Led by the Saipan and Northern Islands Municipal Council, hundreds attended a service yesterday at the American Memorial Park to honor the indigenous Chamorros and Carolinians who perished during World War II.<\/p>\n
According to council chair Luis John \u201cL.J.\u201d Castro, the ceremony is unique to the relatives of the Chamorros and Carolinians who died during the war. \u201cIt was all about gathering everybody together,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The municipal council has been holding the memorial service for four years now.<\/p>\n
The ceremony was first started in Guam and was introduced to the Marianas by the 12th municipal council four years ago. <\/p>\n
The difference between the ceremonies held in Guam and the one held on Saipan is that the Guam ceremony is held to coincide with that island\u2019s Liberation Day festivities; the ceremony on Saipan coincides with All Souls\u2019 Day. <\/p>\n
According to Castro, they purposely hold the ceremony to coincide with All Souls\u2019 Day because of the practice of the indigenous people to honor those who passed before them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are a people that, no matter what, we have to honor the people who come before us,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
According to him, over 930 individuals were honored yesterday, not including those whose names were lost in the war. <\/p>\n
This year, the program included parts that were never done before like the recitation of the names of each individual who were honored. <\/p>\n
Castro said that he is grateful to both the community and the government agencies that supported the tribute like the Governor\u2019s Office, Women\u2019s Affairs Office, the Indigenous and Carolinian Affairs offices, and the Veterans Affairs Office. <\/p>\n
According to Castro, the ceremony was very emotional. \u201cIt was beautiful, having all the leaders of every walk of the government, people who survived the war, and people who grew up hearing stories of the wars there,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Castro said the event has only grown bigger since it was first started by the 12th municipal council. \u201cPeople are becoming more aware\u2026they\u2019re catching on,\u201d said Castro. \u201cWe hope that every year, it grows to be of importance to the community.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Led by the Saipan and Northern Islands Municipal Council, hundreds attended a service yesterday at…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[46,51,67,10038],"class_list":["post-263786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-ceremony","tag-guam","tag-people","tag-veterans-affairs-office"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263786\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}