The country is growing stranger from the idea of America that made me dream of opportunity as a boy in the 1980s. In a matter of one week, the long road we walked away from an era of gay bashing into one of human dignity and equal rights faces a path to political perdition. For the first time since 1996, I am scared to be what I was born as. For the first time in my life, I am worried that in America, I can one day soon be jailed – or worse – simply for being a man who is wired to be attracted to men.
I wish that were all we had to worry about. In this same week, the federal government has both taken steps to roll back progress on prescription drug price containment, and threatened to cut health coverage access to the poor and the lower middle class. The military has crossed the proverbial Rubicon to round up farmhands, grocery store baggers, and hair stylists to place them on $900,000 flights to countries that won’t even allow the planes to land. That’s how much respect has dropped for America in just one week.
Untold numbers of families will be torn apart, unless the new regime succeeds in undermining the Constitution to deport Americans born in this country. Brown citizens already have been interned, mistook as “illegal” for nothing else than the color of their skin. Churches no longer are treated with sacred reverence.
Efforts to give islanders a greater voice have been vanquished. And now we stare down the barrel of devastating price increases on food, energy, and everything else imported and cuts to cancer and HIV research, therapies, and subsidies all so we can afford tax cuts to the wealthiest 5 percent.
The price of eggs didn’t drop, as promised. Today at Cost U Less, a dozen cost nearly $8.
The war in Ukraine didn’t end, as promised. Putin is celebrating America’s demise.
World governments – including our allies and the Pope himself – are shaking their heads at us; no where near the command of global respect we were promised.
A woman of God respectfully asked the President to be merciful to the marginalized, and she along with the gays, transgenders, and the undocumented she defended have been vilified with hatred and contempt.
Ancient prejudices against women and people of color now glow from the new establishment.
The nation’s government – and those who so vehemently defend and enable it – is systematically fixing to injure the weakest, most vulnerable, and most persecuted among us as fear spreads and arrests millions.
Here in the Marianas, the poorest among us are being persecuted, as the richest and most powerful get away with their corruption.
Never in my 44 years did I imagine that the passages I read in 1988 about Nazi Germany would come alive in America 2025.
Despite this regression, we cannot give up. Where the federal government threatens the hallmarks of our citizenship, we must be willing and active in uplifting our brothers and sisters.
My greatest consolation is that we in Saipan, Tinian, Rota, and Guam are centuries-bound to a culture of inafa maolek and chenchule. For us – no matter what the national government has instructed thousands of miles away – it has always taken a village to overcome our greatest adversities.
To the thousands of you who give money and food to the poor, who are generous and Christ-like to the undocumented, who lift up and not put down our Chuukese and Carolinian brothers and sisters and the minorities of the nation, who refuse to give resources that are not yours or to take from the public what wasn’t someone else’s to give: THANK YOU. You are better citizens than the leaders we elect and the government that has gone wild. Your reward is not in this life, but in the eternal halls of God, who has commanded such mercy and justice.
God bless us all.
4 Comments
Captain Morgan
01/27/2025 at 3:18 AM
Please get updated information on deportations from the Whitehouse website (press releases) or from the U.S. State Department. Contrary to your claims, Mexico has accepted U.S. ICE flights, and they are also allowing buses full of deported illegals to cross from the U.S. into Mexico to be processed. Mexico has just mobilized 30K National Guard to assist. Mexico has also agreed to reinstate the original Trump “Remain in Mexico” policy. Something for you to ponder is that if a foreign citizen entered the U.S. legally by following the law, then he or she wouldn’t have to worry about being deported? Please provide evidence that the military is participating in roundups of farmhands, grocery baggers and hairstylists? That is being done by ICE and other enforcement agencies, not the military. The military is at the border for security and is assisting with logistics, they are not out arresting farmhands, grocery baggers and hairstylists.
Please tell me you are not so naive that you could not distinguish between a somewhat exaggerated election year campaign promise to stop the Ukraine war immediately? Most everyone knew that it was a figure of speech used to point out the urgency. Trump is known for his over the top rhetoric, but he also is known for “promises made, promises kept”. Just curious, did you by any chance bother conveying your disappointment on how long the Ukraine war was dragging on to Joe Biden when he was still in office? That’s what I thought.
The rest of your commentary seems to be hyperbole and a tad bit theatrical too? You seem to have forgotten that none of what you are claiming happened during Trump’s first term in office? No one is going to persecute gays, but I think whatever backlash “on paper” (policy changes) that is currently taking place was brought on by the gay community itself. Whatever your preference is, that’s up to you and your business – NO ONE CARES. However, that doesn’t give any “special group” carte blanche or the right to expect that everyone should follow along and allow a certain ideology to target other peoples children (the transgender issue specifically).
What really befuddles me is that Trump has only been in office just over a week and you are complaining about egg prices? I guess you haven’t read anything about the current avian flu virus that is decimating commercial egg laying farms in the U.S. and many other countries as well? You also fail to mention that the current state of affairs the United States finds itself in was brought on by four miserable years of the last administrations incompetence. The majority of U.S. voters decided they didn’t want it, and that is how democracy works, or is it now your side that should be considered the threat to our democracy because Scamala Harris lost?
Trump won the election, so those who are disappointed need to get over it and move on. Maybe find something closer to home to worry about? There are plenty of issues in the CNMI and Guam that require the clutching of pearls on a daily basis (understatement).
papalatung
01/29/2025 at 12:02 AM
Buenas Captain Morgan,
A lie is a lie no matter how you dice it or slice. Did you get over it last election when President Biden won the election? Over the years growing up in the mainland United States, we encountered discrimination for being South of the border look alike. The United States of America is so divided this day and age, and law-abiding citizens are arming themselves to the teeth for the day when unrest is the main agenda within our republic.
Our livelihood and our constitutional rights had been hampered due to the anti-migration attitude that you harness. I learned that elected officials throughout our island chain would one day fade away from the public. Time is the answer to all of our social problems.
Si Yu’us Ma’ase.
Joe
01/27/2025 at 11:29 PM
I don’t know about the after life reward but it’s unconscionable to learned or witnessed what’s happening to those who walked a thousand miles hoping for a future only to be dragged from their home to be deported. It’s just cruel and mind-boggling. May those behind all these cruelties will be rewarded by the almighty or the devil himself!
Salami Lick Em
01/28/2025 at 11:33 PM
Re; Joe
You seem naive. The people being currently being deported out of the United States are known criminals and have been involved in illicit activity on U.S. soil. These are targeted raids taking place, not some heartless campaign to get rid of widows and orphans (contrary to the Trump hating liberal leftist media). Are you even paying attention to the details of who is being captured and why? If you want to support illegals (bible or no bible), then I suggest you take a few of these ILLEGALS in, feed them, support them, and adopt them for life – don’t expect other taxpayers to do it for you. Maybe adopt a few illegal Chinese overstayers that have been dealing drugs and ruining lives in the CNMI? Keep us updated and let us know how that all works out for you?
Come into the country legally (follow the laws that are on the books) and there would be no need for deportations? Funny how in this entire argument, no one, and I mean NO ONE bothers to mention how other countries deal with illegal immigrants? Try pulling this type of bullcrap in those same countries where these illegals come from and see what happens? The U.S. is not obligated to be the world’s dumping ground for third world rejects. Did you ever notice how the same people who are protesting against deportations usually are flying Mexican flags or yelling some foreign b.s. slogans? Why is that? If you love your country so much – GO BACK and fix it, fight for it, or make it great again. Quit disrespecting immigration laws or get out. It’s quite simple.