The march remembered

It was great to see everyone gathered for the anniversary of the memorable Unity March. There are six events that stand out in NMI history: Magellan’s stop here, Operation Forager, the Enola Gay leaving with Fat Man, President Ford’s signing the Covenant, the Unity March, and President Bush signing S.2739 into law. I would like to congratulate everyone who participated in the Unity March, as your support helped accomplish federalization of NMI labor and immigration.

The new law requires that the status of guest workers be addressed within two years and everyone here knows that. The economics facing guest workers in the interim period leaves many in worse position than last year, and most living with uncertainty. “Federalization: you asked for it, you got it” is someone’s sarcastic quote, but federalization hasn’t started yet. Economics is quite complicated but ours is elementary now. The textile industry has closed and thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in local revenues are lost. Employment opportunities for locals and guest workers have vanished, the NMI can’t pay thousands of government salaries without textile revenues, and Saipan’s population will drop, perhaps in half, and is already dropping rapidly. Some Unity March organizers are no longer among us. Our tiny island can’t support thousands of guest workers like it once did. Our economy can’t survive with residents remitting salaries abroad either.

Improving the legal working status that allows guest workers to change employers and the freedom to relocate for employment is vital to our economy, now more than ever. This has been the only solution from the onset of this movement. If the U.S. does this, numerous workers will vacate the starving NMI for prospects in the U.S., the remaining jobs here will be de facto protected for indigenous residents. This may retain some of our local youth, which are presently leaving en masse. Improving the status of guest workers is the only appropriate solution for all residents of the NMI.

The U.S. preliminary regulations will enforce S.2739 with modest input from our residents. The U.S. apparently heard indigenous islanders’ concern with losing identify and culture on an island with increasing Chinese influence. We can rest assured that losing a visa waiver program with China and Russia will wipe any influence of those nations away. That loss may also bankrupt our struggling hotels and other businesses related to the increasingly competitive tourism industry. Mired in such doubt, we can be certain of one thing, that a lack of unity here is hurting us all.

There is no such thing as status quo; the world keeps moving whether or not we do. Federalization never promised us anything but an unyielding hope for a level playing field and respite from a broken system plagued with corruption, ineptitude, nepotism, and injustice. I have, and I encourage you, to write U.S. congresspersons with our unyielding hope that the United States, including the departments of Homeland Security and Interior will draw the same conclusions and put final resolution to this matter.