Robert Underwood

For PDN

Amongst my many heroes are Professor Miget Bevacqua, (University of Hawaii Manoa) graduate student Ken Kuper, Dan Fitzgerald and former Sen. Bob Klitzkie. None of these individuals grew up speaking Chamorro, but all of them can carry a legitimate conversation in Chamorro. They all learned Chamorro as adults. I am constantly amazed by their level of knowledge and the fact they learned Chamorro against all odds.

This lesson was taught to me in two other ways during the past year. I went to Aotearoa, New Zealand, last May as guest of the Pacific Studies program. When I first visited there in 1982, I bore witness to the demise of Maori. Last May, I watched panel conversations and discussions about science being aired over Maori TV by high school students. Early last month, Nerissa and I visited the Ke Kula o Nawahiokalani K-12 immersion school near Hilo, Hawaii. We bore witness to a school where children and adults spoke in Hawaiian to each other on a full curriculum.

When the future of Pacific island languages was being discussed several decades ago, the danger was greatest to Hawaiian, Maori, Chamorro and Tahitian, in that order. Today, Chamorro tops the list. The Chamorro language is the single greatest treasure that connects the people of this land to their origins and their history. Everything else pales in significance. No singing, chanting, dancing, eating or wearing of sinahis will substitute for genuine effort toward learning and speaking Chamorro.

I am disappointed with all of the handwringing and sometimes pompous statements about the state of the Chamorro language by adults who sign petitions and decry the loss of their language. These statements typically say something like “I never learned Chamorro because my parents decided, the schools forbade me and somebody needs to do something like pass more laws, create more programs for children, develop a website, do something in the name of Chamorro.”

We need immersion programs for children, but we need immersion programs for adults as well, so they have the opportunity to make a contribution to the future of the Chamorro people. Several years ago, I spoke at a Chamorro conference in Saipan. I had to counter some statements in previous conferences that you don’t have to speak Chamorro to be Chamorro. I pointed out that some men were willing to pay up to $300 to buy a sinahi, but not spend $30 to buy a Chamorro dictionary.

Nerissa and I try to play a game once a week where I speak Ilonggo (Hiligaynon) and she speaks Chamorro. I lose every time because her Chamorro is pretty good. While Chamorro wins in this household, Ilonggo will win in the end. There are 7 million speakers of Ilonggo in the world. There are maybe 30,000 speakers of Chamorro left, most of them over 40. This is a daunting statistic. It’s incumbent upon all of us who have a little knowledge of Chamorro to extend it.

I am very fortunate to have parents who not only spoke Chamorro to each other but to me. But most of the knowledge of Chamorro that I have was developed as an adult who studied Chamorro and spoke it awkwardly, but continually and wherever I could, whether testifying at the United Nations or speaking on the floor of Congress.

Si Yu’us ma’ase’, Mom and Pop, yan biba fino’ haya.

Robert Underwood is president of the University of Guam and Guam’s former delegate in the U.S. House of Representatives.