So while I'm getting technical assistance,
just by a show of hands, how many of you in the audience
identify as a Pacific Islander?
Have a look around.
How many of you with your hands still raised personally know
a Pacific Islander?
Not just know of them, right, like we know them.
If your hand is not raised, I'm sorry to break it to you.
They're not all as good looking or charming as I am,
but you should still get to know them.
Keep your hand up if you know a Pacific Islander,
and you have heard of the island of Guahan?
Sure!
Re-raise your hand if you know about the island of Guam.
They're the same island.
Cool.
So I'm a native CHamoru from the island of Guahan.
In the Chamorro language, that means "we have."
You know it as Guam.
And I'd like to talk to you a little bit
about Pacific Islander visibility and invisibility.
First of all, I'd like to show you a picture of Ritidian.
In Chamorro, it's called Litekyan,
and this will be pertinent to the poem
that I'm about to read to you.
There is an online petition that I can also
direct you to based on the group Protehi Litekyan, which
is to defend Litekyan.
If you don't know a lot about the island of Guahan,
I will just lead with the fact that we
are an unincorporated territory of the United States, which
means that we are subject to all of its laws
but retain no voting rights.
So we have one member of Congress
that is a non-voting member.
Raise your hand if you have heard of Guam in the news
lately.
Most of that talk is about military threat
and some would argue that it is coming from North Korea.
And many more would argue that it is from US military threat
that we are most afraid.
Litekyan Point, or Ritidian Point,
is currently under threat of being turned into a US
military firing range and so the land that you're
looking at presented here would be used as a live firing range
by military personnel from Andersen Air Force base.
As it is right now, it is not in the hands
of indigenous CHamoru.
The US still owns this land, as it
does one third of this very tiny island that's
about 33 miles long and 7 miles wide at the widest.
I'd like to read a poem that I wrote in response to Guam
being in the news lately.
And so what can you do to be in solidarity
with me, the only Pacific Islander in this room?
You can help share this with the Pacific Islanders
that you do know, or you could come
and get to know me or other Pacific Islanders.