Raymond “Bo” Quitugua and Herman Tudela stage a protest action on Middle Road in Gualo Rai across from the United States Courthouse on May 1, 2023.
NO one from the CNMI or U.S. government has responded to the grievances of indigenous rights advocate Raymond Quitugua.
“They are turning a blind eye on us,” he said. “As if they do not see or hear us even if we already staged our peaceful protest across from their building,” he added, referring to the District Court for the NMI, the Guma Hustisia and the Office of the Governor where he and Herman Tudela staged a peaceful protest on May 16.
“Nobody, not even the attorney general, is civil enough to face us or address our situation,” Quitugua said.
He and other indigenous advocates believe that the true indigenous people of the Marianas are the Chamorro people.
They also believe that the U.S. and CNMI governments have violated the indigenous people’s rights and disrespected them by depicting the mwar on the CNMI flag as a Carolinian symbol.
Matua Council for Native Chamorro Advancement President Liana Hofschneider, in a statement, said she has urged the governor, the Legislature and the Law Revision Commission to “correct the wrong information that affects the history and heritage of the true indigenous people of the Marianas.”
“But to date, no one has done anything,” she said.
Still, Hofschneider said she is grateful that the Public School System has graduated a good number of Chamorro-English teachers to teach Chamorro in the classroom.
“There’s a bachelor’s degree program in conjunction with the University of Guam,” she added. “This demand for a mandatory Chamorro Language and Heritage studies stemmed from our years of advocacy. This one is directly tied to the meetings we had in 2021 and 2022 with Board of Education members, the education commissioner, the curriculum administrator, and the language coordinator. We informed them that we would take this to the federal level if not given the proper attention,” she said.
Quitugua, for his part, said he is hoping that a government official would at least speak to them and “provide the right solution, which is already long overdue.”
