Craig Santos Perez

Dr. Craig Santos Perez is an Indigenous Chamoru from the Pacific Island of Guam. He has been involved with the human rights, decolonization, demilitarization, environmental justice, and climate change movements in the Pacific for twenty years. He works as a professor in the English department, and as affiliate faculty in the Center for Pacific Islands Studies and the Indigenous Politics program, at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, where he teaches Pacific literature, creative writing, and eco-poetry. He holds a Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the co-editor of six anthologies and the author of six books of poetry and the monograph, Navigating Chamoru Poetry: Indigeneity, Aesthetics, and Decolonization. He serves on the Board of Directors for Pacific Islanders in Communication and Indigenous Nations Poets, and he has been a member for the Humanities for the Environment, the Consortium of Environmental Philosophers, and the Pacific Leadership Assistance Network. He has performed his poetry in over 20 countries and at The Climate Museum, the World Wildlife Fund, the California Academy of Sciences, and The International Union for the Conservation of Nature World Conservation Congress. In 2010, the Guam Legislature passed Resolution No. 315-30, recognizing and commending him “as an accomplished poet who has been a phenomenal ambassador for our island, eloquently conveying through his words, the beauty and love that is the Chamoru culture.”