Self-Guamination In 1668 silence sailed from Spain and invaded the shores of Guam The Spanish hushed the Chamorro culture with rifles and the sounds of extinction were deafening They justified genocide with bibles Burnt down huts, destroyed villages, and called it…Catholicism they forced us to our knees to praise a foreign GOD as if chanting to our ancestors was anything less,, than spiritual The Spanish brought disease, soldiers, and missionaries to our island colonization was their mission silence was an order and fighting back, meant us clinging to our culture They stripped us of our true identity and banned our language, snatching our native tongues out of our mouths and forcing Spanish down our throats until we choked on their clumsy syllables changing hatsa, hugua, tulu to uno, dos, tres, colonizing us was carried out in 3 simple steps: ONE: destroy the native language so the savages couldn’t communicate TWO: confiscate land in the name of GOD while resisters were executed THREE: inter-marry, rape, and procreate until indigenous bloodlines were diluted but they did not realize WE were warriors. Standing six feet tall, strapped with natural body armor and with chests so wide, one Chamorro chief exhaled the breath of his entire village Chiseled abs cut so deep they reached their spines make no mistake our bloodlines had backbone weaved into a double helix machinery and technology were irrelevant hands like the sea, simultaneously gentle and deadly we fed our people by harvesting the ocean sustainably what was once a beach that provided all our necessities’ became a port for Spanish military we calmed unnecessary currents with tactics that were as unpredictable as an undertow because we were able to see genocide glide with the tide weather high or low it just goes to show that our people stayed true to themselves with hearts like a coral reef we set a barrier around our way of life we were and still are one of the oldest civilizations in the pacific I tao tao tano “the people of the land” ..the indigenous are being swept out to sea like a plea in a bottle from our shores to yours we carried this message over 5,803 miles of deep blue because although we speak true this attempt to teach you may get lost in migration Not by choice, but by force And of course, we’ve won many battles But mortal wounds left immortal scars on our true identity reminders that our oral history is the remedy to break free from this tyranny It is the foundation of strength we have to keep the Chamoru culture living and breathing for too long, we have watched the past form rain clouds over us Reigning silence as the new king but we were never given a chance to sit on that thrown, which sits on the land that we rightfully own and once again our voices red, white, and blue away when americans stormed our beaches we were rich in heritage but treated like peasants because in a capitalist system, Cash Rules Everything Around Me CREAM! Get the money, native language killed ya’ll but with the strength we inherit from our ancestors We will engage in this war to preserve our past Using our vocal chords as slings and our vocal tones as stones they are thrown, not to break bones, but to break the silence of our people to all of you this is just a poem, but to us, it’s the chance to bring justice to our home we carried this message in our hearts to a nation that still considers us 2nd class citizens we enlist more soldiers per capita to fight and die for the freedoms we are not privileged to the freedom of the speech, the freedom to speak AND be heard With these words, we proclaim that though our oppressors may try to arrest our development, Let it be known, that Guahan has waived its right to remain silent!

For the first time I see in your eyes All these changes with all that’s left to hide The truth we seek to find lies far beneath our minds and as you see us digging, searching for something inside Feeling the loss we collect ourselves for the day Burning away the struggles meant to keep our faith and we are falling into the trap in which we’re left in defeat So don’t just walk away Don’t let them say you can never be Don’t let them show you that they can see Our unity in their hands comes crumbling down On a quest to find the knowledge of our time With the sediments left we try to build what once rose to shine As the modern way of living makes a push to its prime We will Stay And as they breed in violence to engage in our destruction Feeding the minds corrupt as they instill mental pollution Coming straight from the mouths of well respected politicians Struggling to maintain our culture restoration What do you think they’d say if they saw you walk away What do you think theyd do if they were inside your shoes How far would tey let this go, this modern life we live Stained and altered our perfection, the purity once held Take not from us, what dem can break dem have no good words and we take no consideration Take not from us what dem can break Shall we put one foot forward and have one last step to take

Ma guiafe kulo’ gi tasi på’go Ti hu tungo chumochogue håyi Este na inagang gi senchago Ha tatago yu’ na alulayi Finena, taya nai hu ekungok Magof yu gi bonito maigo-hu Ti listo yu’ para bai hu tungo Hafa guaguaha gi tasi På’go, ma baba I atadok-hu guini Humahanao yu’ para I chalan Hu kekeli’e håyi bei tattiyi Ginen manu inagang sagan Gi finakpo’ hihot I inagang Hu li’e todu I mañaina-hu

Colonization False Liberation Intoxicating Native Decimation This foreign flag Tries to strip our culture Dreams of money, dreams of military Shoved down our throat, so damn holy Colonization False Liberation Intoxication Native Decimation Children of Guåhan Die for foreign cause When they should stay Protecting this place Defending our people Defending our home Colonization False Liberation Intoxication Native Decimation Chamoru, We will stand, We will stand for this land

I was told to call him Uncle. We were so close I felt like I should have called him brother instead, but I called him Arctic because he was just so cool and was just as unpredictable as the sea. I remember one night we floated beneath the sky. He told me of all the lies he used to get by in life hoping that I wouldn’t need them. That night he told me that god was a sniper, heaven was his vantage point, stars were empty bullet casings, and god was shooting beauty at us hoping we’d all be able to speak angel one day. My uncle never figured that poetry wasn’t the language used to get through the Golden Gates, but I think he did figure that stars pinned on a night blue Marine Corp uniform would allow him to play god. The day he signed his life away I decided to uncross the T and un-dot the I. “Arctic” I didn’t think it was cool for him to leave me and I still wish he was a little more predictable. Now, he’s a full-fledged sniper— the only sure shot in my family; hands so steady he carries the livelihood of platoons on his fingertips, but when he marches home to his family no one recognizes him. No one talks to him. He’s as hollow as a bullet tip; A 7.62mm American Dream. His soul is a standard issue M40A1 loaded with top secret missions he’s not allowed to talk to me about. All he knows is military protocol; acts like I can’t understand them, but it’s so simple to understand silence. But when he sleeps that silence is b r o k e n and I understand his top secrets through his screams. Maybe playing God is every man’s dream? My uncle takes forks in the road, bends them into crosshairs for his sniping scope. He fulfills destinies Lays men women and children to rest at bullet speeds and I still wonder: “when does a man decide he wants to take lives for a living?” My uncle is drowning in regret for choosing to become a bringer of death. He is Arctic. Flashbacks of headshots make him sweat ice cold. He sleeps in his own sea. Eyes like icebergs, 80% open always just 20% asleep; too afraid to face ghosts in his dreams. I wish he could have realized sooner: bullets leave holes in more places than in just a victim’s body and in the target rings of a complete family he is the bull’s eye that we are missing. We no longer share stories. I guess his teenage years are at ease in military profile folders. We are no longer close enough for me to call him my brother, but he’s taught me well, told me of all the lies he used to get by in life. So, on his last visit when he asked “Jay, do you still love me?” I told him, “Arctic, no matter how cold you get I will always love the ocean.”

So much trouble in the world i see, one third mi island gone military bombers in the sky and i'm wondering why they flyy they fly So much trouble int the world i see they make pay to learn in these universities or give the youth them bucks to join the armies to fight against their brothers in their own countries But wha... we don't need no trouble babylon they want to burst my bubble then my people have to struggle so we fightin fightin for...we fightin for freedom. just a another song for freedom we chant whoa! we fightin for freedom. just a another song for freedom. So We chant these freedom songs. We spread love all around. Revolution time is here. Babylon we no fear, for the people we no scared. Cause Jah is on our Side. So come all my people. Sing, groove and move to the sweet reggae rhythms. Come all Jah people . Chant the reggae songs and we fi chant down babylon. Oh! won't you help I sing these songs. Babylon has held us down for too long. We have to unite and stand up strong. And spread the lovin' all round. Roots Man Part.........( he will be sending it shortly to you ) Revolution. Revolution Time Revolution Revolution Time has come. Freedom's what we fight for. The only way to settle the score. Freedom's what we fightin' for. We don't want to be held down no more. Revolution.

My culture is alive. It is a living, breathing being that walks and talks dances and chants carves and cooks fishes, hunts, and farms My culture listens. Listens to the voices of our people chanting calling on the past of our present to unwrap what we have yet to know. It listens to the movement of our women swaying our hips and clapping our hands and our men slapping their chests and stomping their feet to the beats of our culture’s soul. My culture listens. Listens to the pounding hearts of my people as we continue to engage in battles which leave many of us baffled: Who are we? What are we? Where are we? We are left feeling disconnected and isolated. Yet why my culture asks do we disconnect and isolate when we should mate and proliferate increase our numbers and spread. My culture is not dead. It is very much alive. It is alive because I am standing. It is alive because I am breathing. It is alive because I exist. And as long as I and you and you and you As long as WE exist Our culture will be kept alive. Because it is what gives us life. I hate when people say that our culture is dead or dying When they say that, they either don’t know any better or they’re not Chamoru. I’d like to stick with the latter because Chamorus can’t say their culture is dead Because if it’s dead then so are we. So the next time You You You even think or say that our culture is dead Remember We are who and what we remember. Remember We come from an over 4,000 year old past We come from warriors We come from maga`håga and maga`låhi We come from a beautiful language We come from the latte We come from the roots of trees and the waves of seas We come from the first people. So stop saying our culture your culture my culture is dead. Because when you say it’s dead, then you’re saying that I am dead. When you say it’s dead, you’re saying that I don’t exist. And people, I’m talking to you and you and you I exist. Therefore my culture [Boom boom Boom boom Boom boom] IT’S ALIVE!

HOOK: Warning! A new day is dawning! Young revolutionaries rising! Them roots we got to reach, Them youth we got to teach, Babylon walls we got to breach! Oi! (Warning this is an emergency An emergency We need urgency) Verse 1: Attention: this is code red Don’t be hero my brutha you’ll wind up dead Stand up Nobody gonna live forever gotta move together there’s no time better speak out this is what we be dealin with they wanna kill this shit make em feel this shit now fight cuz brutha this is all we got man, let em call the cops but this shit don’t stop signs up ahead: the roads are filled with dread and the forecast says skies falling on your head earthquakes that shake the very foundation, these are reasons why I’m back and forth pacin, people dragon chasin, lost education, economic low got me crime anticipatin’, open up your eyes and see what we’re facin It’s gonna take LOVE to rebuild this nation! HOOK: Warning! A new day is dawning! Young revolutionaries rising! Them roots we got to reach, Them youth we got to teach, Babylon walls we got to breach! Oi! (Warning this is an emergency An emergency We need urgency) Verse 2: Tell me, do you see the warning signs? (the warning signs) These are warring times! Tell me, do you really know the truth? (you know I know the truth) They wanna fool the youth  But they don’t wanna feel our pain We never gonna be the same till we break these chains / But we don’t wanna play these games  gonna rock this shit till they know our names / You can hate the life that you’re livin But, fight for the people, and your sins are forgiven / Or you can be a sheep in the system And maybe you’ll be free if you keep on wishin We don’t want a flag half-mast We just wanna get fam back / We just want peace that lasts  But you got no future if you got no past HOOK: Warning! A new day is dawning! Young revolutionaries rising! Them roots we got to reach, Them youth we got to teach, Babylon walls we got to breach! Oi! (Warning this is an emergency An emergency We need urgency) Verse 3: Rise and shine is my state of mind in this current struggle in this place and time I’m never wasting rhymes, so I’m speaking mines, While I’m heeding all the warnings and reading signs Take a look around, you can hear the sounds A message from the saina, our blood is in the ground That my people walk on, my people crop on Where I lay my head and now my enemies stalk on If you want peace, get ready for war There will come a day when they’re knockin at your door But we will be ready as learned from our elders The ones who were brave and were never selfish fight for your honor, you are not forgotten Fight for the future that is not an option put us all in prison so we speak with conviction Oddz, mILL bILL, spittin straight non fiction HOOK: Warning! A new day is dawning! Young revolutionaries rising! Them roots we got to reach, Them youth we got to teach, Babylon walls we got to breach! Oi! (Warning this is an emergency An emergency We need urgency)

I had a dream last night. I was walking through the jungle, and as I passed each tree, it collapsed right beside me. The ground was dug up, the naked raw earth exposed. How could this happen— to our tåno‘ to our mañaina1 to our familia2 to us? The big strong tronkon nunu3 the taotaomo‘na hid in4 were no more. I screamed, tears numbing my blood red face. As I walked through the naked earth, my body weakened. I fell to the ground, my palms touching the unfamiliar earth, my eyes searching for the old tronkon nunu, my ears open to the calling of our mañaina. I didn’t know this earth. I couldn’t see the trees. But in the distance, I could hear: “Munga ma‘åñao, hagå-hu. Munga ma‘åñao. Ti bai in dingu hao.” “It’s okay, our daughter. [132]Borja-Kicho‘cho‘ It’s okay. We will never leave you.” Tomhom (also known as Tumon) is Guåhån’s tourism hub. 1. ancestors 2. family 3. banyan tree 4. ancestral spirits of the Chamorus

Este i hinassoso-ku, annai mås hoben yu' gof ha'ån i klemåta, todu maolek i linalå-ta guaha gupot kada mes ya bula guihan gi tasi Korus: i tano gi este na lugåt gaige guini i guinifi-hu ya metgot i familia ya mesngon i manaotao-ta gi isla... gi islan Guåhan Antes guaha, pa'go tåya mappot i linalå-ta mañatsaga hit, sa' tåya salåpe' sa' guaguan i trustes siha Korus

On Guahan, family orientation comes naturally. We're born in households that hold extensions farther than mother and father, they extend to grandparents, uncles, cousins, and aunties. 
 
I wouldn't be surprised to walk into a home filled with 10 people, all who share bonds as tight as fire, how fumes never separate, how embers dance as a whole, and how they die... Together. 
 
That's why when my grandmother had been sent to the hospital it was tough handing family to the care of strangers, chained to a bed shared by many other souls who have come and gone, see sending off sick family to hospitals was something I feared as a child.
 
What with all the bad reputation GMH holds. Get Murdered Here is one name I've heard it been called. I've heard nurses not knowing the difference between heart beats and breath sounds, mismatching medications like dyslexics would with words, bruises caused by mistargeted veins, and worst of all the absence of care are things that I've heard from mouths and media alike.
 
Unfortunately my grandma had to be pulled farther away from us. Her condition was inoperable at GMH, another fault people pointed. She had to be escorted by a nurse to another hospital in the Philippines. Despite all my fears, despite all that I've heard, she was pleasant. Dressed in all purple scrubs, held a smile that could've cured my grandma on the spot, I didn’t know why she had to leave. But to think this nurse would drop everything, and leave her own family at home while she escorted mine. This was something I admired. 
 
Five years later...
It was late December 2011 The date I had been blessed With the news of acceptance into the nursing program Fireworks crowded the sky soon afterwards in celebration of New Year’s – To everyone else, it was 2012, to me, I saw it as a gift disguised in a colorful explosion of Ribbons, leis, and sashes hanging on stars made to be constellations of medals fit to hang around my neck Because that day I knew these hands moved up from dropping dimes in donation boxes, To actually making change. When my first semester began, I was left on my own to carve the future of my career. I struggled frequently, slaving to the moonlight with a textbook and highlighters hoping that exploding colors page after page would bring the same successful feeling as the fireworks. But success was as common as shooting stars, and red marks arched all over my tests because in theory the patient bled to death. I realized, that if the weight of learning the literature of a life was already too heavy, what more when I held the hands of AM, 59 year old male, 8x4 wound on left leg due to infection; AC, 79 year old male, kidneys failed, replaced by a machine; LG, 60 year old female, fluid build-up within her chest, tube punctured through chest to drain fluid; IK 30 year old female, ovarian cancer spread to her kidneys, bags attached to her back bilaterally; EB, 80 year old female end-stage Parkinson’s disease unable to recognize; and JM 58 year old female, hypertension, congestive heart failure, end-stage renal disease, double pneumonia, and even a heart attack while I was there. Being human, mistakes unfortunately may happen. 
So I wish all my apologies could help cure our mistakes, but why aren't the things we do right brought to light? Our names are held hostage by headlines but when did they ever narrate the whole story? The story of being pushed by constant pressure on the floor, juggling double-digit drugs on half-dozen patients to fight death daily, working half-the-clock-shifts so those sick with cancer can have a little
more time than them, taking time away from their own family, so that yours remain whole.

 I can understand lives are at stake and the future of families in danger, but it is the strength to shoulder these responsibilities, and the good things that we do for the community that gave me trust to extend my family to a stranger’s hands in the hospital.

this one here's the island's tribulation. the bottom of the pit is where i man stand. but a one step at a time we will climb... nothin's gonna stop me till we see the sunshine. and i been waitin for that day for far too long... and i tell you when we get there, you know we comin on STRONG! the time is now... RISE UP AND WE WILL NOT BACK DOWN!! Rise up! for there's no time too waist. Rise Up! it's the right time, right place. Rise Up! for it's all in the mind. Rise Up! if one shall seek then he shall find. Rise up, up, up. you know we can rise up. Rise Up, up, up. it's time to rise up. so along the way, i give thanks and praise to the Most High, JAH! RasTafari is here to bring one love. and though the path is unclear, you will find your way... to the place there will be peace for the rest of your days. you know The Father, has given each of us the key. you must tap into Your potential to conquer destiny. it'll be so nice... to finally Rise...

Evening trips I'm leaving this Mental mortal bliss clogged with shit Evryday day life sludge A blind judge Needing a kind nudge To see again The speed of ten slowed down and repeat again To another land I'll flow On the grains of sand I'll go It's the only home I know Oh please can time move slow| Oh please can time move slow I have no where else I want to be But here right beside the sea Now with new sight, I am able to notice The beauty of my surroundings instead of giving focus to the stress of modern living, on the rock people giving blame to the land feeling hopeless I am not ashamed ForI have felt this way I realize now what is on display She is our land, she only gives Doesn't take away so appreciate what she gives today To another land I'll flow On the grains of sand I'll go It's the only home I know Oh please can time move slow| Oh please can time move slow I have no where else I want to be But here right beside the sea We take for granted The planet that we live on While I survive and try to live strong On Guam, appreciation drawn out By taking trips, her water strips me of all doubt as it drips I'm feeling this kissed by her gentle breeze For a moment securing me with this mental ease My eyes open to view what I couldn't see With my decree I allow the growth of giving trees

I’m standing in a pool Of my family’s tears Cause they mistake us for a fool They steer us out of there And I ask where the compensation That you promised we Another misleading illusion Will you answer me CHORUS We are the ones with the rolling problem Rightful owners with no debate We are the victims of the land they took from we We are the victims of the wildlife refugee (x2) VERSE II For it was taken for defense But no ships came in And with the last bird that’s flown What do you protect within? So put yourself in our position And see why we protest And hear the chants of our people It always ending up in arrest CHORUS BRIDGE A brighter day will come When this quarrel has deceased Cause no man should be oppressed Whether their awake or asleep CHORUS OUTRO