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1 Petition for Language Substitution Master of Arts in Asia Pacific Studies (MAPS) program Student Name: Desmond Narain Doulatram Date: June 29, 2017 Proposed Language for Asia Pacific Studies language requirement : Marshallese Please respond to the prompts below: 1) Assess your proficiency in this language in the following areas: speaking; listening; reading; and writing.

1. Speaking My speaking ability in Marshallese is pretty advanced as I am at the point where I do not stutter anymore when conveying my thoughts. Given my natural training at home by my grandma, I have been fortunate enough to learn the Marshallese language in its purest form undiluted because my grandma is a traditional expert. Many Marshallese stutter because they cannot conjure thoughts to construct a proper sentence without hesitating and thus sound very amateur. I am glad to admit that I no longer stutter and this was only made possible through the Marshallese learning strategy of Jitdam Kapeel, literally translated skillful inquiry. The word Jitdam itself is broken to two words being Jit and Dam. Jit means to sit and dam means forehead.

Thus, the intimate way to inquire would be to sit down face to face with your forehead facing your mentor which allows words to be taken to heart through a closer physical scenario. This formal training at home with my grandma has allowed me to master speaking in the Marshallese tongue without hesitating in thought to think of the right words to deliver or convey my point.

Home is where the heart is and my family is my home. Because my grandma is my family and a huge burden has been placed on her, I had to master speaking the language by carefully learning it from her.

2. Listening My listening ability is pretty advanced and it would qualify as fourth semester proficiency or above. My adoptive mother who only spoke Marshallese taught me a lot and because she only spoke Marshallese, I had to communicate with her entirely in Marshallese which required me to listen constantly. One of the ways of learning in Marshallese, as mentioned above, is called “Jitdam Kapeel,” literally translated skillful inquiry. Researching my grandma’s story, and the chiefly genealogies that comprise the Marshallese vocabulary and cosmology, required me to skillfully inquire by lending an attentive listening ear. I doubt I would have gotten this far in my research of the Marshallese royal families had I not listened to my well versed speaking Marshallese grandmother. It really was me listening to my grandmother’s history and expertise that allowed me and equipped me to dissect an incorrect textbook pushed by the Marshallese Ministry of Education. I must have done something right in listening to my grandmother because I was able to help initiate legislation to correct that incorrect textbook by

2 properly conveying what she told me to the proper traditional and parliamentary leaders. In the Marshallese culture, the elders are the history books and most often, the younger ones such as myself are left to listen constantly without even uttering a peep. Although I merely carried forth my grandmother’s will by listening to her carefully, listening was crucial to help convey her expertise to the proper officials so as to rectify what could have been detrimental to a huge population of youths, who are ill-informed of the Marshallese cultural heritage. This is where I will confess that my listening is advanced for it was shown in action and it produced concrete results.

3. Reading My reading is pretty solid. I read the Marshallese Bible constantly and have delivered written Marshallese history to the staff of the Marshall Islands’ Historic Preservation Office in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, its Director included. Often times, I read super fast that people believe me to be chanting which is an advanced form of Marshallese speaking where encoded Marshallese texts is sped through an enchanted verbal delivery. Chanting is a skill only possessed by the most advanced of Marshallese speakers. Although our written text has never been standardized and has thus caused hesitation in reading for various Marshallese speakers, who are familiar with certain Biblical spellings, I am proud to admit that I am at the point where this is not an issue anymore as I can read fluently. I have also had to read speeches out loud in front of a high school audience when I delivered a speech as a special guest to the Assumption High School graduates in Majuro, Marshall Islands.

4. Writing Marshallese writing was never standardized until recently and even the greatest Marshallese speakers wrote differently in spelling for Marshall Islands has always been an oral society. This explains why there are not that many written historical texts in the vernacular aside from the Bible. However, my writing is advanced because it literally flows with the voice of a chant. It is something I had to master skillfully by inquiring the depths of the Marshallese vocabulary and proper enunciations that came with my tutelage from my grandmother. It is rare that a young man like me was able to master Marshallese eloquence and be capable of capturing its sound in writing, given that the Marshallese language is slowly dying off with my generation. This is a skill I am proud to admit that I was able to master by observing the tone of my grandma’s speech patterns as well as observing the most comprehensively written anthropology composed by the late first President who happens to be my grandfather.

2) Please explain how this language is relevant to the field of Asia Pacific Studies.

3) Summarize and evaluate the importance of this language to you on academic, professional, and personal levels.

1. Academic 2. Professional 3. Personal Questions 2&3 I understand that the Asia Pacific program here in USF focuses on humanitarian and

3 globalized perspectives. I don't know if this is known but Marshallese are at a point where they do not even know whether there will be a Marshall Islands in the next fifty years. My back yard always gets covered with water half way due to sea level rise and it is only a matter of time before it starts reaching my backdoor and into my house. The Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner has indicated that “climate change impacts severely limits the range of human rights by people throughout the world, including the rights to life, water and sanitation, food, health, housing, self-determination, culture and development.� As a Pacific Islander of Marshallese descent, climate change poses the greatest threat to my existence, as an indigenous Marshallese, given my natural ties to the land that my indigenous identity calls home. My home that constitutes my history, identity and existence could very well be gone in the next couple of years. I wanted to focus on the Marshallese language to help me with my research and writing because Marshall Islands has always been an oral society with mystical attachments to their land.

Thus, publications that preserve our language are rare and even for me, I tend to write in English.

With the looming threat of climate change, I believe it is a humanitarian role and a moral imperative for Indigenous Pacific Islanders, such as myself, to preserve knowledge systems that are at risk of being forgotten, and with climate change, could very well be permanently lost. It does not help that President Trump has already scaled America backwards in addressing climate change despite the Catholic Pope's endorsement. This makes it a moral imperative for people like me to preserve what needs to be safe guarded for future generations to benefit as indigenous rights are human rights. It is equally unfortunate that the younger Marshallese generation does not enjoy the luxury of having access to someone like my grandmother and other elders to teach them about their own rich traditional culture.

I honestly feel like knowledge in the Marshallese language would fulfill the goals of this program in regards to granting opportunities of self-preservation and self-determination. It will give me a fair share in allowing me to situate myself. As the saying goes, "if you don't ground your present reality or know yourself and how you fit in the globe, then people will tell you who you are and what you should do without even knowing you at all." This defeats the promised purpose of self-determination and self-preservation and it is why decolonization of academia through example via equal opportunity is my justification. I want my research, my tenure in this program, and my moral obligations to accurately reflect the global conversations of today regarding equal rights surrounding humanitarian concerns. It is a globalized world after all. I am not here to compete. I am only here to share knowledge that is hardly known and should the worse happen, whether it be complete submersion of the Marshall Islands due to climate change or an uninhabitable Marshall Islands, then at least I can feel safe and reassured in knowing that I did my part in contributing to conserving indigenous identity through the medium of the MAPS program.

I love my professors Dr. Leung, Dr.Barnes, Father Ucerler, and Dr. Woodhouse. They are very open to my research and ideas, particularly in incorporating a Pacific voice within the Pacific Rim discussions of the humanities. This is in line with the MAPS globalized humanitarian perspective that is promoted in the handbook. I just hope we begin enacting this process a little more within this program in our endeavors to humanize our efforts and descriptions of the world we live in to fulfill our moral obligations to the humanities that we directly and indirectly promote, and have endorsed. It is the right thing and always the right approach and that is where the humanitarian concerns are. Decolonization is definitely not a

4 metaphor. It is an ongoing process for many Americans of indigenous decent, Pacific Islanders in particular. I was fortunate enough to be mentored by the efforts of Dr. Leung and Dr. Woodhouse who support this moral cleansing process through the process of inclusivity by steering it away from exclusivity. These compassionate teachers are unknowingly giving Pacific Islanders a fairer share in the discussions that constitute the world, knowing full well that Pacific Islanders are equally entitled to the world’s blessings, rightfully being members of it.

Just these past few weeks, I had the opportunity to join the United Nations Ocean Conference and am proud to say that the leadership for this initiative came from the Pacific countries in their effort to jointly implement Sustainable Development Goal #14. The Pacific Ocean that encompasses one third of the world’s surface is a key part in Pacific identity. This is where my personal, academic, and professional goals are uniquely situated for it is something I cannot escape. Having learned that fifty percent of the global oxygen supply is provided by the world’s oceans, with the Pacific being the biggest, and having learned that one third of the CO2 emissions are absorbed by our oceans, which acts as a carbon sink, you begin to see why the Pacific voice represented in the United Nations, and Pacific representation in general, is crucial to raising awareness. It is frightening to see that the Pacific, which has yielded us with its bounty and fed us ever so abundantly, could very well swallow us should the impacts of climate change go unchecked. It is equally disturbing that increasing temperatures due to climate change global warming could raise ocean acidification and further bleach our corals that house our fish. This is disheartening as the Oceans of the world provides livelihood for 3 billion people. This is where I believe my language is essential. Communicating issues to a population that speaks only Marshallese is essential to help spread awareness on their importance in the global stage and how they too, as Pacific Islanders, contribute to the political stage being equally human. Their language is their unique God given sound and voice.

Sometimes we forget that indigenous rights are human rights as perfectly mentioned in the United Nations International Law Handbook, as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As the preamble of the Compact of Free Association between the Marshall Islands and the United States perfectly states that the special relationship between the Marshallese government and American government was founded upon respect for human rights, I find myself perfectly positioned as a dual citizen to use academia to further these agreements and commitments while upholding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the best of my ability, where its preamble states the same basic message. More than anything, all my professional, academic, and personal goals are significantly woven into the right of equal dignity etched in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Malcolm X once stated that if you are convinced you never did anything, then you will never believe that you can do anything. To take his argument further in relation to the human right of equal dignity, I only respond and build on his words concluding that if Marshallese are not given equal spaces because they have been led to believe that their language is unworthy, then they would have been doomed to be mentally colonized under the notion that they are stupid people not worthy of being equally dignified thus making them feel less than their fellow Asian brothers and sisters. This reason is the punch line for me to promote the Marshallese Language on top of all the other valid reasonings mentioned above.

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