The Story Behind the song Falúw Kkaa Efáng
By Cinta Kaipat
For many years now, well over decades, I have been aware that the island of Pagan in the Northern Islands where I grew up had a certain type of attraction to people who wanted to exploit the island-and certainly to the military who wants to take over the islands. So I’ve always had my concerns about making sure that the islands are not taken from the people who rightfully belong to the northern islands, people who were born and have history living and growing up there. People who want to maintain the beauty of those islands and make sure they are not exploited. So I don’t want them to be accessible to people who want to overfish or over exploit the resources and turn them into wastelands. So many years ago, I became aware of an interest from an outside business person who was wealthy and came to settle in the CNMI. He basically wanted to go to Pagan and set up his own business there. My concern was that it meant that the desire of the local people who wanted to return home would be set aside in favor of those who had money. So my brother Gus and Ken and I were pretty concerned about this, and we had advocated over the years for the protection of the islands. So when the word came that this individual crashed along with a pilot and another member of our legislature at sea on the way back from Pagan, I convinced my brother Ken who composed the melody of Falúw Kkaa Effáng to use the song for a purpose. I said let’s write about the island and our concern about the people who want to take it over and turn it into something outside the best interests of our people. I said, “let’s compose this song about the island and protecting the resources for the true northern island residents.” The melody had already existed and we came up with the chorus, so my brother Gus and I worked on it. It is the center piece of the whole song because it goes up really high. It’s a touching melody for one thing.
When we sat down to compose the lyrics and told people what the song was about, it was an overnight sensation. The former mayor of the Northern Islands was driving, (he was one of my nephews), and he told me the story about when he heard the song for the first time on Beach Road (Saipan). He said that when he heard it, he was so touched that he pulled over on the side of the road and started weeping. This makes me really sad because this nephew had passed away so unexpectedly at such a young age. We always shared the anxiety of wanting to protect the islands whether it was from rich business interests that wanted to exploit or the land or the military who wanted to basically turn it into the most serious and heavily bombarded training ground for the US military.
In our history, some were forced off the island to resettle on Saipan. That is what happened to my family after my father was killed. We moved to Saipan for medical attention and we eventually settled there without my dad and we had a life there. But always with a desire to preserve the Northern Islands for resettlement. People have always asked me “what’s in it for you?” and I say “I fight hard because I had tasted paradise living on Pagan.” I was born on Agrigan and was raised on Pagan until my father was killed. I tasted the paradise and sweetness of life up there. I wanted future generations to have that same type of life experience that I had. This place cannot be replaced as part of our culture and heritage. Others deserve to have that same taste that I had as a child. Even if I don’t get a chance to resettle, I don’t preclude it from other future generations who deserve the same opportunity and that’s why I fight hard. So we sat down and composed this song. Everyone loved it. Everyone was moved to tears when the song came out.
When we sat down to compose the lyrics and told people what the song was about, it was an overnight sensation. The former mayor of the Northern Islands was driving, (he was one of my nephews), and he told me the story about when he heard the song for the first time on Beach Road (Saipan). He said that when he heard it, he was so touched that he pulled over on the side of the road and started weeping. This makes me really sad because this nephew had passed away so unexpectedly at such a young age. We always shared the anxiety of wanting to protect the islands whether it was from rich business interests that wanted to exploit or the land or the military who wanted to basically turn it into the most serious and heavily bombarded training ground for the US military.
In our history, some were forced off the island to resettle on Saipan. That is what happened to my family after my father was killed. We moved to Saipan for medical attention and we eventually settled there without my dad and we had a life there. But always with a desire to preserve the Northern Islands for resettlement. People have always asked me “what’s in it for you?” and I say “I fight hard because I had tasted paradise living on Pagan.” I was born on Agrigan and was raised on Pagan until my father was killed. I tasted the paradise and sweetness of life up there. I wanted future generations to have that same type of life experience that I had. This place cannot be replaced as part of our culture and heritage. Others deserve to have that same taste that I had as a child. Even if I don’t get a chance to resettle, I don’t preclude it from other future generations who deserve the same opportunity and that’s why I fight hard. So we sat down and composed this song. Everyone loved it. Everyone was moved to tears when the song came out.
![Picture](/uploads/5/2/8/6/52861637/published/5s9a1680-edit.jpg?1662022462)
Falúw is land or island, Falúw Kkaa is the plural of island so “these islands” and effang means north. So the proper translation is “these northern islands.” This song talks about sitting under a pine tree and looking up and seeing a star up above in the sky so isolated and far away. And this reminded the person under the stars of their homeland; which is so far up in the north and how beautiful it is, and how he longed to return home to that beautiful paradise. The chorus goes into this haunting melody that cries out, in a warning, about outside forces who want to take the beauty of these islands away from the people. So basically that’s why it’s a call, a call of warning.
When I happened to move back home in 1998 and we came across proposed legislation to bar former residents from Pagan due to safety issues, I thought these were egregiously unfair restrictions. So this became my life work to advocate for Northern Islands people who come from very simply backgrounds. It’s a group that’s easy to take advantage of because many are too uncomfortable and shy to speak up loudly. Many didn’t have the opportunity to have the education that I was able to obtain in the states. Close to twenty years later I was able to come home after school. But the fact that I left home to get an education and then return home to fight for the rights of my people to return home again, was basically all that I wanted. The right to just go home and set up your own life peacefully and raise families. Nothing more and nothing less. Yet the people were being denied the right.
We organized the Northern Islands communities. I ordered t-shirts that said “Northern Islands endangered species” and we demanded a real public hearing at the legislature. We demanded one to be held in a public setting at a time that was convenient for those working. Every man woman and child who showed up at the rescheduled public hearing came wearing our t-shirts and man, it was a really powerful image. These are people who are normally invisible in our own community. These were people who came from the Northern Islands to Saipan and were scattered all over the island until they created an area in Garapan called “Paganville” which a lot of the residents were moved to and resettled. There is no doubt in my mind that given a chance, if people were given regular transportation, the people would rather bring their children back to live a simpler lifestyle and live off of the land and the sea. This would make you self-sufficient, live healthier and exercise and not be so seduced by the commercial life while eating a lot of sugar and canned goods. That’s the kind of alternative life that is possible to return to.
I was one of five children that were actually delivered by my paternal Chamorro grandmother. I grew up in that simple lifestyle with no stores. But it also offered a beautiful quality of life, where parents were able to storytell with their children at night and where neighbors came to talk at a fire at night, singing songs. The families gathered to go fishing too. As a child, it didn’t matter if my relatives joined my family to go fishing because when the catch arrived we always divvied up the catch. One of my tasks was to walk around the island and bring to fish to our relatives on the island. It’s that kind of communal sharing and living that I feel like people want to belong to. Not to say that we didn’t enjoy the ice cream and canned goods that came from time to time, but the bottom line is that people should be able to choose.
I was blessed to grow up with a father who had a nurturing and ambitious plan to develop the Pagan community. There’s a five year gap between me and my younger siblings because my dad was going to agriculture school at the University of Hawai’i and was completing other trainings including medical training. When we moved to Saipan after leaving Pagan, we moved to Kagman village and it was an isolated community, not like the way it is now where it is bustling. My dad worked for the agricultural department. But on Pagan, my dad helped to rebuild the old Japanese airstrip and once that happened, it opened up the air service again on the island during the Trust Territory time. My other siblings moved back to Pagan but my mom and I stayed back on Saipan and she had my brother Gus. After the baby was born we took one of the cargo ships that went up to the islands quarterly to pick up the copra because we had a thriving copra industry. While we were there my dad brought up the Peace Corps to teach us and he also brought up the Air Force to expand the old Japanese airstrip. The day after my dad was killed, a C-130 military plane came to pick up my dads body and our family. There was a shooting incident that took the life of my dad. That airstrip my dad helped build brought the Air Force up from Guam.
In the mid-2000’s, the US military announced that it wanted to carry forth their most violent and ambitious military trainings in the Marianas. This came after the Okinawan government wanted to reduce the troops there after the rape of a young girl. So a group of us got together to file a lawsuit to say that the military did not take into account cumulative effects of their plans. The US military was not upfront about moving the troops from Guam. They really needed more substantial training so they decided to draw up different plans to use other parts of the Marianas. On Tinian Island, they were going to bring in howitzers and have other amphibious trainings and use Pagan for violent training. This was also concerning because there is already soil erosion on Pagan. There is a monument that is sinking into the water and when I was a kid it wasn’t that close to shore. All of these things just were not conducive to our desire to resettle. The US military wants to come in and offer money and some people were okay with giving up the islands because they didn’t have the same connections that we did. Pagan is the crown jewel of the Marianas. When you go up there, there is a certain vibe, it is spiritual and there’s nothing like it. And of course this is where my father was killed. In our Refaluwasch culture, we believe where you lose your life there is where your spirits dwells. My father’s spirit may roam the world but his spirit will always return to where he breathed his last breath and I watched him breath that last breath.
When I happened to move back home in 1998 and we came across proposed legislation to bar former residents from Pagan due to safety issues, I thought these were egregiously unfair restrictions. So this became my life work to advocate for Northern Islands people who come from very simply backgrounds. It’s a group that’s easy to take advantage of because many are too uncomfortable and shy to speak up loudly. Many didn’t have the opportunity to have the education that I was able to obtain in the states. Close to twenty years later I was able to come home after school. But the fact that I left home to get an education and then return home to fight for the rights of my people to return home again, was basically all that I wanted. The right to just go home and set up your own life peacefully and raise families. Nothing more and nothing less. Yet the people were being denied the right.
We organized the Northern Islands communities. I ordered t-shirts that said “Northern Islands endangered species” and we demanded a real public hearing at the legislature. We demanded one to be held in a public setting at a time that was convenient for those working. Every man woman and child who showed up at the rescheduled public hearing came wearing our t-shirts and man, it was a really powerful image. These are people who are normally invisible in our own community. These were people who came from the Northern Islands to Saipan and were scattered all over the island until they created an area in Garapan called “Paganville” which a lot of the residents were moved to and resettled. There is no doubt in my mind that given a chance, if people were given regular transportation, the people would rather bring their children back to live a simpler lifestyle and live off of the land and the sea. This would make you self-sufficient, live healthier and exercise and not be so seduced by the commercial life while eating a lot of sugar and canned goods. That’s the kind of alternative life that is possible to return to.
I was one of five children that were actually delivered by my paternal Chamorro grandmother. I grew up in that simple lifestyle with no stores. But it also offered a beautiful quality of life, where parents were able to storytell with their children at night and where neighbors came to talk at a fire at night, singing songs. The families gathered to go fishing too. As a child, it didn’t matter if my relatives joined my family to go fishing because when the catch arrived we always divvied up the catch. One of my tasks was to walk around the island and bring to fish to our relatives on the island. It’s that kind of communal sharing and living that I feel like people want to belong to. Not to say that we didn’t enjoy the ice cream and canned goods that came from time to time, but the bottom line is that people should be able to choose.
I was blessed to grow up with a father who had a nurturing and ambitious plan to develop the Pagan community. There’s a five year gap between me and my younger siblings because my dad was going to agriculture school at the University of Hawai’i and was completing other trainings including medical training. When we moved to Saipan after leaving Pagan, we moved to Kagman village and it was an isolated community, not like the way it is now where it is bustling. My dad worked for the agricultural department. But on Pagan, my dad helped to rebuild the old Japanese airstrip and once that happened, it opened up the air service again on the island during the Trust Territory time. My other siblings moved back to Pagan but my mom and I stayed back on Saipan and she had my brother Gus. After the baby was born we took one of the cargo ships that went up to the islands quarterly to pick up the copra because we had a thriving copra industry. While we were there my dad brought up the Peace Corps to teach us and he also brought up the Air Force to expand the old Japanese airstrip. The day after my dad was killed, a C-130 military plane came to pick up my dads body and our family. There was a shooting incident that took the life of my dad. That airstrip my dad helped build brought the Air Force up from Guam.
In the mid-2000’s, the US military announced that it wanted to carry forth their most violent and ambitious military trainings in the Marianas. This came after the Okinawan government wanted to reduce the troops there after the rape of a young girl. So a group of us got together to file a lawsuit to say that the military did not take into account cumulative effects of their plans. The US military was not upfront about moving the troops from Guam. They really needed more substantial training so they decided to draw up different plans to use other parts of the Marianas. On Tinian Island, they were going to bring in howitzers and have other amphibious trainings and use Pagan for violent training. This was also concerning because there is already soil erosion on Pagan. There is a monument that is sinking into the water and when I was a kid it wasn’t that close to shore. All of these things just were not conducive to our desire to resettle. The US military wants to come in and offer money and some people were okay with giving up the islands because they didn’t have the same connections that we did. Pagan is the crown jewel of the Marianas. When you go up there, there is a certain vibe, it is spiritual and there’s nothing like it. And of course this is where my father was killed. In our Refaluwasch culture, we believe where you lose your life there is where your spirits dwells. My father’s spirit may roam the world but his spirit will always return to where he breathed his last breath and I watched him breath that last breath.
It’s been decades since we’ve been fighting to stop the US military from returning. Their plans called the CNMI Joint Military Training (CJMT) were drawn up in 2015 and we came out and tried to gather the whole community to stop these plans. They are already using parts of Tinian and bombing Farallon de Medinilla (FDM). I don’t know whose idea it was to say that when they were done bombing they would return the island to us. I can’t think of a case where the US would just voluntarily clean up for themselves. Usually they have to be sued to do what they should be doing in the first place. They were trying to take over Pagan which wasn’t even in our Covenant agreement with the US. I didn’t feel that any deal would suffice to use our islands as target training. And let me state for the record, because I am accused often of being anti-military. This couldn’t be further from the truth. I have family members who have died in the military and there is tremendous loss when you lose a member in the military. We understand that sacrifice. One of my dads older brothers was a local marine scout during WWII. People don’t understand that you can be patriotic or just because you are patriotic doesn’t mean you can’t speak up and say something is not right. So while I support our military and support their adequate training, there has got to be some balance. What we found out during these military public hearings about their plans, is that they really don’t have to train here; it’s just that it would be nice for them. And there’s a difference there. For us, these are our homes that you want to destroy. That’s our home, it’s our right to raise our families there. It’s our right to let our families bring along the next generations. What kind of quality of life are we talking about if we can’t live in clean environments? It’s enough that there’s ammunition left over from WWII all over our islands. We know the US doesn’t always comply with what they should do. If you pollute somewhere, you have a basic obligation to clean up after yourselves. This is why we were fighting back and saying no.
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I speak about this issue because it’s taken a lot of sacrifices, a lot of hurt feelings. Even within my own family, as people came out on either side of the issue. In the beginning of 2022, we received one of the best pieces of news I’ve received in my entire life. That was that the US military decided not to pursue Pagan anymore for bombing. So they’ve decided not to expand the training there. So, thank you Lord for not allowing that kind of destruction for happening to our crown jewel. Now our people have to plan. I am not an employee of the government but I do support resettlement if it is fair. Some may or may not opt to relocate but at least they should be given the choice. If I don’t personally want to return but my child might want to, there should be an orderly transition and also to support any government effort to build the agricultural industry that my dad had forseen. We have an opportunity to build a more sustainable agricultural industry even for the Micronesian region. My dad grew a lot of watermelon and corn. There are a lot of things that we could grow to support ourselves. But only if the right people get into office and only if there is a watch group to make sure that the corrupt don’t take over. We need to make sure the right leaders are motivated by the right reasons. I think that God has helped us see the wisdom of not taking that island for military use. There are so many possibilities to use those islands for, but it can only be possible without corruption. Everyone should win. Falúw Kkaa Effáng, I salute you the Northern Islands, originally meant to warn of outside sources-thank God we created this song to open the eyes and hearts of people to show them how much we love the islands.