What it means to be local

Editor’s Note: The following is the text of the speech that won Mount Carmel student James Ryan Benavente the AG’s Cup in this year’s edition of the competition. The speech tournament was held on Rota on May 5, 2006, and is the fifth year in a row that Mount Carmel School has won the competition. There were seven high schools that competed.

* * * *

Guahu si James Ryan Benavente.

Yan Chamorru yu.

Some people tell me that my culture is dying.

You know what I tell them? Ahe. No way.

Today’s questions point to a very real fear among our people. Questions about immigration and refugees are really secondary to the most important question asked today:

What does it mean to be a local? This one simple question captures all our fears and all our anxieties about who we are as a people. It forces us to ask what we don’t want to ask:

Is our culture dying?

My answer? No.

Our culture is stronger than the tides of immigration, stronger than the tides of change, and stronger than the tides of time. It will live so long as we give it life. It will live so long as we keep its spirit alive.

With that in mind, let us begin with the first question:

Over time, immigrants have become a majority of the islands’ population.

According to the Department of Commerce, in 1980, our population was about 17,000, and over 10,000, or 60 percent, of those people were born here. Twenty years later, in 2000, the population grew to almost 70,000, with only about 25,000, or 36 percent, born here.

We went from being a majority to being a minority in our own islands.

That scares a lot of people, including me. It’s no surprise that we are debating immigration today.

Should we develop a comprehensive immigration policy with regards to different nations or skill sets among immigrants?

The answer is a simple, but firm, no.

We cannot and should not discriminate on the basis of nationality. To develop an immigration policy that favors some nations over others borders on racism.

In the CNMI, we have opened our immigration doors to many cultures and many peoples from all around the world. Our islands are more diverse than most places in the United States. Even U.S. congressmen are trying to replicate our guest worker program.

Why, then, would we want to change that?

We cannot ignore what immigrants have done for our Commonwealth.

California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, an immigrant himself, noted recently in the Los Angeles Times:

“As a river gains strength and momentum from joining waters, so America is blessed and enriched by new people and new energy.”

Many, though, say that our immigration system is full of abuse and corruption. But the problem is not our immigration system. It’s our labor system.

Listen to these recent headlines:

March 19: 21 abandoned workers troop to Labor

March 24: Underaged strippers taken from nightclub

April 28: 55 illegal workers arrested

And the recent front cover of Ms. Magazine: Sex, Greed, and Forced Abortions in “Paradise.”

These are all serious cases that must be dealt with. But these are cases of labor abuse, not immigration abuse. Unlike the U.S. Southwest, we don’t have millions, thousands, or even hundreds of illegal immigrants. Unlike the U.S. Immigration System, the CNMI’s LIDDS system successfully tracks and monitors all our immigrants. And unlike some weak points of entry into the U.S., terrorists have not made their war through our islands.

The issue is not who we bring in, but how we treat them once they’re here.

But we do not need new laws, policies, or regulations. The key is to enforce the ones already on the books.

Washington Representative Pete A. Tenorio, stated in his recent address: “Diligent and consistent enforcement of our laws is our best weapon in defending ourselves against the negative effects of bad press and scandals.”

Immigration reform is not the answer.

Law enforcement is.

The next question posed today asks how we should deal with refugees.

I believe that we should welcome refugees.

Refugees seek freedom from violence or persecution, a freedom that all of us, here in the U.S., enjoy. It is thus our responsibility to help others gain that same freedom.

Pope Benedict the XVI recently spoke about our responsibility to refugees: “The Church sees this entire world of suffering and violence through the eyes of Jesus…Hope, courage, love and…charity must inspire [us] to help these brothers and sisters in their suffering.”

Make no mistake: We have a moral obligation to help refugees.

Furthermore, helping refugees also help us.

Here are some famous refugees who have helped humanity:

* His Holiness, the Dalai Lama;

* Former U.S. Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and Madeline Albright

* writer Victor Hugo

* Albert Einstein

* Muhammad

* Moses

* Even Jesus himself was a refugee whose family fled from King

Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents.

Who would refuse the Dalai Lama entrance into our borders?

Who would refuse Einstein?

Who would refuse Jesus?

Refugees bring their talent, their skills, and their initiative to host countries. We can only benefit from that.

And let us not forget: We, Chamorros and Carolinians, were once refugees ourselves, fleeing from islands devastated by typhoons in the 19th century, and fleeing to Guam during World War II.

It would be hypocritical for us, as descendents of refugees, to deny other refugees.

We must welcome refugees into our islands. And when we do, we must go beyond our minimum obligations and help them become a productive part of the CNMI.

They say: Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.

It’s not enough to take in refugees as welfare recipients. We must do more than that. We must help them stand on their own feet.

This brings us to our last question: What does it mean to be a local?

There is a legal answer to this question, and a genetic one, and even one based on family. But, to me, you cannot define a local by law or by blood or by family. It’s so much more than that.

It is a…spirit.

A spirit that lived in one of our local brothers. Army Sgt. Yihjyh “Eddie” Lang Chen passed away in combat over two years ago. Eddie’s family was not Chamorro or Carolinian. They were from Taiwan. If you’re measuring how local someone is by law, blood, or family, Eddie is in no way, shape, or form a local.

But does that mean that he is not a local?

Eddie became a son of the CNMI when he graduated from its schools. He became its brother when he became an officer, a protector, of the CNMI. And when Eddie enlisted in the U.S. Army, he laid his life on the line not only for his country, but for his home islands.

This makes Sgt. “Eddie” Chen one thing above all: a local. Who here would deny him that right?

Kicking out immigrants and denying refugees will not save our culture. When we live by our cultural values, speak our indigenous languages, and love our islands, then we will save our culture. For, we must not preserve our culture in things as fleeting as law, blood, or family. Rather, we must perpetuate our culture by embracing its spirit.

Eddie Chen is no longer with us. But his spirit remains. It is the spirit of our Chamorro and Carolinian cultures. He lived for it. And he died for it.

Now, it is up to us, the living, to keep that spirit alive.