“from a Poetics of Continuous Presence and Erasure,” Evening Will Come: A Monthly Journal of Poetics (2013). (original) (raw)
Related papers
Margins are central: identity and indigenous resistance to colonial globalization in Guam
World Archaeology, 2021
Early modern colonial globalization was the first producer of marginality and cultural erasure on a world scale. The CHamorus of Guam and Marianas know this well since they were the first Pacific islanders to be turned into indigenous 'others' by European colonial powers. In a certain sense, investigating Guam is like investigating a huge terrain vague, or an interstice or in-between space that exists outside the cultural, social, and economic dynamics acknowledged by the Global North. However, it is within these margins where vibrant resistance to global cultural standardization settles and happens, as CHamorus also know. In this article, we will focus on CHamoru cultural resilience at lånchos (rural properties outside cities and villages), at reducciones (villages or towns where CHamorus were forcibly nucleated in the seventeenth century), and at the current use of colonial 'ruins' to promote indigenous cultural enhancement and community wellbeing.
Memory Studies, 2019
Linking Cultural Memory Studies, Indigenous Studies, as well as the growing field of Environmental Humanities, my article casts decolonization efforts in Guam not only as a process steeped in history, politics, and economics, but also as a necessary means to address environmental precarity. I use Craig Santos Perez's poetry to highlight the multifaceted scope of decolonization: namely, that it entails the use of the Indigenous Chamorro language, the decolonizing of the imaginations of Chamorro people, who continue to enlist for (and die for) a nation that exploits their lands, waters, and bodies and finally the deliberate retrieval of cultural memory that promotes balance between humans and nature. Cultural memory and decolonization are thus linked. Together, they assuage the environmental impact of settler colonialism in Guam and elsewhere.
Craig Santos Perez, poet and activist from Guam, uses his poetry to call attention to the negative effects of colonialism and militarization on his homeland and the Pacific. He reminds his readers of the mistreatment of his people the Chamorros, the special "unincorporated" status of Guam and the land that is taken over little by little by the US Army. His poems reveal information about the life circumstances of the author's community and respond to, as well as critique, the colonial conditions of Guam. This study looks at everyday objects mentioned in Perez's poetry and seeks to unfold the "mission" of these objects. "Everyday objects" do not only refer to traditional objects, but also, to modern objects (borrowed from western culture) which relate to the everyday life of the Indigenous people of Guam. The argument of this research is that ordinary objects, which have significance in Pacific culture, are deliberately placed in the poems by Perez. They convey the message of resistance, decolonial protest and pursuit of survival and can be considered as representations of activism.