Notes from near and distant shores

A cousin in California related how the San Francisco Chronicle had their friends at work refer to them as people who hail from some “slave island” in the Pacific. I patiently explained that Robert Collier, the writer of half-facts needs to have his cranium examined for his ability to scribble down information from an imagined interview.

Collier needs to take a refresher course in US History to compare his convenient use of the term “slavery” against real events on African Americans who were sold and owned by white men then. Slavery was so pervasive that even Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the US Constitution, is believed to have fathered a child from an African American woman who worked as his house maid. What abusive way to turn a maid into a mate.

Now, if Collier still wants to compare notes, he should access the archives of the Associated Press to peruse a series on Child Slavery in modern day America. It’s a documented case of immigrant children numbering more than 290,000 who head to farm fields at dawn while their peers (white kids) march to classrooms to learn lifetime skills. Has our country, Mr. Collier, reconciled its dark chapters on slavery? Now, which side of the Pacific then is the real “Slave Country?” Nothing can be further from the truth! Anyway, thanks for confirming stupidity by demonstrating that one can be one helleva high-breed ostrich.

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There are reasons why I’ve constantly revisited why we must stay focused against a federal takeover of the Northern Marianas. If you recall, the change in custody in 1961 from the Navy to Interior resulted in the termination of a large number of local employees who worked for the Naval Administration and the NTTU–CIA outfit.
We instantly returned from a money economy right back to subsistency.

Those were the days when I walk to school with tab water in my stomach. I know what my academic abilities are as a student. But with hunger, I saw my grades slide progressively from “A” to “F” from first to fourth quarter. There weren’t school lunch programs then. My best meals (if I’m lucky) were limited to coffee, sugar, salt, rice or taro and pork fat or fish given to us by our neighbors. My mom had to sew-up pants from my dead father’s trousers so I can go to school.

It is from this experience that local leadership must draw from to protect what’s left in the economy of these islands. Food stamp coupons isn’t the future of posterity for obvious reasons. Nor being relegated to instant poverty as a result of a federal takeover the dream that we hold for posterity. Whatever happened to our local resolve, pride and dignity to stand up for our rights? Have we lost sight of the more important issues such as our fate as a people situated in the fringe of greater America? Is joblessness and helplessness a part of your quiet agenda? Speak up, now!

I beg of local leadership to buckle down and get to work. Look at the bigger issue–NMI’s economic survival–and start the ball rolling immediately. With 27 legislators, umpteen number of secretaries, consultants, executive directors and business experts, there’s no reason to allow the balance of the local economy to sink permanently in ruination because you’ve failed to protect what’s rightfully ours under the umbrella of the American Economic Community. In short, what local leadership decides today would determine whether we all slide right back into the abyss of economic subsistency.

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In all our sacrifices, we do so to make life better and brighter for our children. Let’s do it on their behalf in order to keep local dignity, pride and hope burning through the years. We owe it to our children as permanent guardians of these beautiful isles. Most definitely, we deserve nothing less as US Citizens!