Jboy Wolford

Håfa Adai! Guåhu si Jboy and I was born and raised on our beautiful island in the Mariånas, gi Islan Guåhan! My family and I relocated to Hawaii in 2002 when I was 16 years old. Like many of us, relocation extended from my Dad signing up for active duty with the U.S. Army and was stationed in Hawaii. Lucky for us, it was a familiar place, but an upscale of island living due to the freeways and a bit of fast-paced life when comparing to life on Guam. As a young adolescent, I was so vested in hanging out with friends, learning a new culture and just living life Hawaiian style. Fast-forward a few years later between graduating high school on Guam, moving to Arizona for college, moving back to Hawaii and then moving back home to Guam in 2009. It wasn’t until I went to college in Arizona where I met a few local friends from the CNMI, who took their time to help me learn our language because I was so far from speaking it and if I could remember one thing they said “If you are willing to accept criticism by way of correction, then you are ready to learn.” I told them I was all in, and since then my new found love for our language, our people and more importantly, our culture had came to fruition. After graduating college I moved to Hawaii for about a two years and then relocated back home to Guam. Found a job at Andersen where my language learning continued with friends who became family that understood my assignment for learning the language. Moved back to Hawaii and subliminally knew my family was involved with our culture by supporting Mes CHamoru. I didn’t even know my sister was involved with a guma’ in Hawaii and was already perpetuating our culture.

Between then and now, since we moved to San Antonio, TX in 2016, since my parents hosted the first Mes CHamoru and a few thereafter, I have always had a yearning to be a part of something so influential, possibly even monumental and that was when I finally grew the courage to join Ininan Mariånas as a danderun tambot yan i gitåla. Finally or so I thought, I felt a sense of belonging, being able to be apart of the sound our people feel when our practitioners are on stage performing, the connection when our people are locked in and are amazed at the story-telling of these performances, I knew this is what I was meant to do. A year later, I was asked to co-ed with Siñora Doreen and teach the history of our language, our people and our culture!

Welcome to Ininan Mariånas, we hope your new or continued journey here with us provides a sense of belonging- a safe place for you to call home out here in this crazy world!