MANUEL AND GREGORIA REYES IN CALIFORNIA

 

MANUEL TORRES REYES

1925

He went by Manuel Torres Reyes, but that was the Spanish style of naming, where the father's surname comes first, followed by the mother's.

Manuel was the son of Mariano Torres and María Reyes.

But, when Manuel was born in 1898, the Chamorros were still using the Spanish system of naming. In the US system, he would have been Manuel Reyes Torres. Guam Chamorros didn't switch to the US naming system until 1919 or 1920, and a small number of Guam Chamorros didn't even make the change.

So when Manuel left for the US long before 1920, he carried with him the name he always knew himself to have : Manuel Torres Reyes. When he got to the US, he became Manuel T. Reyes. Reyes now was his legal surname.

Manuel was in California already in 1918, since he registered for the draft that year during World War I. He was living in Alameda at the time, and working as a printer at a fruit cannery.

MANUEL LATER IN LIFE

It seems Manuel made a career switch not long after and by the 1920s was a merchant marine, getting his seaman's protection certificate in 1925. THere's a good possibility Manuel left Guam for the US in the first place as a crew member of a ship. Manuel lived in various places in California during his long life, passing away in 1976.

Manuel was married for a time to a Native American woman from Alaska and had one daughter. Eventually he married Frances Garcia, of Hispanic descent, and had many children with her, and their descendants are still living in California to this day and elsewhere.

HIS SISTER GREGORIA

GREGORIA TORRES REYES

Manuel has a sister named Gregoria who also moved to California sometime in the 1920s.

Gregoria had married a California native who was working on Guam by the name of Ivan Lewis Bondshu. They were married on Guam in 1916 and their first two children were born on Guam. Then the family relocated to California where Ivan and Gregoria had more children. She married a second time, to José León in California, and passed away in 1966.

SMALL CHAMORRO COMMUNITY

Manuel and Gregoria were part of a small Chamorro community in California that moved there before World War II. After the war, thousands of Chamorros from Guam moved to the Golden State. 

But, before the war, the small numbers of Chamorros living in California were very scattered. Some didn't have any contact at all with other Chamorros for long periods of time. But Manuel and Gregoria seemed to keep some contact with each other and relatives, such as "Ben" Cruz of Guam, who died in Modesto, California in a road accident in 1937.

MANUEL T. REYES

with other Chamorro Seamen on the SS JD Peters in 1930

He was listed as a cook

The two other Chamorros were mess boys

KÅNTA : MUNGNGA YO' LUMI'E' AGUPA'

 

I first heard this song in the late 80s or maybe the early 90s, I don't remember, in Saipan.

But only recently, 40 years later, did I find out this song by the Saipan musical group Rematau is based on a song recorded by Nat King Cole in 1964!

LYRICS

Mungnga yo' nene lumi'e' agupa' solo ta li'e' na dos.

(I don't want to see tomorrow baby unless we see it together.)

Ma sångan agupa' bonito na ha'åne para u ina påpa' nu i atdao. 

(They say that tomorrow will be a beautiful day, the sun will shine down.)

Mungnga yo' nene lumi'e' agupa' solo ta li'e' na dos. 

(I don't want to see tomorrow unless we see it together.)

Agupa' u mågong todos i pinite gumefsaga nene hinasso-ko. 

(Tomorrow all sorrows will be eased, my thoughts, baby, will be happy.)

Mungnga yo' nene lumi'e' agupa' solo ta hita na dos. 

(I don't want to see tomorrow baby unless we are together.)

Mungnga yo' nene lumi'e' agupa' solo ta hita na dos. 

(I don't want to see tomorrow baby unless we are together.)

Nene an pupuenge sesso de hu guife na gaige hao gi fi'on-ho. 

(Baby, I often dream at night that you are by my side.)

Yanggen ti ya-mo yo' håfa yo' bai cho'gue? 

(If you do not like me, what can I do?)

An Damenggo pat Lunes ti kontento yo' gi dia. 

(On Sundays or Mondays I am not happy during the day.)

An ti ya-mo yo', yan ti ya-mo yo' ti åpmam nene mågi manana.

(If you don't like me, if you don't like me, the daylight is not far from coming.)

Mungnga yo' nene lumi'e' agupa' solo ta li'e' na dos. 

(I don't want to see tomorrow baby unless we see it together.)

Mungnga yo' nene lumi'e' agupa' solo ta li'e' na dos. 

(I don't want to see tomorrow baby unless we see it together.)

Nene an pupuenge sesso de hu guife na gaige hao gi fi'on-ho. 

(Baby, I often dream at night that you are by my side.)

Yanggen ti ya-mo yo' håfa yo' bai cho'gue? 

(If you do not like me, what can I do?)

An Damenggo pat Lunes ti kontento yo' gi dia. 

(On Sundays or Mondays I am not happy during the day.)

An ti ya-mo yo', yan ti ya-mo yo' ti åpmam nene mågi manana.

(If you don't like me, if you don't like me, the daylight is not far from coming.)

Mungnga yo' nene lumi'e' agupa' solo ta li'e' na dos. 

(I don't want to see tomorrow baby unless we see it together.)

Mungnga yo' nene lumi'e' agupa' solo ta hita na dos. 

(I don't want to see tomorrow baby unless we are together.)

ORIGINAL

This Chamorro version is based on a 1964 hit song recorded by Nat King Cole titled "I Don't Want to See Tomorrow." The Chamorro version tries to follow the English original very much.

Here's the English version :

(I don't want to see tomorrow)
(Unless I see it with you)

Tomorrow, so they say, will be a lovely day
A bright new sun will suddenly break through
But I don't want to see tomorrow
Unless I see it with you

Tomorrow, so I hear, the clouds will disappear
The door to happiness will open wide
But I don't want to see tomorrow
Unless you're there by my side

Don't want to walk alone
Don't want to dream alone
Just want you close to my heart
For if your love is gone
How can I face the dawn of
Sunday, or Monday?
I just can't face one day

Until you say you're mine, oh, darling, please be mine
And make each bright tomorrow young and new
But I don't want to face tomorrow
Unless I see it with you

(Tomorrow, so I hear, the clouds will disappear)
(The door to happiness will open wide)
But I don't want to see tomorrow
Unless I see it with you

HINENGGEN MAN ÅMKO'

 

MUNGNGA TUMOHGE I MAPOTGE' NA PALAO'AN GI PAPA' I PETTA.

A  pregnant woman shouldn't stand under a door.

A woman was telling me that one of her pregnancies was a very difficult one. Her prior deliveries had been normal, but this one delivery in particular had been unbearably hard. The child just didn't want to exit! It took more than several days for her baby to be born, healthily, thank God.

Why was this delivery so painful and different? She had heard all her life, since childhood, that the man åmko' (elderly) said that a pregnant woman should NOT stand stand under a doorway. Either come in, or go out, but do not stand there idly.

And why not? Because if she does, her delivery will be very difficult.

And this lady regrets not paying attention to a belief she knew and heard about for a long time.

Maybe the belief comes from the idea that if the mother doesn't move through a door, either going or coming, neither will her child to be born move through the door of the birth canal. As she just stood there, not moving, neither will the baby in her womb.

THE GOOD CARLOS MAAÑAO

 

Our ancestors both welcomed the Spanish missionaries AND opposed them.

One such Chamorro who embraced the Catholic faith was a young boy named Carlos Maañao.

Carlos died on February 22 in the year 1698. The missionaries wrote that he was a student at the Colegio de San Juan de Letrán, the school established in Hagåtña by Sanvitores for the education of select Chamorro boys.

He fell into sickness and two Jesuit priests assisted him in his last days. On his sick bed, Carlos spoke so tenderly and lovingly of Christ suffering on the cross, and of the Blessed Mother, that the priests and the young boys in the Colegio were moved, some to tears. He prayed ardently for the forgiveness of his sins and that he might not have to pass through Purgatory.

When he was told how serious his illness was, he began to go to confession and receive Holy Communion every eight days. He prayed the Rosary devoutly. He died, in the opinion of the missionaries, a holy death.

ONRA? PAT ONRO?

 

How does one say HONOR in Chamorro?

When we sing the Fanohge Chamorro, we say ONRA. "For the honor" is "Para i onra."

When we are at Mass, we say ONRO. "For yours is all the honor" is "todo i onro."

If we look at Spanish, there is a Spanish word honra, but no Spanish word honro. Honra means "honor, esteem, respect" and so on.

Påle' Román (1932) says onra means "honor," and Padre Ibáñez says the same thing in 1865.

In Chamorro, onra is also a verb. Ma onra i taotao. The person is honored.

Påle' Román says that the noun "honor" is inenra. One can turn almost any word into a noun by adding the -IN infix. The adjective "good" or "maolek" becomes the noun "goodness" or "minaolek."

So where does onro come from?

My guess is that when a word is seldom used, as "honor" is I would submit, the word is more likely to undergo transformations based on personal whim or leaning. Frequent usage sets a sort of standard you are held to. But rare usage opens one up to more freedom to modify.

A CHAMORRO-GREEK PASSION

 

ISABEL GUERRERO VENEZIANO

He was Greek, she was Greek-Chamorro. But their union was not meant to be.

Athanasios Malis, a young Greek man in his 20s came to Guam in 1915 for reasons I am not sure of yet. He had only immigrated to the United States a few years before that, so there's a good possibility it was through the military. He was somehow connected to the American military collier Nereus.

There just happened to be on Guam, at the time, a fellow Greek man named Alexander Veneziano, married to the Chamorro Ana Guerrero. The two Greek gentlemen met, and some kind of friendship formed.

Veneziano had a daughter, the beautiful Isabel. Malis fell in love with her. He claimed she also fell in love with him, and asked him to marry her. 

Isabel denied falling for Malis and, even if she did have feelings for him at first, they didn't last. In 1917, she was giving clear signs to Malis she would not marry him.

Complaints about Malis were lodged by Isabel in April, July and August of that year. Even Isabel's new romantic interest, the Navy pay clerk John Charles Poshepny, filed a complaint. Malis was bothering Isabel and threatening to do harm, even to himself. A telephone operator heard Malis speak abusively to Isabel on the phone.

JOHN CHARLES POSHEPNY

Isabel's future husband filed a complaint against Malis

Malis showed up at Aina de Vásquez's store in Hagåtña, asking to buy bullets for his revolver. Aina wouldn't sell him any. She knew he was having trouble with Isabel. Thank goodness for Aina's good sense. She may have prevented the spilling of blood.

STOREKEEPER AINA DE VÁSQUEZ 

MAY HAVE PREVENTED THE SPILLING OF BLOOD THAT DAY

It wasn't a surprise Aina knew about this drama. Malis could talk about nothing else other than Isabel. Even at work, that's all he would talk about. His work supervisors were of the opinion that Malis was love sick and mentally unbalanced.

So, the Navy doctors were asked to chime in. After examining Malis, they said he wasn't insane, but they recommended Malis be sent away. He was, and the Island Attorney asked that the case be dismissed. It's all recorded in court documents at the time. 

Two years later, in 1919, Athanasios Malis was described on a ship manifest as an "indigent American" traveling from Manila to San Francisco on US Army transport.

In 1920, he was admitted to a mental hospital, the Mendocino State Hospital in Ukiah, California, and was described as speaking irrationally and having delusions. He gave different answers to the same question.

He remained a patient at the hospital all the way till 1950, if not longer, and passed away in 1970. For much of its history, the Mendocino State Hospital was notorious for mixing serial killers and criminally insane with the mentally ill. The hospital was guilty of abuse, such as experimenting on patients and subjecting them to bizarre treatments against their will.

I hope Malis finally found peace in the merciful hands of Jesus. 

"More torturous than anything is the human heart. Beyond remedy; who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9-10)

MENHALOM OR MEHNALOM?

 

PÅLE' ROMÁN'S 1932 CHAMORRO-SPANISH DICTIONARY

Almost everybody nowadays who speaks some Chamorro says MENHALOM.

I remember hearing the man åmko' say MEHNALOM.

The word means any number of things, but all similar. It can mean prudent, wise, discerning and so on. It occurs in many places in some Chamorro nobenas and hymns, but for us who grew up with a lot of rosaries, it is said in the Litany of Loreto when in English we say VIRGIN MOST PRUDENT, in Chamorro we say BITHEN SEN MEHNALOM.

And here are two more examples from hymns to San José.

The word is formed by joining the prefix MI, which means "abundant," to HINALOM, which means "inside, interior."

HINALOM is then shortened and the word becomes MEHNALOM.

We see this with other words, too.

Someone who is persevering and long-enduring is MI+SUNGON or MESNGON.

Someone who talkative or eloquent is MI+FINO' or MEFNO'.

See how SUNGON and FINO' are shortened? Just like HINALOM is shortened, too.

A prudent person who knows how to observe things and then make good judgments about things does all of these inside his or her own mind. They spend the necessary time thinking within (hålom) themselves to make a good decision.

MENHALOM

The modern way of saying MENHALOM instead of MEHNALOM is an example of switching letters in order to say the word more easily.

This is called METATHESIS and it is found in many languages.

In English, a lot of people find it easier to say AKS instead of ASK. "Hey, can I aks you something?"

The S and the K are reversed (metathesis).

Another example is when some people say PERSCRIPTION instead of PRESCRIPTION. They just find it easier to say PERSCRIPTION.

More than likely this is why some Chamorros said MENHALOM instead of MEHNALOM and people hear others say it, copy it and it becomes a trend.

An 1865 Spanish-Chamorro dictionary has MEJNALOM. Spanish J sounds like H, like Juan or José. Spanish JUICIOSO means "judicious," or having good judgment or sense.

A 1918 English-Chamorro dictionary has MEJNALOM meaning "prudent."

WHY I PREFER MEHNALOM

Quite simply because mehnalom shows the origin and formation of the word. If one can picture

ME+H(I)+NALOM

one can see the MI+HINALOM more clearly than with menhalom.

Mi hinalom is why mehnalom exists at all.

It's also very Chamorro. By that I mean it preserves sounds that don't often occur in other languages. The H sound made with an exhalation before a consonant is a very Chamorro sound.

And yet so many modern people are dropping it, because it does require more physical effort to make that sound.

Notice how many people say MAMÅLAO and not the original MAMÅHLAO.

Or how people say MALOLO instead of MALOHLOH.

Listen to the way people say TOHGE (to stand) or SOHYO' (to urge).

It's the same with MEHNALOM. Very Chamorro sound.

KOSTUMBRE : KÅNTAN AGRADESIMIENTO

An old custom among our grandparents' generation which has pretty much died out now is the composing of songs specifically for certain occasions. Someone's arrival or departure or anniversary or achievement was celebrated by a singer or group of singers telling the story in song.

In 1991, a priest in Santa Rita, Guam was leaving the parish for a new assignment in Saipan.

Angelina Camacho Anderson, at age 72, composed a kåntan agradesimiento (appreciation song) which she sang at the priest's farewell party at the parish. Here's how the song went. I will spell it my way.

1. Gi durånte i sumagå-mo na un setbe ham, i boniton che'cho'-mo man sen na'manman.

(During your time that you served us, your beautiful works were very wonderful.)

Mit beses yan mås in saluda hao in gofli'e' na påle'-måme un dingu ham.

(A thousand times and more we salute you, you are leaving us our beloved priest.)

2. I bonito na memorias ni un setbe Santa Rita man åmko' yan man hoben ti in fan maleffa.

(The beautiful memories of you serving in Santa Rita, the old and young we will never forget.)

Mit beses yan mås in saluda hao in gofli'e' na påle'-måme si Yu'us ma'åse'.

(A thousand times and more we salute you, thank you our beloved priest.)

ANGELINA CAMACHO ANDERSON

1919-1999

AGUEDA JOHNSTON ON COLLABORATORS

 

No one could ever say Agueda Johnston didn't earn her right to say what she had to say about Chamorro collaborators of the Japanese.

She, like many others, suffered much from the hands of the Japanese during the Occupation, who were aided in part by some Chamorro interpreters from Saipan and Luta, and by some collaborators from Guam.

She was beaten and whipped by the Japanese and made to understand in no uncertain terms that her life was just an inch from being lost if the Japanese came up with harder evidence against her for aiding Tweed, the American fugitive. Besides this, her American husband had been shipped off to prison camp in Japan. He died there due to weakened health.

Yet, Agueda did not yield to the Japanese. Even when she felt it would be better for Tweed to turn himself in, rather than see more Chamorro blood run, Agueda did not turn in Tweed herself, nor did she give the Japanese the information they wanted, despite the beating they gave her.

So it's remarkable that Agueda felt compassion and mercy for those local people who did buckle under the strong arm of the Japanese and who did collaborate.

Agueda wrote, "I am inclined to believe most of those accused of collaborating with the Japs were doing it to protect their own skin."

Agueda claimed to know the names of local people who gave the Japanese information that lead to Chamorro deaths, but "since they (the informants) were victims of severe torture and are no longer in the world, I shall not mention their names."

"There were a few who seemed to lose their good sense; on the other hand, there were those who had no choice. We must remember that one of the greatest tragedies of war is its effect on the human mind. People would do things that in ordinary times they would never think of doing."

And so we see that Agueda, like many others, understood that self-preservation is like the first law of nature. We should not be too hasty in condemning others for it. Agueda also said, "Don't be inclined to believe everything you hear." Right after the war, fingers were quick to be pointed; true or false, rumors abounded and people gossiped. Old scores were eager to be settled. You could get back at a prewar enemy by (falsely) accusing them of collaborating with the Japanese.

Even Agueda admitted that she and her family feigned friendliness to the Japanese in order to save their lives. She said she and her children bowed and smiled to the Japanese so much, it was a game they played, in order to avoid being put on a black list by the Japanese. They used flattery and false promises of cooperation to fool the Japanese.

Agueda, who was responsible for the start of Liberation Day celebrations, saw that observance as not only a day of gratitude for liberation from the Japanese, but as a way the Chamorro people of Guam could bury the bad memories of the Occupation, including any desire for retribution even among each other. She wanted those who had "shown delinquencies" during the war to be forgiven and to be allowed to truly live again.

They say never judge someone until you've walked in their shoes.

Agueda walked in the shoes of those abused by the Japanese. She did not cave in. She could have condemned those who did. But she didn't. And so we see another way of interpreting Liberation Day. It also sought liberation from vengeance and retaliation.

Guam Chamorros accused of collaborating with the Japanese; some Japanese residents of Guam; some Chamorro/Japanese mixed race Guam residents; Chamorros from the Northern Marianas were put by the US in a separate stockade in Agaña Heights (present Naval Hospital grounds) after the war.