land finding the safety and comfort of the islands an settlement worth calling home? Or are you a tip of a great root that extends far into the soil that is our islands, a root that claims a tree raised and strengthened by centuries of cultural dissolution and hardened through the fires of war?
As for myself, I am a seed of that great tree, blown by the winds to plant myself deep into the soil and someday grow to enrich and join to be a part of the great forest to which my father tree belongs.
We all have our stories, and in reading this, we have all found a juncture in which our stories have joined. This juncture is that the CNMI is our home. Whether by heritage, choice, or necessity these tiny islands have become the soil for your families and futures to flourish.
Well, my brothers and sisters of the same soil, it would be foolish of me to demean our situation by labeling it hard for it is far worse than that. It already is foolish of me for stating the difficulties we are having because it is far too apparent in every waking moment we spend struggling to revive the lives we have worked so hard to build.
I have neither words of anger nor words of sadness to offer to you my people. I simply have a humble request. It is a request forged in the fiery accusations rattled over our editorials. It is a request tied to the constant demands of our elected officials to band together in our cultural and political cliques to separately and magically solve our ailing health as a people.
My plea to you my people is locked in the sympathy I have for our political figureheads, men and women who love our land, but are lost in politics and the quest for job security.
I simply am asking you all people in earshot of this verbose and ill grammar-ed opinion piece to have hope. Hope. Hope, not as wishful thinkers and philosophers, but hope in the confidence within ourselves as a great people. Don’t give up on each other. Don’t fall prey to the harsh portrayal our islands have received, islands that we know through experience, blood, sweat, and tears to be the most beautiful place on Earth. Don’t remain stagnant in the sea of empathy for our situations as a whole.
We elected our political officials with our intent for them being our voice and representatives of our direction as a community. Well, they are elected, they are there sitting in their offices waiting. It is now our turn to step up and do our jobs.
This fight is not over. We need a reinforcement of hope to drive us forward. This fight will not destroy us. We have been tested under the fires of war and oppression in the past and compared to the dangers of bullets, bombs, and death it is ingrained in all members of our community to rise above.
I know hope does not pay bills nor buy food and clothes, but hope for our islands leads inevitably to love for our family, our community, and ourselves. Hope leads to support of great charities and services in need like Karidat. Hope leads to families strengthened through hardships and pain. Hope is reason for the struggle. Hope is the fuel driving our saviors, our youth, to know what they are fighting for. Hope gives students gaining the much needed knowledge abroad, like myself, a land to come home to and a cause to apply that knowledge.
Please Saipan, Tinian, Rota, the Northern Islands, Chamorros, Filipinos, statesiders, people of this our plot of Earth — please strive for hope in ourselves. We can do it. We are doing it. We will become the greatness we envision, and I am proud already to call you family.
MATT DELEON GUERRERO
Capital Hill, Saipan
