BIBA GILITA!

Rota is small, but its spirit is anything but. Buenas yan Hafa Adai Marianas, I am Joycelynn Atalig and I am proud to be a Gilita. As our Honorable Mayor Aubry Hocog so eloquently expressed, “The word Gilita is a chamorro slang that translates to ginen Luta, so it refers to people from Rota.” Mayor Hocog highlights the fundamental fact that not all Gilitas are Chamorro, we are a beautiful blend of many, unified in the pride that comes from being from Rota. This past weekend the usually sleepy SongSong Village (Chamorro to English translation: Village Village, a poetic repetition so precious you need to say it twice) was awoken by melodic island music, sweet BBQ smoke so aromatic you’d think it was seasoned, and celebration of traditional rhythm and sound, ancestral artistry and healing, and games and entertainment that breathed life into age-old traditions that have withstood the tests of time. Rota’s Gilita Festival has inspired me to explore just that, what is a Gilita? So I asked around.

“Being a Gilita, Ginen Luta, means everything to me… Rota may be small, but it is the friendliest and most welcoming island I know.” Doriann Lizama, a 17 year old Gilita, highlighted the delicious food, sense of community, and the scenic drive around the island that you can finish in a couple of hours as something she and her family would never get tired of. In another light, Therese Manalang who has been a Chamorro and Carolinian Language Heritage Studies (CCLHS) teacher for 13 years shared her unshakable pride in coming from a small yet rich island like Luta. Contributing that smallness to anything but, Manalang describes this as a feature that sets us apart, “unique in the way we speak, and known from the warmth, humility, and genuine hospitality that lives within us.” Another heart-grown Gilita who originates from our sister island of Guam, but has lived on Rota since 1996, demonstrated that being a Gilita is more than just being born or raised here, but rather an essence of self that has found a connection to a way of life, and in this case it was being a Gilita from Guam. Doralyn Barcinas stated, “Being a Gilita is more than where you come from - it’s about embracing values that the island of Luta still upholds.”

These testaments were only a fraction of the feedback that I got from my fellow Gilitas, a heart warming tribute to a Chamorro slang that has held firm through the rolling tides and has since evolved into an inclusive yet exclusive identity. This has forced me to dig even deeper and reflect on what being a Gilita has meant to me. As a high school history teacher, US and NMI, I try to tell the stories as it was, according to the text. However, my political science mind cannot hide the truth behind the lines and I tend to shock my NMI history students every time I get to the lesson of the history of WWII in the Marianas. June 15th, 1944, The US Marines made landfall on the beaches of Saipan, with memories of a turbulent time evident in the war tanks that still sit in the waters along Beach Road, Saipan. In 24 days Saipan was declared secure. On July 21st, US Marines landed on Guam and by August 10th Guam was declared secured. On the 24th of July, 1944 US Marines landed on Tinian and 9 days later it was declared secured. What about Rota? Well, for a year and 3 months after the US victory of WWII, Rota was left with 5,000 Japanese troops and several hundred Chamorros who were cut off from the outside world. For 13 months Rota became one of the most heavily bombed islands in the Pacific. Until September 1945, fighter planes that needed to abort their mission, unloaded its bombs on Rota. It's because our mountainous greenery and shallow ports didn't support the necessary wartime infrastructure. Let that sink in while I share another story.

3-years ago I wrote my very first column piece on what I called the Gilita Gazette, published in the Guam Daily Post. It was called “I’m a Chamorro and CHamoru: Same-same, but different, nai”. In it I shared an experience I had about being an amateur reporter on Guam who so proudly perpetuated my Rota roots wherever I could, the “reporter from Rota”, my Gilita. One day I was approached by an older Chamorro lady at a public event I was covering and she asked, “Hey doll, are you that reporter from Rota?” I so proudly answered, yes. Then she said, “You know, here on Guam we say ah-TAH-lig”, with the emphasis on the TAH. This was not the first time my last name was mispronounced. I responded, “Oh yes, I know. But, I’m from Rota and we say AH-tah-lig”, hard emphasis on the AH.” She then said, “Doll, you know you live on Guam now, right? You know that you report news on Guam, right? So, you should pronounce your last name the way we pronounce it here.” My mind said, atan båba with a side of sass, but my body said, smile, wave and say thank you. Safe to say that all my reports I gave after that, came with a lot more AH, in the Atalig.

Even our home-grown sound, voices I grew up listening to, my uncles Kevin Atalig and Walter Manglona have sung to the beauty of Rota. Listen to Marianas Tano-ta by Kevin Atalig and Island Rota by Walter Manglona. Come down and experience the Aluf Luta (Chamorro to English translation: Rota Wave) yourself, and tell me what you think.

Its pride, its unity, its resilience, its community, its family almost so literally, and it is being bigger than the smallness many know Rota for. It embodies everything that it means to come from Rota. Regardless of your ethnic, social, economic, religious, or political background, being a Gilita is what connects us, makes us care about the friendliest island in the world, Nature’s Treasure Island, the Jewel of the Marianas, and everyone in it. Like the former Mayor of Rota, Honorable Benjamin T. Manglona once said, “Rota is friendly, Rota is delicious, and Rota is Romantic.” We are Gilita.