No idea where’s Saipan

A resident from here was driving through San Francisco recently when he happened upon students demonstrating in front of the Banana Republic store. He saw signs being hoisted with the words “Stop the Saipan Scam”. He got downto find out what’s happening. He found out two things:

• Student demonstrators have no idea or sense of history where Saipan is located or what it is all about under the US Flag.

• They admitted being paid by someone (textile labor unions perhaps?) to demonstrate while out of class.

If anything, the demonstrations are being bankrolled by some moneyed labor unions to taint the reputation of the NMI across the country. Many of these demonstrations are riddled with false information about slave labor and human rights abuses in the islands. It’s a powerful way of saving a rather complacent apparel industry in California at our expense or livelihood.

What the textile labor unions, in concert with ignorant student demonstrators never tried to find out is the fact that Chamorros and Carolinians, the indigenous people of these isles, are, by their very religious tradition, don’t tolerate any form of slavery or egregious abuses on human beings, indigenous or otherwise. Our religious tradition or way of life simply doesn’t allow for abuses given the years of training via catechism which ingrained in our mind that “people are people” no matter their pigmentation or ethnicity.

The seeming “dog eat dog” forte of textile labor unions is far from our view of the real workings of the principle of American Democracy. While powerful nations test their latest advances in destructive nuclear warheads, ours in this laboratory of democracy is to protect our fragile economic foundation of a resource-poor island archipelago. We feel wounded at all the bashing that has its genesis in the US Department of Interior’s OIA to consistently lord over our livelihood completely neglecting our rights to self-government.

We hope that the blind and ignorant students would buckle down to research (as students going through academia must do while in college) what their fellow US Citizens are all about: our dreams and aspirations, our essence as a people, our sacrifices during and after World War II and all that we’ve given up to be a part of a greater country. It is our firm belief that all the bashing of these islands as though it is a foreign country is far from our collective belief of “America the Beautiful”.

Finally, we hope that student demonstrators would use their energy and talents to bring the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands into the greater American Economic Community. If you will, “Stop the Unjustified Saipan Bashing!” This should be the battle cry of young minds across the country in our collective efforts to eradicate injustices against minorities. God Bless America!
Strictly a personal view. John S. DelRosario Jr. is publisher of Saipan Tribune