When Rosemary Mantanoña emigrated from Guam to San Diego in the late 1990s, she realized something so special to her daily life was missing: a communal space for CHamoru dance and other cultural expressions.
“My life back there was already deeply rooted in preserving and promoting the Indigenous CHamoru culture through songs, dances, chants and weaving,” said Mantanoña, of Encanto. “But when I came here, there wasn’t anything like that, no CHamoru dance groups.”
She set out to change that when establishing more than 20 years ago Guma’ Imahen Taotao Tana, a group dedicated to sharing the CHamoru, also spelled Chamorro, culture in San Diego through performing arts and community events.
The group stands strong today. On Saturday, with the Oceanside shoreline and clear, sunny skies as their backdrop, members performed a traditional dance in front of scores of people who gathered at the Oceanside Pier Amphitheatre for the 13th annual Chamorro Cultural Festival. Several attendees said they had emigrated years ago to the mainland from the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam.
Hosted by the nonprofit CHE’LU San Diego, the event featured several other dance and song performances, arts and crafts, authentic food, weaving workshops, island-made merchandise, CHamoru language lessons, informational booths on health, and other resources. Organizers said the festival aims to help people who have not visited the islands in years reconnect with each other and the culture, as well as offer non-CHamoru people a closer look at traditions.
“There are more CHamorus out here on the mainland than back in the homelands,” said Felix Sablan, a local CHamoru community leader. “So, it’s important to make sure that people can see, feel and connect to their ancestors and the culture because we’re so far away from home.”
One of the most special ways to connect and preserve the culture, he added, is through speaking the ancestral tongue. That’s why the festival featured a language learning workshop taught by CHamoru language scholar Miget Bevacqua. The language is at risk of disappearing, much like other Indigenous languages. In 1917, the U.S. Navy banned CHamoru in Guam and established English as the official language, allowing CHamoru to only be spoken for official interpreting.
“The language has gone within just a few generations from something spoken by nearly all CHamorus to something spoken by fewer than 20% of the people,” Bevacqua said in a 2023 column of the Pacific Daily News.
Kaelene Fejeran, who visited from Washington to attend the festival, sat in on one of his language lessons.
“I came here when I was 7 years old and I was never taught (the language),” she said. “So, this is really special.”
Earlier this month, San Diego city leaders proclaimed March 3 as Guam History and Chamorro Heritage Day as a way to honor their contributions to the region.
Three years ago, the House of Pacific Relations International Cottages in Balboa Park added the House of Chamorros.
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