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| particracy.wikia.com |
Rejecting everything Spanish in Chamorro culture - words, customs, religion - is much in fashion nowadays among some Chamorro culture revivalists. But we all took off from work yesterday and feasted without so much as a peep about the holiday being thoroughly American - from Abraham Lincoln who, in 1863, was the first to proclaim a national holiday called Thanksgiving, to the Plymouth Colony pilgrims upon whom the tradition rests. Interestingly, the "Americans" who started thanksgiving day practices (there were many such days, at different times of the year depending on the colony) were actually English settlers who displaced the native Americans. But we observe their traditions on Guam, where the indigenous people struggle to maintain their place in their native land.
Think of other things we accept as "normal," but which are notions and practices unknown to our ancestors but which we have grown up with since 1898.
I just find it curious that some reject everything from one outside influence, and live in practice the influences of another outside source, all the while claiming to reject everything external.
De momento, entre muchos nacionalistas chamorros, es muy de moda rechazar todo lo español que se encuentra en la cultura e idioma de las Marianas, mientras ellos mismos creen en ideas y guardan costumbres norteamericanas. Muy curioso para mí.
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