Marianas Unity
A story about uniting Chamorro and Refaluwasch peoples in the Northern Mariana Islands
By Cinta Kaipat
By Cinta Kaipat
Cinta Kaipat, in her own words, describes the inspiration behind the "Marianas Unity" song. Excerpts from her storytelling are transcribed below:
The inspiration behind my composing “Marianas Unity” is a call to my people because I am from both the Indigenous groups of the Chamorros and the Refaluwasch…otherwise known as Carolinians…so I am from both Indigenous groups of people. Through history unfortunately some people say that we haven’t always gotten along. We’ve always had distinction between the Chamorros and Refaluwasch, from what I learned from history we are all part of the Austronesian communities that came out of Taiwan and eventually split into two groups. Eventually in the 1800’s, the Carolinians resettled, a group of them led by three chiefs. The most famous of them being chief Agharubw. Because of the earthquakes and typhoons the people had suffered in the Carolines, they decided to put their relatives in these canoes and go out and seek a new place, a safer home. So these were the original climate refugees who ended up heading to resettle in the Northern Marianas. At that time, the Northern Marianas had been conquered by the Spanish who fought my Chamorro ancestors and basically reduced their population all the way down to practically non-existent. Not only because of war, but because of the diseases that they brought to the island and introduced to my Chamorro ancestors, who were obviously not exposed to those diseases that were brought by the Spanish that settled there. So over time, my Chamorro ancestors were subjugated and basically they were turned into the Spanish version of I guess themselves I would say.
The Chamorro’s were I guess the “creation” of the Spanish conquerors, so whatever customs that the Chamorro people had when the Refaluwasch came back after they were relocated, that was something that passed onto them and was taught to them by the conquering Spaniards who were here in the Marianas. So according to our history, the two chiefs sailed onto Saipan while Chief Agharubw stopped in Guam to seek permission to resettle in the Marianas. And those of you who ever have a chance to visit the Marianas and go to Managaha, it’s just a tiny island outside the shore of the main island of Saipan-will see a statue of Chief Agharubw. There is a statue of a Refaluwasch man in his tughumagh-which is the loin cloth that the Refaluwasch men wore. He is topless and he is wearing a top hat, holding a cane and a scroll. And as legend goes, supposedly when Chief Agharubw stopped in Guam to seek formal permission from the then Spanish governor of the Marianas, he was given the top hat, cane and school as symbols of authority. So the government of Guam had given the permission in exchange for this. A lot of people don’t know this part of the history, in exchange for allowing the people to resettle in the north, the Spanish government sought agreement from chief Agharubw that the Refluwasch would provide transportation for those who were living in Tinian. I guess they wanted to make sure the soldiers and whoever else they wanted to transport-like food for example- had a way to transport the cargo because I guess they lost a lot of their boating and canoeing skills. So when my Reflauwasch people came they were able to exchange value for value. So transporation was something valuable that the Spanish were able to use with the valuable permission to resettle in the Marianas. So Chief Agharubw resettled in Garapan in which the Reflauwasch name is ARABWAL which is the green vine growing on the beaches. For example, if you go to Micro Beach and you see the green vine with the purple flowers, you see ARABWAL. So the village of Garapan was named ARABWAL I guess because they found those vines when they landed on the beach.
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And so my Carolinian ancestors resettled and eventually my Chamorro ancestors on Guam came back to their homes on Rota, Tinian and Saipan and up to the Northern Islands. But, the Chamorros that came were sort of a hybrid of the Spanish version of the Chamorros and so they didn’t always have the same attitudes that were welcoming to the Refaluwasch community whom they saw an invaders. It was interesting because whereas they once through of the Spanish as the colonizers, the idea of the invaders involved the resentment of the Refaluwasch people taking over former islands of the Chamorros. This was kind of hard to stomach as a child growing up because I was aware of being part Chamorro, but I couldn’t help but sympathize with my Carolinian people more because we were in the minority as far as my community was concerned and we did not always have the power. We didn’t have the political power. We weren’t running things the way that the Chamorros were running things. And the other really key thing is that even though my dad was half Chamorro, his mother in fact-Joaquina Dela Cruz Borja-was actually born on Guam. She was from a very large Chamorro family, although only a few of them survived. There were a lot of first siblings who died in infancy. But it was interesting because my parents I guess made a decision to raise us as Refalwuwasch because it’s a very different culture than the Chamorros. It’s not only a different language but we have different beliefs. Over time nowadays in 2022 you can say, “yea now we're practically the same, same cousins, or same family or whatnot.” For example, there’s been intermarriages and adoption of each other's culture and speaking of each others languages and so forth. But initially it took time for the gap to be bridged and there has always been resentment. And when I was working on my very first film and talking about the history and I thought about my ancestors and about my Chamorro and my Refaluwasch ancestors, I thought about what this bitterness was like.
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When I was working on my first documentary named LEIWEILA a Micronesian story, I had an experience with a friend I want to share. For background, in the Refaluwasch culture, when a storyteller starts a story the very first thing a storyteller says is “Leiweila.” When they do this, all the children and all those listening will reply “AY YAY”, so once that happens it's time to tell the story. So we chose that as the title for our documentary film LEIWEILA. Anyhow, I had a Chamorro friend who happened to be observing some of the photos of the documentary film of the Chamorros who were wearing western Spanish influenced clothes and they were taking picture with these Refaluwasch men who were dressed in their traditional tugmah (the garb/loin cloth that the men wore, and we call the skirts that the women wear apelpel). When she saw the photograph with the two peoples, the Refaluwasch and the Chamorros, to me it appeared that she was kind of bragging in a way about the way that the Chamorros were dressed like, “Look at the way the Chamorros were dressed in their fancy clothes standing in these photos with these Refluwasch peoples dressed in their loin clothes.” I guess it was her tone, but it hit me the wrong way. And I looked at her and said, “Oh really? You are proud of that? Because to me that’s not something to be proud of.” Believe me, I have Chamorro blood in me so I feel every right to say this, but when I look at that photograph, that’s not something to be proud of. That to me, made me angry. Because when I see my Chamorro people wearing the clothes of the people that conquered and subjugated them, that to me is not something to be proud of. I said, “But I look at my Refaluwasch people on the other hand wearing their own traditional clothing. That to me is something that I am proud of.” Despite being conquered by the Spanish, they still held onto their identity in that sense-of that piece of clothing-that tells you apart from another group of people. And I don’t mean to sound harsh, but like I said, sometimes you just need to remind people to look at reality or at least disabuse themselves of the propaganda being fed to them that you’re only beautiful because of fancy western Spanish influenced clothes that they were wearing.
Growing up, I felt the stinging racism that was coming from my own Chamorro cousins looking down on us seeing us as poorer. But there was something that I grew up with, I don’t know where this came from, some kind of pride as a Refaluwasch person. I didn’t need to beg for anyone’s forgiveness that I was born Refaluwasch. In fact, I remembered I walked into a room during a pre-law summer program and I remember being looked at by a Chamorro girl, being stared at from the top of my hair all the way down to the tips of my toes, and I could already hear her summary in her mind that I just didn’t measure up. I just held that feeling in check like “oh yea? Okay let’s see.” I must say that provided me with motivation, because at the end of the summer pre-law program, my own class voted me to be the valedictorian of the class. And for me, it was like saying, “Well you kind of just pre-judged me at the beginning of the school summer class. You looked at my appearance and you decided that my Refaluwasch presence was not necessarily welcome in that class.” So I decided to let my Refaluwasch brain aided with my Chamorro brain (laughter) do the speaking for my own right to exist, or my right to be in that class. And I tell you what, because I celebrated my whole identity, I embraced by Refaluwasch identity. By the end of that summer class, there were other people who were saying, “Hey do you know my heritage? I have Refaluwach in me too.” To me, that was just so gratifying and beautiful that I was able to let other people who would not normally bring forth those kinds of things, turn around and appreciate it and embrace their full heritage and full identity.
Growing up, I felt the stinging racism that was coming from my own Chamorro cousins looking down on us seeing us as poorer. But there was something that I grew up with, I don’t know where this came from, some kind of pride as a Refaluwasch person. I didn’t need to beg for anyone’s forgiveness that I was born Refaluwasch. In fact, I remembered I walked into a room during a pre-law summer program and I remember being looked at by a Chamorro girl, being stared at from the top of my hair all the way down to the tips of my toes, and I could already hear her summary in her mind that I just didn’t measure up. I just held that feeling in check like “oh yea? Okay let’s see.” I must say that provided me with motivation, because at the end of the summer pre-law program, my own class voted me to be the valedictorian of the class. And for me, it was like saying, “Well you kind of just pre-judged me at the beginning of the school summer class. You looked at my appearance and you decided that my Refaluwasch presence was not necessarily welcome in that class.” So I decided to let my Refaluwasch brain aided with my Chamorro brain (laughter) do the speaking for my own right to exist, or my right to be in that class. And I tell you what, because I celebrated my whole identity, I embraced by Refaluwasch identity. By the end of that summer class, there were other people who were saying, “Hey do you know my heritage? I have Refaluwach in me too.” To me, that was just so gratifying and beautiful that I was able to let other people who would not normally bring forth those kinds of things, turn around and appreciate it and embrace their full heritage and full identity.
So when I composed this “Marianas Unity” song, I had that history in mind and I wanted to remind our Refaluwasch people and our Chamorro people, that “Hey, we need to have unity.” I can no longer slice open my wrist to take out the Chamorro blood, separate my Chamorro blood from my Refaluwasch blood or I wouldn’t even be here. So we need to remind ourselves that each of us; each group is beautiful and valuable in our own way and that we have enough outside forces trying to displace us. For example, what happened earlier in our history that almost wiped out my Chamorro ancestors by the Spanish. If we didn’t learn any lesson from there, and then from WWII. Without any kind of permission being sought out. Next thing you know, we were being fought over by Japan and the United States. They were fighting over our land, fighting over the air, destroying our homelands. Killing our people. And so part of me was saying, “Haven’t we learned our lesson? We need to band together, we need to unite.” Because if we don’t do that then there’s always room for an outside force or outside forces to come and use us against each other and so we need to stop that, we need to unify and love each other and appreciate each other the way we deserve to be appreciated.
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It is my call to appreciate the beauty of who we are, our culture, beauty of our people, our heritage, our own environment. Because we are products of our environments. And we live in paradise. We grew up with beautiful sunsets, beautiful sunrises. So let’s appreciate the beauty around us, and appreciate the beauty that is within us and without. And that’s what the message is, we need to unite, we need to love each other, love ourselves, love people in general. A lot of this is talking about outside forces, but I will be honest with you. I’m not saying I don’t love people who are not of Chamorro or Refaluwasch race, you know? I have benefitted from going to live with my American Peace Corps teachers and their community and I am a product of my western education. So I am grateful and I appreciate the benefits of people taking me in-somebody who is outside their culture. Not to say that I did not meet my own hardships so far away from home with people who showed racism towards me. But by and large, for the most part I would say that I had such a tremendous, blessed experience living abroad and I will never never, never stop appreciating what my former Peace Corps teachers did-Cindy and John Burrell-who took me all these years later back to Chicago. The last I saw them was in Saipan on their way home back in 1972 after my father was buried. So they stopped and visited my family before they went back to the states. I never would have the kind of education and experience that I had received through their generosity of sending me to go live with them.
So again, opportunities that have been afforded to me, I am truly grateful and I will always be grateful to those who opened the doors for me. To build a better quality of life. I am so grateful for that, but that’s different. I will always appreciate the love I received, and I love those who gave me such love. But that is a little different from loving our own selves and our own people. We tend to be hard on ourselves and hardest on each other. You know, the old crabs in a bucket mentality rather than be proud of each other. We have a tendency to be jealous and pull each other back down. I wish that we would stop that if we saw that happening, I hope you have the courage to speak up and speak out against it. I know I certainly will. Because I don’t think we can thrive, exist and succeed if we continue to pull each other down. So don’t knock eachother’s mwaar down. In Refaluwasch culture, a mwaar is this beautiful floral garland that we like to wear, that Refaluwasch people like to wear. So don’t knock eachother’s MWAAR off or knock it crooked If you see its crooked, then you set it straight because everyone is beautiful and we all deserve to co-exist peacefully in our beautiful world as beautiful and as safe as we can make it.
Photography commissioned by MyCapitures (Myla Deets, Saipan, CNMI).
So again, opportunities that have been afforded to me, I am truly grateful and I will always be grateful to those who opened the doors for me. To build a better quality of life. I am so grateful for that, but that’s different. I will always appreciate the love I received, and I love those who gave me such love. But that is a little different from loving our own selves and our own people. We tend to be hard on ourselves and hardest on each other. You know, the old crabs in a bucket mentality rather than be proud of each other. We have a tendency to be jealous and pull each other back down. I wish that we would stop that if we saw that happening, I hope you have the courage to speak up and speak out against it. I know I certainly will. Because I don’t think we can thrive, exist and succeed if we continue to pull each other down. So don’t knock eachother’s mwaar down. In Refaluwasch culture, a mwaar is this beautiful floral garland that we like to wear, that Refaluwasch people like to wear. So don’t knock eachother’s MWAAR off or knock it crooked If you see its crooked, then you set it straight because everyone is beautiful and we all deserve to co-exist peacefully in our beautiful world as beautiful and as safe as we can make it.
Photography commissioned by MyCapitures (Myla Deets, Saipan, CNMI).