Putting her Guam roots front and center, Kylie Taitano has spent the last five months knocking on thousands of doors, making hundreds of fundraising calls, and reaching out to over 100,000 people through text and social media ads in her grassroots campaign as a Democratic candidate in San Diego’s 50th Congressional District to bring inafa’maolek to the nation’s capital.

“Manaotao Sanlagu, CHamorus from the Marianas,” a PDN weekly feature, is taking a hiatus this month as I head to the islands.

Sadly, not Guam, but Hawai’i — and specifically Oahu for the exhibition of my photos from the 2016 Festival of the Pacific Arts and Culture opening at the East-West Center gallery on the campus of the University of Hawai’i and an artist residency sponsored by the EWC and Pacific Islands Development Program.

It’s also an opportunity to seek out, photograph and interview CHamorus living in Hawai’i as part of the “Manaotao Sanlagu” documentary.

Vicente “Cotch” Diaz Jr. spent the last two decades hustling and growing Cotch Media, a one-stop photography, video, design and branding media production company servicing A-list clients like Fox Sports, San Diego Padres Baseball, Ferrari, Lamborghini and ARRI. The business is competing and thriving in the highly competitive Southern California media production arena.

Chrisy Torre Mafnas knew at a young age growing up in Leyang, Barrigada, that she wanted to be a doctor.

And while she attributes the love, support and sacrifices her parents, aunts and uncles made during her journey to be practicing medicine in San Jose, California, it’s the encouragement of her paternal grandmother, Annie Ada Mafnas, that she cherishes.

Restaurateurs Shawn Naputi and Shawn Camacho were in their late 20s in 2014 when they had the audacity to open Prubechu’, a CHamoru restaurant in San Francisco, one of the top five culinary cities in the world with an estimated 4,500 restaurants.

A couple of weekends ago, the “Manaotao Sanlagu: CHamorus from the Marianas” documentary team set up a pop-up studio at the Mes CHamoru event in Newark, California.

The “Manaotao Sanlagu: CHamorus from the Marianas” documentary team set up a pop-up studio at the Hafa Diego Fiesta on March 5, 2022 in San Diego

“I think of portraiture as history, and there’s all these layers that I added to make it more holistic, like having a voice and having objects there. It feels very multidisciplinary, rather than just being painting and something that’s flat. There’s so many layers to it,” said Gisela McDaniel, a CHamoru rising star in the international art world. McDaniel is the latest subject of Manny Crisostomo’s ongoing visual documentary “Manaotao Sanlagu: CHamorus from the Marianas,” translated as “our people, the CHamorus, overseas”, featured weekly in the Pacific Daily News.

Adriano Birosel Pangelinan's early interest in art was short-lived despite his family's legacy in the local art scene. Now a retired chemical engineer and health care entrepreneur, Pangelinan  is the most recent subject of "Manaotao Sanlagu," Manny Crisostomo's ongoing documentary about CHamoru diaspora published weekly in the PDN.

This week in Manny Crisostomo’s column on CHamoru diaspora, we learn about marketing professional Camille Saussotte, who now resides in the Sacramento, California area. The former Nimitz Hill resident has compelling memories of her time on Guam and although she loves what she does, there are some things about our magical island that leave her mahålang for home