Angelo Villagomez

Members of the People of Color Employee Resource Group in 2019. I wrote this blog when I worked for a large conservation organization in Washington, DC and posted it on my LinkedIn in 2021 , about six months before I resigned and changed jobs.  I helped bring together what is now a people of color employee resource group towards the end of 2018 during a time that my employer was beginning to look into issues of diversity and inclusion in the workplace.  My former employer hired an outside consultant to conduct an audit of JEDI issues in the workplace, and during that time I was invited to participate in a focus group comprised of people of color who worked there.  The emails for all of the participants were in the calendar invite, and three staff took it upon themselves to organize an affinity group, starting with the 20 or so focus group participants, but open to all staff who were interested.  Two and a half years into the experience of organizing this affinity gro...

Some of the Indigenous scientists from Saipan and Guam on a zoom call to discuss MPAs and OECMs in the Mariana Islands Dr. Steven Mana‘oakamai Johnson and I published a peer reviewed paper this summer, "Assessing the quantity and quality of marine protected areas in the Mariana Islands."  We later published this op-ed in the Pacific Daily News to communicate our findings to the communities back home.  This was the first paper I've done with Dr.  Mana‘oakamai Johnson.  We're both from Saipan, and Steve's grandfather Herb Soll gave my late father, Ramon Garrido Villagomez, his first job working for the Public Defender's office in Saipan.  Our families have worked together for three generations now, and I think that is pretty cool. The waters surrounding the Mariana Islands have some of the highest levels of biodiversity in the United States. We are surrounded by migrating whales and turtles, coral reefs and hundreds of species of fish, some found nowhere el...

First paragraph of DM Villagomez's book on Chamorro culture during the Spanish occupation of Guam. In 1977, my mother, DM Villagomez, traveled to Guam and was the first person to translate Spanish documents held by the Micronesia Area Research Center (MARC) at the University of Guam into English.  The documents had been collected in Spain the previous year by MARC staff, but were, according to Mom, "sitting, unused, in the stacks, for want of someone with a knowledge of Spanish to read it." She worked with Dr. Paul Carano and Sister Felicia Plaza to identify the documents she needed and wrote a book on Chamorro history and culture during the Spanish occupation of Guam (I'm pretty sure I have the only surviving copy). Mom's book included the first English translation of a speech given by Chief Hurao in 1670, a famous Chamorro leader.  Other scholars have published subsequent translations , but not a lot of people have seen the first one.  Here it is: It would have ...

Senator Carlotta Leon Guerrero from Guam penned this essay in May 2019. I'm sharing it here in the hopes that it inspire you, the way that it inspired me.  This piece was first published by Grist . More than a dozen Pacific countries have created ocean sanctuaries that help marine species -- and coastal communities -- survive. Last week, a global scientific assessment found the business-as-usual approach to conservation is not delivering the critical action needed to safeguard the future health of our planet. Over the last 30 years, a growing global population has doubled the demand on our planet’s resources, according to the report, which was released by the United Nations, and nature just can’t keep up: As many as 1 million species are threatened with extinction in the coming decades. This is a threat well understood by the people of my island, the small Pacific territory of Guam. In the last few decades alone, development and invasives have led to the extinction of the Gu...

I published this essay on The Saipan Blog in 2018 when President Donald J. Trump was considering downsizing, eliminating, or opening monuments to fishing, mining, and grazing.  It's a bit out of date for the issues we face in 2022, but I touch on issues of colonization and some of the cultural connections between Micronesians and Polynesians, and how geography plays a role. The Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument promotes biological and cultural connectivity between Micronesia and Polynesia The Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument is a marine protected area comprised of five large expanses of ocean surrounding seven mostly uninhabited American territories in the Pacific. The combined area, which is nearly twice the size of Texas, spans over 1.3 million sq km (490,000 sq mi) and prohibits all commercial fishing and deep sea mining, while allowing for sustainable recreational and noncommercial fishing. Wake Atoll, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Palmyr...

 Representative Sheila Babauta from Saipan penned this essay before she attended Climate COP26 in September 2021.  I'm sharing it here in the hopes that it inspire you, the way that it inspired me. “RAISE awareness, gather allies, and unify your voice.” President Barack Obama pointed me in that direction when I asked him a question about the military presence in the Pacific islands. Our brief exchange occurred in 2019. I stood among an audience of global leaders, he responded from the stage at the convening of the Obama Leaders: Asia Pacific cohort in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. For the past two years, I have been moving in that direction, taking his advice to heart, and it has brought me to Glasgow, Scotland for the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference or COP26. Raise awareness . I was born and raised in a small village on an island called Saipan, next to the Marianas Trench. For over 500 years, my home, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and my ...

Ancient drawings on caves on Rota show the ancient link between the Chamorro people and the ocean. This letter was submitted during the public comment period for the five year review of the proposed national marine sanctuary in the Mariana Islands.  Scientists from around the world commented to bring attention to the scientific merit for the accepting the nomination. Kristina Kekuewa Pacific Islands Regional Director NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries 1845 Wasp Blvd. Honolulu, Hawaii 96818 Dear Regional Director Kekuewa, We are scientists who write to you in support of accepting the nomination of the proposed national marine sanctuary in the Northern Mariana Islands.   We were invited to sign this letter by Indigenous scientists from the Mariana Islands.   The nomination package that was submitted by the Friends of the Mariana Trench builds a strong case that this region of the United States meets or exceeds the 11 sanctuary nomination process criteria used in...