be good for Guam. And the only way in which this could be bad is if we do not take advantage of the tidal wave of opportunities which are already flooding Guam. This dangerous optimism and trust is made possible because of how a lack of knowledge of Guam history supports a number of prevailing fictions.
The American return in 1944 was a liberation. The military downsizing in the 1990’s happened because we hurt the military’s feelings and scared them away. More military means more security. The military does not damage people’s health or the environment. The military as an institution, cares about Guam and is our partner.
A clear-eyed view of our history complicates or proves false all of these points and demands that we approach the proposed military buildup with caution and be prepared to make very serious and substantive demands of the United States military and federal government. I see a tremendous everyday fear however in investigating the past because of the ways such inquiries might complicate the Americaness of Guam, by revealing the ways its regularly just Guam and not Guam U.S.A. and how those who live on Guam are oftentimes formally and informally second class citizens.
I see fear in taking our historical relationship with the United States seriously, because once we do, degrading phrases such as “the tip of America’s spear” won’t be celebrations of how useful we are to the United States, but rather traumatic sobering revelations of how we have been and continue to be used by them.
It is imperative that our children today, who will inherit both our successes and failures, perceive their history, their present and then plan for their future with clear eyes, no matter how difficult or critical of the United States, such a vision may be.
To not do this will just continue the cycle of dependency, where we will hate ourselves for our hopeless dependency, yet whenever anything can be done to change it, we scream that without the United States we will starve, we will die, without them we are nothing. The history of our island teaches something different however, if we are brave enough to learn it, to learn from it, and then pass on its lessons to our children.
MICHAEL LUJAN BEVACQUA
Chumalamlam, Guam
The Marianas Variety
12/12/07
A FEW months ago, I had the pleasure of taking my then four-month-old daughter Sumåhi around the island, and photographed her at different historic sites. I took photos of her atop a canon at Fort Soledad, in front of the Protestant Church her great great grandfather helped build in Inarajan, and helped find the names of her relatives on the memorial wall at the Asan overlook. Each site was accompanied by a boring but informative lecture on the importance of this location, and what lessons Chamorros today can gather from each site. Oftentimes the lessons would be difficult, especially around issues of Spanish violence, Japanese imperial brutality and American colonial racism.
People told me that it was silly to be dragging her around the island and teaching her the island’s history when she’s too young to remember any of it. But the value of this first trip as I see it, isn’t in what is happening now, but rather the way this “silly” trip would hopefully help start a dialogue between my daughter and me, about the history of her island and people, which will last the rest of our lives.
My hope is that she will grow up to be well informed and clear eyed about the world around her, and therefore be willing to make difficult decisions about its future. Our island is in such difficult times right now because so many of us refuse to pay close attention to our island’s history over the past 100 years.
This is most noticeable with regards to the proposed military increases on Guam, and the reactions of most people on Guam. These increases are celebrated with almost frightening optimism, hope and trust.
Whatever the military says must be true, what they are doing must be good for Guam. And the only way in which this could be bad is if we do not take advantage of the tidal wave of opportunities which are already flooding Guam. This dangerous optimism and trust is made possible because of how a lack of knowledge of Guam history supports a number of prevailing fictions.
The American return in 1944 was a liberation. The military downsizing in the 1990’s happened because we hurt the military’s feelings and scared them away. More military means more security. The military does not damage people’s health or the environment. The military as an institution, cares about Guam and is our partner.
A clear-eyed view of our history complicates or proves false all of these points and demands that we approach the proposed military buildup with caution and be prepared to make very serious and substantive demands of the United States military and federal government. I see a tremendous everyday fear however in investigating the past because of the ways such inquiries might complicate the Americaness of Guam, by revealing the ways its regularly just Guam and not Guam U.S.A. and how those who live on Guam are oftentimes formally and informally second class citizens.
I see fear in taking our historical relationship with the United States seriously, because once we do, degrading phrases such as “the tip of America’s spear” won’t be celebrations of how useful we are to the United States, but rather traumatic sobering revelations of how we have been and continue to be used by them.
It is imperative that our children today, who will inherit both our successes and failures, perceive their history, their present and then plan for their future with clear eyes, no matter how difficult or critical of the United States, such a vision may be.
To not do this will just continue the cycle of dependency, where we will hate ourselves for our hopeless dependency, yet whenever anything can be done to change it, we scream that without the United States we will starve, we will die, without them we are nothing. The history of our island teaches something different however, if we are brave enough to learn it, to learn from it, and then pass on its lessons to our children.
MICHAEL LUJAN BEVACQUA
Chumalamlam, Guam
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Historic Resources Planning for Troops' Arrival
Historic Resources Division planning for troops' arrival
by Michele Catahay
KUAM News
November 07, 2007
The Historic Resources Division at the Department of Parks & Recreation has a lot on its plate, with more projects in place for the upcoming military buildup. According to historic preservation officer Patrick Lujan, that agency's board of directors will meet this Friday to discuss the evolution of the office in the last year and what it holds in the next couple of years.
Said Lujan, "There's a lot of activity going on in the next year or two. The archeological community and our office, the University of Guam, the relationship with the military and the military buildup and all the activities they are going through. With the Historic Preservation Office being in the permitting process, it's been very busy here."
In addition, the board will receive a status report on the Okura Hotel excavations and the formation of a new internship program with UOG beginning in January.
by Michele Catahay
KUAM News
November 07, 2007
The Historic Resources Division at the Department of Parks & Recreation has a lot on its plate, with more projects in place for the upcoming military buildup. According to historic preservation officer Patrick Lujan, that agency's board of directors will meet this Friday to discuss the evolution of the office in the last year and what it holds in the next couple of years.
Said Lujan, "There's a lot of activity going on in the next year or two. The archeological community and our office, the University of Guam, the relationship with the military and the military buildup and all the activities they are going through. With the Historic Preservation Office being in the permitting process, it's been very busy here."
In addition, the board will receive a status report on the Okura Hotel excavations and the formation of a new internship program with UOG beginning in January.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Japan PM Denies Sex Slavery in WWII
Japan's PM: No coercion in sex slavery
Official’s statement rejects government’s landmark 1993 acknowledgement
By Tim Sullivan
The Associated Press
Updated: 8:25 a.m. PT March 1, 2007
TOKYO - Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday there was no evidence Japan coerced Asian women into working as sex slaves during World War II, backtracking from a landmark 1993 statement in which the government acknowledged that it set up and ran brothels for its troops.
Abe’s comments to reporters came as a group of ruling party lawmakers urged the government to revise the so-called Kono Statement, which states that Japan’s wartime military sometimes recruited women to work in the brothels with coercion.
“The fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion,” Abe said. “We have to take it from there.”
Historians say that up to 200,000 women, mainly from Korea and China, were forced to have sex with Japanese soldiers in brothels run by the military government as so-called “comfort women” during the war.
Japanese leaders have repeatedly apologized, including former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who said in 2001 that he felt sincere remorse over the comfort women’s “immeasurable and painful experiences.”
Abe’s comments were likely to provoke a strong reaction from South Korea and China.
‘Respecting the historical truth’
Earlier Thursday in Seoul, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun urged Japan to be more sincere in addressing its colonial past as dozens of people rallied outside the Japanese Embassy, lining up dead dogs’ heads on the ground. The demonstration marked the anniversary of a March 1, 1919, uprising against Japanese colonial rule, which still stirs up deep-rooted bitterness among Koreans.
Each of the dogs had a knife placed in its mouth on pieces of paper with the names of Koreans who allegedly collaborated with Japan during its 1910-45 colonial rule. Protest organizers said the animals had been slaughtered at a restaurant, as dogs are regularly consumed as food in Korea.
In a nationally televised address, Roh said Japan “needs to, above all, show an attitude of respecting the historical truth and acts that support this.”
“Instead of trying to beautify or justify its past wrongdoing, (Japan) should show sincerity that is in line with its conscience,” he said.
Roh also referred to recent hearings with sex slave victims in the U.S. Congress.
“The testimony reiterated a message that no matter how hard the Japanese try to cover the whole sky with their hand, there is no way that the international community would condone the atrocities committed during Japanese colonial rule,” he said.
Roh’s office said late Thursday that it did not immediately have a direct response to the Japanese leader’s remarks. In Beijing, calls to the Chinese Foreign Ministry seeking comment on the remarks were not immediately returned.
Several members of the U.S. House of Representatives have drafted a nonbinding resolution calling for Abe to “formally acknowledge, apologize and accept historical responsibility” for using “comfort women” during the war.
Attacked by right-wing nationalists
Supporters want an apology similar to the one the U.S. government gave to Japanese-Americans forced into internment camps during World War II. That apology was approved by Congress and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1988.
Japan objects to the resolution, which has led to unease in an otherwise strong U.S.-Japanese relationship.
The Kono Statement was issued in 1993 by then-Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono after incriminating defense documents were discovered showing the military had worked with independent contractors during the war to procure women for the brothels.
The statement has been attacked by right-wing nationalists in Japan, who argue the sex slaves worked willingly for the contractors and were not coerced into servitude by the military.
Despite the official acknowledgment, Japan has rejected most compensation claims by former sex slaves, saying such claims were settled by postwar treaties. Instead, a private fund created in 1995 by the Japanese government but funded by private donations has provided a way for Japan to compensate former sex slaves without offering official government compensation. Many comfort women have rejected the fund.
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10625961/page/2/
Official’s statement rejects government’s landmark 1993 acknowledgement
By Tim Sullivan
The Associated Press
Updated: 8:25 a.m. PT March 1, 2007
TOKYO - Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday there was no evidence Japan coerced Asian women into working as sex slaves during World War II, backtracking from a landmark 1993 statement in which the government acknowledged that it set up and ran brothels for its troops.
Abe’s comments to reporters came as a group of ruling party lawmakers urged the government to revise the so-called Kono Statement, which states that Japan’s wartime military sometimes recruited women to work in the brothels with coercion.
“The fact is, there is no evidence to prove there was coercion,” Abe said. “We have to take it from there.”
Historians say that up to 200,000 women, mainly from Korea and China, were forced to have sex with Japanese soldiers in brothels run by the military government as so-called “comfort women” during the war.
Japanese leaders have repeatedly apologized, including former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who said in 2001 that he felt sincere remorse over the comfort women’s “immeasurable and painful experiences.”
Abe’s comments were likely to provoke a strong reaction from South Korea and China.
‘Respecting the historical truth’
Earlier Thursday in Seoul, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun urged Japan to be more sincere in addressing its colonial past as dozens of people rallied outside the Japanese Embassy, lining up dead dogs’ heads on the ground. The demonstration marked the anniversary of a March 1, 1919, uprising against Japanese colonial rule, which still stirs up deep-rooted bitterness among Koreans.
Each of the dogs had a knife placed in its mouth on pieces of paper with the names of Koreans who allegedly collaborated with Japan during its 1910-45 colonial rule. Protest organizers said the animals had been slaughtered at a restaurant, as dogs are regularly consumed as food in Korea.
In a nationally televised address, Roh said Japan “needs to, above all, show an attitude of respecting the historical truth and acts that support this.”
“Instead of trying to beautify or justify its past wrongdoing, (Japan) should show sincerity that is in line with its conscience,” he said.
Roh also referred to recent hearings with sex slave victims in the U.S. Congress.
“The testimony reiterated a message that no matter how hard the Japanese try to cover the whole sky with their hand, there is no way that the international community would condone the atrocities committed during Japanese colonial rule,” he said.
Roh’s office said late Thursday that it did not immediately have a direct response to the Japanese leader’s remarks. In Beijing, calls to the Chinese Foreign Ministry seeking comment on the remarks were not immediately returned.
Several members of the U.S. House of Representatives have drafted a nonbinding resolution calling for Abe to “formally acknowledge, apologize and accept historical responsibility” for using “comfort women” during the war.
Attacked by right-wing nationalists
Supporters want an apology similar to the one the U.S. government gave to Japanese-Americans forced into internment camps during World War II. That apology was approved by Congress and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1988.
Japan objects to the resolution, which has led to unease in an otherwise strong U.S.-Japanese relationship.
The Kono Statement was issued in 1993 by then-Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono after incriminating defense documents were discovered showing the military had worked with independent contractors during the war to procure women for the brothels.
The statement has been attacked by right-wing nationalists in Japan, who argue the sex slaves worked willingly for the contractors and were not coerced into servitude by the military.
Despite the official acknowledgment, Japan has rejected most compensation claims by former sex slaves, saying such claims were settled by postwar treaties. Instead, a private fund created in 1995 by the Japanese government but funded by private donations has provided a way for Japan to compensate former sex slaves without offering official government compensation. Many comfort women have rejected the fund.
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10625961/page/2/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)