Green Revolution by Johnny Sablan. Independent Sounds. Shannon McaManus, Jon Camacho Glaser and Andrew Gumataotao.
Profile
Håyi Yu.
Who I am
Guåhu si Andrew Paul Mantanona Gumataotao. Mafañågu yu gi iya Guåhan gi i tano’ siha ni mafa’nana’an Låguas yan Gåni [Mariana Islands]. Taotao Hagåtña yu. Kalan i saddok ni malalago, sen tåhdong yan milalak i haga’ i mañaina-hu gi ini na songsong ya ni Ngai'an na hu maleffa i haga’ ni ma chuda ginen i piniten i gera siha. Taotao Talofo’fo’ yu lokkue, eyi i sengsong gi entalo’ i fe’fo’ siha. Manggåfan Chobic, yan Manggåfan Mahetok yu lao mås gi iya Hågatña yan Sinahåña i kinahulo’-hu. (see penultimate Footnote 1 below for translation)Andrew Gumataotao is a CHamoru from the village of Hagåtña in Guåhan (Guam). He is a former East-West Fellow (2018-2020) and MA graduate in Ethnomusicology (2021) from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Prior to graduate school, he was teaching CHamoru language, culture and music in the Guam Public School System. He has taught at Guam’s CHamoru Immersion School, Hurao Academy and received his undergraduate education at the University of Guam in Music and CHamoru Studies (2016).
As a vocalist, Andrew has performed in various venues throughout Guam’s nightclubs, restaurants and bars most notably with CHamoru-jazz pianist Patrick Palomo. He has worked alongside Palomo, Shannon mcmanus, Jonathan Glaser, and sound engineer Ed Ulloa producing two albums to date with the group Tradewinds. Andrew has also worked extensively with nihi indigenous Media, a local non Profit that produces Micronesian indigenous educational content and Media specifically geared towards indigenous youth from various parts of the Micronesian region. A staunch advocate for indigenous rights and CHamoru self-determination, Andrew has testified at the United nations Political and Decolonization Fourth Committee. He has also performed several times for Independent Guåhan’s Na’lå’la’ Songs of Freedom Concert. Andrew has participated in many community-based projects. His most recent project entitled, Tåhdong Marianas is one in which he along with aaron Santos, Lawrence Lizama and Samantha Barnett interweave the stories of musicians and cultural practitioners across the Marianas archipelago. Andrew now works as a PhD researcher at Georg-August Universität Göttingen Germany under a ERC project called SoundKnowledge, Alternative Epistemologies in the Western Pacific Island Worlds. The title of his Doctoral Thesis is Tåhdong Marianas: Archipelagic Listening, Musical Resurgence, and Performing Arts in Låguas yan Gåni. 
photo courtesy of Bobby Clark Art By Veronica Cruz
Tasting The World With Our Mother Tongue
My Dad and his peers were punished in the postwar American school system for speaking CHamoru but still, he and many families spoke CHamoru at home and in the many social pockets around the island. Years of educational suppression resulted in the coming generations of Chamorus losing the ability to sound out their world in a specifically CHamoru way. Being raised in the land of your ancestors and and not knowing how to breathe deeply in your language is a great pain. Yet, I and so many others have found a way to find our mother (tongue) again. I’m not the best speaker but my generation has been stepping up because we need younger Chamorro speakers. I wont give up gathering and sharing what I know whenever I have the chance. I enjoy conversing with my dad and others in Chamorro.
Tåhdong Marianas
Storytelling Across the Marianas
Tinige’-hu siha
Na’låla’ I Taotao Tåno’: Navigating the Performative Terrain of CHamoru Reclamations (2021)
Fieldwork Through Film Making: Tåhdong Marianas, Storytelling Across the Marianas (2023)
my writings
Conferences/Workshops/Forums