(Press Release) — The Saipan and Northern Islands Municipal Council passed Council Commemorative Resolution No. 16SMC-01 during its special session on April 15, 2021.
The resolution calls for a three-year “comprehensive study” on the status of the indigenous people of the Northern Marianas.
The resolution urges both the CNMI and federal governments to provide appropriate funding for this study to ensure the consistency of the 1976 Covenant which promised a higher standard of living for NMI Chamorros.
The comprehensive study will focus on empirical data and will be spearheaded by Northern Marianas College, the CNMI Indigenous Affairs Office, and the Matua Council for Chamorro Advancement, a non-profit indigenous organization.
Municipal council chair Ana Demapan Castro and vice chair Antonia Manibusan Tudela want to see tangible and comprehensive data on the status of the Chamorros in the last 500 years from colonization to decolonization, including the social and economic impacts on Chamorros of the CNMI’s economic and immigration policies and the Compacts of Free Association.
The study will also look into the status of the Chamorro language at home; the Chamorros’ overall living and health conditions; the status of available land for homesteads and agriculture; and the Chamorros’ access to shorelines for sustainable fishing.
More importantly, the council said, the three-year comprehensive study “will provide policymakers a roadmap on the status of the Chamorros in drafting future public policies that affect their social, economic, cultural and traditional issues to mitigate the decline in language, health, education, subsistence living and traditional gathering rights that are critical to ensure the continuity, the protection, the preservation, and the survival of the Chamorros for generations to come.”
Saipan and Northern Islands Municipal Council Chair Ana D. Castro signs Council Commemorative Resolution No. 16SMC-01 while council vice chair Antonia M. Tudela looks on.
Contributed photo
