Prutehi Litekyan supports Robert Underwood for Congress
How we pick leaders is essential to the survival of our culture. We need leaders who strongly understand and support the protection of our sacred land, environment and cultural identity. Based on survey responses and participation in our outreach events and rallies, Dr. Underwood has demonstrated an understanding of such issues.
In Sept. 2017, Dr. Underwood attended our Tritons for Litekyan rally hosted by PLSR student members and signed our petition. He has also attended protests calling for the protection of our sacred spaces. Moreover, PLSR supports CHamoru self-determination as a remedy to right historical wrongs that have largely contributed to injustices we face today including a firing range complex over sacred, native land. Underwood would champion CHamoru self-determination as our congressional delegate. Moving forward, we will hold Dr. Underwood to his statements and anticipate working with him as our congressional representative.
While our organization has worked with Sen. Wil Castro in the past, we were disappointed by his decision to vote against Resolution 164-35, introduced by Sen. Therese Terlaje last year, to pause the clearing, pre-construction, data recovery, and construction activities for the firing range to re-evaluate impacts to cultural resources. In our survey, Sen. Castro expressed support for food sovereignty and sustainability, but failed to answer the last three questions.
Congressman Michael San Nicolas has historically been unsupportive of local efforts to preserve cultural and environmental resources. In 2017, despite the consistent and resounding community outcry, Senator San Nicolas voted against Resolution 228-34 calling for a pause on the construction of the firing range complex to re-evaluate impacts to cultural sites and the environment. Months later, he introduced his own legislation, Resolution 294-34, affirming his support for projects that would desecrate and clear cultural sites and burial grounds. In 2017, he was the only senator who voted against Resolution 103-34, which sought to halt underwater detonations and other destructive training exercises on our land and in our waters. It is troubling that San Nicolas has shown no concern about the irreparable harm to our environment, culture and the health of our community on Guam and our sister islands. Our culture and environment have not been and will not be safe under his leadership.
Prutehi Litekyan would also like to express disappointment at Congressman San Nicolas' history of deleting comments and blocking constituents who share dissenting opinions on his social media pages. Excluding people from an otherwise public forum such as Facebook by blocking those who express views critical of a public official is concluded as unconstitutional under federal law. Facebook is not just an official channel of communication for San Nicolas. It is his main channel for communicating with constituents. The First Amendment bars the congressman from blocking users from his account simply because he dislikes or disagrees with their comments.
In July 2019, San Nicolas suggested he would not support preservation efforts and attempted to intimidate Prutehi Litekyan when he hastily responded to our organization's Instagram post, in which we cited his history of legislative actions that support the firing range complex . In the post, we encouraged him to read economic and environmental studies that conflict with his stance on the issue. In response to our critique, he wrote, "If you think you are going to be successful in protecting the island by attacking me, then good luck with that." San Nicolas considers our constructive post with valid concerns and recommendations as an "attack." Instead of acknowledging and rising to the call to understand public findings that are counter to his position on the firing range complex, he made it clear that any criticism will ensure preservation will not be prioritized during his term. San Nicolas continued to condemn our organization for hours on our post and in a KUAM post. We expect more from our congressional representative.
Our nenis.
Our love for isla-ta.
Our future generations.
Our heritage.
Our drinking water.
Our ancestors.
They give us the heart and vision to keep going, to keep planting seeds, to keep rising. With the support of the community, our collective voices make waves.
Every call,
every email,
every vote,
you are creating waves of change.
#Underwood2020
Kon Respetu,
Prutehi Litekyan: Save Ritidian