Principal Investigators
Dr. Ngoc T. PhanDr. Ngoc Phan ([email protected]) is an Assistant Professor at Hawaii Pacific University. She is Vietnamese American and currently living as a settler in Hawaii. She is committed to amplifying the voices of indigenous and aboriginal communities and works to utilize data to combat settler colonialism. She was the principal and founder of the 2019 Native Hawaiian Survey (www.nhsurvey.org/) with over 1000 Hawaiian respondents. She was born in Oakland, CA to Vietnamese refugees and is a first generation scholar. She attended the University of Arizona for undergraduate and earned her Ph.D. from Rice University. |
Kevin Lujan Lee (familian Capili, taotao Barrigada)Kevin Lujan Lee ([email protected]) is a PhD candidate in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is CHamoru, born and raised in diaspora in Malaysia. For nearly the past decade, he has been active in the immigrant rights and labor movements in the continental United States as a community organizer, policy advocate and researcher. His work is grounded in the CHamoru principle of inafa'maolek, which for him entails alignment with social movements to redress racial injustice and Indigenous dispossession. He holds a B.A. in Philosophy and Study of Religion from the University of California - Los Angeles, and an interdisciplinary M.A. from the University of Chicago.
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Meet Our Research Team
Nikki Aubree
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Aria PalaganasResearch AssistantAria C. Palaganas is a Business Administration major with a minor in Political Science at the University of Guam. She is a Filipina, born and raised on Guam but stands in solidarity as an ally to the Indigenous people of the island. She has had the opportunity to be actively engaged throughout the community and has grown a passion for volunteerism, public policy and government and wishes to carry her gained experiences to her future career in the field of law. |
Chauntae QuichochoResearch Assistant
Chauntae Quichocho is a young CHamoru woman who is enrolled at the University of Guam. She is pursuing a Bachelor's degree in CHamoru Studies for Education in hopes to be a CHamoru teacher one day. She is active in helping the community through various organizations and student-led activities. Her dream is to see future generations being able to speak the CHamoru language while also cultivating and preserving CHamoru traditions and culture. |
Josiah Gabriel MesngonResearch AssistantJosiah Mesngon is a CHamoru resident of the village of Yigo, Guam. He is a recent transfer student to the University of Guam, declaring psychology as his major. Josiah is highly passionate about current events and issues involving the island and is always willing to discuss those topics with others. Because of his primary focus may be on the study of mental health care, he understands that the system that funds and supports healthcare as a whole is in desperate need of help, much like many other parts of the island's aging infrastructure. "Self-governance" he would argue is the first step in solving these problems, and he intends to help in the process of finding out exactly how to get to that step. |
Our team involves researchers at the following insitutions.
The Logo Design
Our logo was designed by Jack Lujan Bevacqua, of The Guam Bus. He describes the logo in these words:
"Of course the shape of the logo is our island home of Guåhan, a special place in the sun, 36 miles of paradise. But our island is often not represented, so it’s important that we showcase it. The pattern in the island is the guåfak or pandanus woven mat. Weaving with pandanus takes special skills and preparation, but the payoff is that the leaves are strong and sturdier than others and will last longer. The different leaves weaving together represent the different voices and people of our island community. The chosen colors represent sand, jungle, sky, and ocean." |
Financial Disclosure
This project is generously supported by the MIT BCAP Fund, the MIT Center for International Studies and MIT Priscilla King Gray Public Service Center. This survey and its findings do not reflect the values or represent the funders. 90% of our research budget is going directly to stipends for our field coordinators, graphic designers and research assistants, all of whom are CHamorus with ancestral roots in Guåhan.
For this research, our team is not formally affiliated with agents of the federal, state, or local government, think tanks, media outlets, or any special interest groups. No federal funds, state, local, or governemnt funds are used to implement this research.
For this research, our team is not formally affiliated with agents of the federal, state, or local government, think tanks, media outlets, or any special interest groups. No federal funds, state, local, or governemnt funds are used to implement this research.