Talk to Youth Summit on Saipan

Oct. 28, 2004

 

Introduction

 

• Youth problems of the 60s and 70s were rampant throughout the TT: motorcycle gangs in Yap, closing of bars on Pohnpei due to killings, drunks in the middle of the road in Chuuk, problems with Kosraean youth abroad.
• Youth conference sponsored by MicSem in 1976, with 80 people attending. We treated youth here as in the US: single age group 15-30, “bunch of teenagers run wild.”
• Generation affected by social pressures: education, social and economic change, money economy.
• Group not traditional but not modern either–“neither American nor Micronesian.” Disturbed group that needed to be cured. Symptoms of the “disease” were drinking, delinquency, suicide.
• But two voices that I remember in the note of panic at the conference:

 

1) Don’t emphasize the negative. Youth have great potential and remain basically good.

 

2) Youth can’t be treated separately from their families. The family is the key institution in creating good youth.

 

Hence, I suggest these goals:

 

• First, explore how youth can be made more productive members of their families? What is needed for a more comfortable fit between youths and their families?
• Second, explore ways to harness the potential of youth in CNMI. Not just cure their problems, but impart a vision so that they can help remake their own islands. Youth once had a vital role in society. Can this be restored and enhanced?
• Note: Youth are said to be confused, but the young are confused any time in any society. No chance yet to work out answers to problems–too little experience.
• Age brings wisdom…and liberation from personal fears. Youth gives enthusiasm and energy. Make use of it.

 

The Way We Were

 

• To understand what’s happened to youth, we must understand changes in the family. But this, in turn, is explained by changes that have occurred in our society. Importance of looking at the whole broad framework. Social analysis.
• Enormous changes in our families in the last 40 years. This is a favorite theme of mine, one that I think is critical and too often disregarded.
• A few photos to help you recapture the feel for what Saipan was like 40 or 50 years ago, visualize all those stories you’ve heard from older relatives. (show photos of old Saipan)

 

Old Family on Saipan (based on stories I’ve heard and read, interviews with people like Chai Palacios, old photos, and my own experiences here)

 

• Villages were focal point of life. People identified with their village, either Chamorro or Carolinian. Families lived on their land with wide circle of close relatives. When families lived in town, they might go to the rancho for the weekend to work and party with relatives.
• Extended family system, with plenty of help available for raising children. Cousins and close relatives were companions for young people. Brothers and sisters were responsible for one another, watched over each other.
• Many “parents” to fill in for mother and father when they were absent. Many older relatives to choose from as confidantes in time of trouble. Kids could go to aunt or uncle they trusted to talk to about problems with their parents. This itself was the best sort of suicide prevention.
• Many pairs of eyes watching over the children. If a young person did something wrong, he could expect to be corrected not just by his parents, but by other older relatives, or even other adults in the village. Tight surveillance system: “One for all, and all for one.”
• No “TV dinners” in those days. Children expected to be home for dinner and for prayers. Ritual events in the daily life of the family. Togetherness in the family was highly prized. Not just a rest stop for busy teenagers between school and evening activities.
• Respected older individuals in the village, mayors or commissioners, who played a large role in the community. Problems between families might be brought to them. Young people disrupting the community in any way might be brought before them.

 

Compare this picture of old Saipan with what we have today

 

• Extended families now fragmented, with each nuclear family living on its own. So the father bears heavy responsibility as the family authority, counselor, and ear for the kids as well as breadwinner.
• One set of parents rather than many. If something happens to one of them, who is the fill-in? Many single-parent families in which mom or dad is stretched. Even kids without a real nest.
• Discipline comes just from parents (if you’re lucky), but not from the rest of the extended family or community. We’ve learned to leave children’s behavior to their parents. Tight surveillance system gone. Where have those hundred pairs of eyes gone? Much more room today for a young person to “disappear.”
• Villages are no longer tight communities, but are large and amorphous today. Not the focus of identity as they once were. No single person who can supervise the families in the village.

 

What’s responsible for these changes?

 

• Recall the string of developments in Saipan since 1960: move of the TT headquarters to Capitol Hill, increase of employees (American and other TT); growth of tourism from opening of the Royal Taga Hotel in late 60s to new boom in the 80s; garment manufacturing with influx of Asian population; cheap labor from Asia as nannies, etc; mobility and movement of the population to other villages.
• Point is not to lay entire blame on economic development, and certainly not on foreigners–Asians or Americans. Economic development is legitimate goal, but effects need to be examined and perhaps repaired. There is always “collateral damage” in change–just as true in the US. (Our 50^th anniversary reminiscences about life in the 50s) As for the foreigners, it’s easy to blame them for everything bad. But this is irresponsible. It’s your choices that brought them here and created this torrent of change, and it’s up to you to fix things.

 

So let’s review the causal chain at work on our society. We can’t do much to fix problems unless we understand what’s caused them.

 

• The major economic and political developments have brought about corresponding social changes in the community and in the shape of our families.
• Development affects social institutions–eg, family and village. Family is fragmented, people move to other places, extended family no longer meets each weekend, etc.
• So the family and village can’t exercise the controls they once did over behavior of the young. Young person is left to himself or herself, and exposed to influence of many young people in similar situation. Growing independence and exposure to peer pressure as former controls break down. Where does the supervision and oversight come from?
• This, in turn, leads to social problems: delinquency and drugs (because no one is looking), teenage pregnancy (because no one is chaperoning), and suicide (because there’s no one to talk to).
• The family today, smaller and without the many resources it once had, is like a car with the two rear wheels missing. Hard to drive, but still depended on to pull a heavy load. In other words, it’s expected to do more today, but with less horsepower and stripped of what it needs to do the job.
• Meanwhile, the rest of the world is changing quickly. New values are championed today: freedom, individualism, rights. This vocabulary didn’t even exist before.

 

What can we do about all this?

 

• Not suggesting that we try to restore the past as it was in the 50s or 60s. That’s impossible. Not subscribing to the solution to these problems in movie “Once Were Warriors”–tattoo our faces, go back to the marae, and learn the old dances. This is simple-minded escapism, unrealistic.
• Yet, we can and should learn from the past. Get our families to tell us stories of the old days. Savor the past, and use it to guide us to finding solutions to our problems today. We can’t restore the past as it was, but at least we can build on its foundations.
• Time to look inward, towards our own culture. Northern Marianas is material prosperous, but money isn’t everything. Is it really richer? Years ago, I found the people here were proud of the way they had retained their language and culture? Is this still true? Are there any regrets? Are they worth reflecting upon?

 

Balance today has tilted away from the family towards other forces. Young people spend most of the day in school, and lots of time after school and in evenings with friends. Great influence of peers on the young today. Many of the young are drifting, away from their families, away from their culture, away from their church. Much of this outside influence can’t be eliminated, but we can counter-balance it by a strong emphasis on family.

 

• Strengthen solidarity of extended family groups.
• Occasional family rosaries are not enough. Neither is kissing hands of older relatives when we meet them.
• Create more opportunities for them to get together for days or evenings, but without the rest of the island community being present. We need time for young people to meet and talk to older relatives, to reconnect with cousins.
• Examples: our family vacation in the mountains and family gatherings; Chuukese invention of new extended family parties (eg, January 1^st). You may have to work out ways yourselves.
• Nuclear families–parents and kids–need some serious time together.
• Dinner together four or five nights a week?
• Spend an evening in together every week, now and then with the TV off! Mormons encourage this and put us Catholics to shame.
• Prayer together in family group. “Family that prays together stays together,” was the old saying. (Chai’s reminiscence of the family saying the rosary each night)
• Mistakes should be forgiven, but not celebrated by the family.
• E.g., Don’t throw your pregnant unmarried daughter out in the street, but don’t hold the party for the christening at the Dai-Ichi, either.
• Funeral for son who has taken his own life should be prayerful, but the son should not be glamorized for what he has done or the funeral magnificent, as if the family were atoning for what happened.
• What do we do for “crippled” families–families of single working moms, or families of drug users? Agencies are called on to help them now, to protect the children. Maybe this should be a very last resort. First, let’s turn instinctively to their wider family for help. If that fails, call in the agencies. Our strategies should always be aimed at strengthening the family.

 

Conclusion: In this “age of the individual,” we need to redress the imbalance between the person and the family social unit. Need to revive the family so that it becomes a potent force for shaping and controlling the young. The welfare of CNMI and its people depends on the family.

 

FXH

10/25/04