Taotao tano, Taotao tasi. Refaluwasch, Remetau.

It is Labor Day. Barack Obama in his acceptance speech at the Democratic Party National Convention in Denver promised inter alia to create “an economy that honors the dignity of work.” To that economy, he added, “Now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, because it will take nothing less to compete in the global economy.”

Two sets of workers were on my eyesight this week. Medical care providers were looking at my retina, and after I got all the services I needed, I chatted with the staff about how they were going to spend Labor Day. “The workers of the world are urged to consciously celebrate the processes, products, projects and personnel of the workforce,” the ex-workforce development trainer in me pedantically said.

“Not in the CNMI,” I was told. “We are working Monday.”

The other set of workers are my fellow teachers. Many have been frantically preparing their classrooms and materials for the opening of the school year, (toners for my printer had already cost me a hefty and non-refundable $70+) with a few still smarting from the drastic reduction of pay that hit non-passers of the PRAXIS exams which PSS uses to determine weather one is a Highly Qualified Teacher (HQT).

This Thursday, in between the two-day Professional Development sessions, the Association of Commonwealth Teachers (ACT) general membership meeting at 7pm in San Vicente School will include a presentation of findings by some teachers this summer about the correlation between HQT and being a highly effective teacher (HET). Information will also be shared on PSS’ use of the PRAXIS to avert threats on possible funding cutoffs had “compliance” been deferred.

This article begins a series of daily articles this week. I begin where we are, with Taotao tano, “people of the land,” often used to describe the local indigenous culture. As noted in the Chamorro-Carolinian Heritage, Language and Culture curriculum in the public schools, there is a deep cleavage between the two main parts of Chamolinia that is more than just the difference in orthography.

Taotao tasi, the people of the waters is the complement of the people of the land, more pronounced in Line Islands-originating residents where Refaluwasch designates the people of the highlands and the Remetau are the people of the lagoon or the shores.

In ancient Greece, the Mycenaeans were essentially inland people from Peloponnesus whose disciplined, defensive and warlike practices would later be appropriated and made famous by the Spartans. In contrast, the Minoans in the Aegean Sea were sea-faring people whose urban centers were receptive of the open seas, and whose traditions of commerce and trade were the currency of inter-settlement exchanges rather than the threat of force and other coercive measures. Athens would exemplify a diversity that would be a contrast to the homogeneity favored by Sparta.

The arts, philosophy, and governance of Athens would permeate the cultures of the world particularly those influenced by Alexander the Great. Pax Romana will create both the Roman Empire and the Roman Catholic Church, and the dichotomy will become Tolstoi’s title in one of his masterpieces, War and Peace. It also defines the workings of the U.S. government in the Department of Defense and the Department of State.

The archetypes are not foreign to many cultures. The impact of the environment on the way people live (culture) is discernable in the contrasts often made between the Ilocanos of Northern Luzon and the Cebuanos of the Visayan Seas in the Philippines.

Ilocanos live through a five-month pronounced dry season followed by a drenching five-month monsoon season, leaving two months of fair weather in a land that has inhospitable terrain and unfriendly climate. The food set on the table is at the mercy of the land and clime. Subjugating the land and preparing for inclement weather becomes the requisite survival skill.

In contrast, the Cebuano is blessed with a pleasant year-round climate and an abundantly supplied inland sea. The Cebuano is thus depicted as nonchalant about daily life; perennial fruit trees abound and a casting of a net on the shore can easily provide daily sustenance to one’s dining table. The people are fanciful and imaginative, given to polishing their ways in leisure time and merry-making with elaborate songs and dances at fiestas and communal celebrations. Thus, we hear of the stereo-typed Bisaya entertainer.

Any case of imposing solid dichotomies on any culture, of course, suffers from the fact that exceptions are often more prominent than the rule. To strictly contrast taotao tanos and remetaus would invite fierce contradictions. Yet, in the land ownership pattern in Saipan, the taotao tanos as farmers favored the inland plots while the refaluwasch/remetau settled on the lagoon shores, the latter looking not so much in fructifying the land as they were in navigating the superhighway of the trench, the metawaal wool.

The inland folks developed the structures of the safe harbor, and favored the comfort of a battened-down home before the incoming storm. The seafarers either avoided the lashing of the monsoons, or learned to ride the swiftness of the winds. One trait found the life of safety and certitude, ease and comfort a goal worth pursuing; another saw adventure and the mystery of the unknown a lifestyle that guided one’s striving. The people of the land tended to go for either/or propositions, and admired firm and definite positions; the sailors of the seas developed patterns of flexibility informed by intuition, and avoided conflict and confrontation.

The aforementioned medical clinic personnel were mostly contract workers, unorganized as a workforce and at the mercy of employers. We have shut down unions as an organizing format for our labor force. We shunned conflict and confrontation in the garment and visitors’ industries, as well as in the ranks of professional groups. Even teachers can’t see beyond their fears into a collective force.

The governor has yet to appoint a teachers’ representative to the Board of Education. Teachers as a captive labor force are at the mercy of a two-year contract cycle that does not allow for stability, hardly fosters loyalty, and inhibits ownership of the system and participation in operational processes. The low regard given to teachers as professionals on the one hand, and as contracted labor on the other, is dismal, to say the least. We are resigned to a high attrition rate in the annual turnover of teachers and personnel.

How do we appropriate the gifts and the limits of the shared indigenous traditions of the Taotao tano and the Taotao tasi, the Refaluwasch and the Remetau, be conscious of them first, then vigorously appropriating and promoting their relevant insights, and curtailing their excesses? Clearly, this is not simply a matter of choosing one over another.
This article will be followed by Economics 101 (island sustenance as if people and the environment mattered), PoliSci for beginners (how to fan the fire under Tina and Ed’s seats without being accused of propping them up for more high profile offices), and CS 1 (Guess who is coming to dinner, II), culminating in an Idiot’s Guide to Humanities (a global tour d’force).

Then, I promise to get back to my 6th grade Social Studies classroom.