Denali Nalamalapu talks with queer parents of color about their decision to raise children in intentional, chosen community. YR Media Newsroom staffer Shaylyn Martos speaks to fellow CHamoru language learners from Guam and the Micronesian diaspora on reviving their Indigenous tongue and their personal connections to their island home.

About the Storytellers: Denali Nalamalapu (she/they) is a queer, South Indian American writer, artist, and climate communicator. She currently lives in Washington, D.C. She is from Maine. Her family is from Andhra Pradesh, India.

shaylyn martos (she/they) works to provide better representation of LGBTQ+ and Indigenous people in media. As an Associate Producer for YR Media's newsroom, shaylyn manages and mentors interns ages 14-24 in news production and audio commentaries. They also produce projects with outlets like NPR's All Things Considered and the Post Reports podcast. shaylyn was honored as the first Raul Ramirez Diversity in Journalism Fund intern to work with KQED's The Bay podcast — working as a production assistant and reporting her own episode on Stockton's Little Manila. They co-produce and co-host The Happy Hour Newscast and served as multimedia editor for SF State's Golden Gate Xpress. In 2019, shaylyn was honored as an NPR Next Generation Radio Mentee. Off the clock, they can be found reading speculative fiction, cooking their favorite CHamoru foods or playing Dungeons and Dragons with their adventuring party.

Inherited is a production of YR Media and Critical Frequency. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @inheritedpod, and check out our new website at yr.media/inherited.

Further reading/resources:

Famalao’an Rights — an organization which fights for accessible reproductive healthcare and education on Guam, where women, trans folks and allies began fighting for basic rights in the 1980’s.

The Guam Bus — a Fino’ Chamoru organization that promotes, educates and publishes books in our language. The same Guam Bus that holds our weekly lessons.

Read our literature — like activist and human rights lawyer Julian Aguon, author of No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies and poet Craig Santos Perez, writer of the From Unincorporated Territory chapbook series and co-editor of many Micronesian and Pasifika anthologies.

Take a moment to follow and share the work of social media groups — Nihi Kids is a youth-focused video series on culture and history.

Check out Chamoru news media — journalists working for The Yappie, the Guam Daily Post, local Guam stations and even Vice. Expand your understanding of Pasifika climate activists and artists outside of the Marianas.