Skip the author's freaking long intro
Each new generation brings with it a tide of change, reshaping the land despite its resistance to the elements. And sometimes within that tide is a fierce current pushing that tide to go further and deeper, and carving out changes to the land in a shorter span of time.
I’m a boomer who grew up with “Chamorro” and like others of my generation, resisted the switch to “CHamoru.” Part of the thinking is, “if it was good enough for generations before me, why change?” But basically it comes down to an exasperated shaking of the head and the thought of “these kids today!” — spoken in the same tone used by grouchy old men yelling “you kids get off my lawn!”
So wrapping my head around Gi Matan Guma’ was difficult as I perused their website, uncomfortable as it forced me to look up unfamiliar words in CHamoru (after years of PDN inculcation it flows easily from my fingers as I write now) — words that were not in the vernacular in my youth, nor during my professional years on island editing, writing and reporting on local stories. Words like “manggåfa,” used instead of “familian” to indicate clan names.
Initially disgruntled, in the course of my research I learned that the use of words like manggåfa was a conscious decision to use the CHamoru version of this concept, rather than the Spanish.
A lightbulb clicked amid the dusty cobwebs of my thinking. This is that current, this is Gi Matan Guma’.
This is their story — it’s a long one, so this is just the first part. I won’t deprive you of the same learning experience, so I’ve only translated the minimum in the story below. Go do your own research, fan, and get enlightened, inspired and awakened.
Catching up with Gi Matan Guma’
In the middle of their three-week, bicoastal tour of Turtle Island (the indigenous American term for North America), members of Gi Matan Guma’ were busy preparing for a weekend CHamoru immersion camp at UCLA, then up to Seattle for their signature crosscultural event, Mali’e Taotao.
The 10th Ta Fan Apåtte CHamoru Immersion Camp 2025 was organized by the Long Beach nonprofit Kutturan CHamoru Foundation, established more than 30 years ago by fanå'gue Heidi Chargualaf-Quenga, who is a member of the Gi Matan Guma’ cohort.
“She was so moved by her experiences that we've been invited to teach her annual Ta Fan Apåtte camp here in Los Angeles, Tongva territory,” said Dakota Camacho (manggåfa' Che' yan Eging), co-founder of Gi Matan Guma’. As part of the camp, CHamoru youths 13 years and older spend three days on campus while taking part in workshops culminating in a celebration and community activation on Sunday.
“We get to be with these students, these 30 students from all over the country, and sharing with them the Gi Matan Guma’ philosophy and practice, and the unique way that each of the creatives and artists that are a part of this group, look at CHamoru reclamation.”
Kutturan CHamoru’s invitation is a testament to how quickly Gi Matan Guma’ has established itself as a leading catalyst for the revitalization of the CHamoru culture, one that has bridged the ancestral traditions rooted in Guåhan to the modern dissemination of CHamoru identity and pride to the rest of the world through community collaboration and activations.
Sadly, the group lost its other co-founder, Jeremy Cepeda, who passed away in September 2024 at the age of 38. Jeremy was a beloved CHamoru language teacher and researcher at island institutions including Guam Department of Education, University of Guam and Guam Community College, among others.
Hami
Dakota continues to honor Jeremy's foundational role in creating Gi Matan Guma': “I think it was 2019 that Jeremy Cepeda … who's now passed away, and we started this organization because we had a mutual concern about the oldest and most endangered form of our language, fino' haya, and also the worldview and the philosophies and the teachings that are embedded within the language and the practices of our ancestors. And as people who are creatives ourselves, we know that as CHamorus, we really can only do things in community, and so we wanted to bring a group of people together to explore how to be creative, and to do that in a way that draws from that ancestral teaching and creates continuity from our ancestors at the beginning of time to now.”
Over the years, Gi Matan Guma’ has launched different projects including a chant group and online app, workshops, translation services, and other creative projects including Mali’e, which Dakota described as a creative research project.
“So it is research in that we are trying to understand, how do we create CHamoru knowledge in a way that is aligned with our ancestral worldview? And we do that by making and experimenting and reflecting and exchanging what we know from our intuition, what we know from what our elders have shared with us from our own experiences, and then on the reflection of that.
“And so Mali'e' is a kind of exploring Kantan Chamorrita, which we understand as their old name for Kantan Chamorrita is Mali'e', and that means ‘to have been seen.’ And we look at the different technologies of the practice. So technologies, meaning the call and response, part of it is the fact that it happens when communities gather, the fact that it's about perspective being shared and then twisted and changed. And so we have truth that grows as more people share their perspectives, and also the teasing and the flirting and the sharing of oral history, and also the receiving of new messages for the people. And so that's the story of Gi Matan Guma' and Mali’e.”
I think Mali'e' is an invitation to, like, give yourself to something greater than yourself.
‘Our islands miss you too’
“I like to think of Mali’e and our project as an act of remembering, in a creative way, of remembering who we are and who we come from,” said Lourdez Puti'on Velasco (manggåfa' Tin yan Kådi), who grew up and now lives in Washington state but spent part of her childhood on Guåhan.
“And I feel like, you know, living in the mainland for so many years of my life that mahålang, that longing for home, became such good medicine to be connected and to grow in relationship to each other, and to remember that home is always calling us back.”
“And Jeremy would always say this to us whenever we'd be like, Oh, I'm mahålang for home, and he'd be like, you know, like our islands miss you too. And so I really think of Mali'e' as a calling, as a calling for us to bring our gifts and for us to be connected and to build relationships in a good way with each other.”
‘What can CHamoru-ness be?’
Fellow multidisciplinary artist Roldy Aguero Ablao, (manggåfa' Dogi’) grew up on Guåhan and moved to Seattle for college, said that through Mali’e he’s learned to express himself in different ways.
“I can dance a little bit, you know, we can use our bodies as stories. And I think it's still a discovery. And I'm really excited for everyone who gets to be curious with us,” he said, adding that the experience gives them an opportunity to explore identity.
“That's a part of it for me, Mali'e' is just curiosity: What can CHamoru-ness be past, present, future at the same time, differently. Each of our CHamoru-nesses is different,” allowing some to participate in the experience while others observe. “But it's the invitation …, I think Mali'e' is an invitation to, like, give yourself to something greater than yourself.”
‘What it means to be CHamoru today’
“I really feel the the power in the chanting, chanting together, moving together, definitely the bridging of our people across lands,” said Alethea Bordallo (manggåfa Kotla, Goyo yan Dero), whom Dakota described as a cornerstone of Gi Matan Guma’s chant group on Guåhan.
For her, the creation of Gi Matan Guma during the pandemic came “at a time when … people felt isolated, but I felt like it really was the medicine coming out of that time, the medicine that I needed to be in community with others and to not feel isolated, and to share our individual stories, and get to know each other and what it means to be CHamoru today.”
Part 2 of this story comes tomorrow!


GET INVOLVED
Kutturan CHamoru will celebrate its 32nd celebration and a community activation that culminates the 10th Ta Fan Apåtte CHamoru Immersion Camp 2025 on Sunday, Aug. 17 at 3 p.m. at Homeland Cultural Center in Long Beach. Tickets available at Eventbrite.