Persistent Violence and Silent Suffering: Marshallese Migrants in Washington State
The pain, horrors, and suffering of the Cold War are not over. This was not a war that was never fought; it was a war that amassed U.S. nuclear strength and created thousands of Cold War veterans, including U.S. servicemen, Native Americans who had their lands mined and pillaged for uranium, and, of course, the people of the Marshall Islands, who experienced the equivalent of 1.6 Hiroshima-sized bombs every day for the twelve-year period between 1946 and 1958.
Thinking of the Cold War as a distant relic is a privilege as it underscores the comfort and distance from hardship enjoyed by decision makers in Washington, D.C., and the nuclear-weapons laboratories. These laboratories earned large contracts during the Cold War that deepened the nexus between U.S. economic and military interests, and provided justification to threaten our foes with nuclear retaliation. But this distance from the lives of the Marshall Islanders also includes the U.S. public that remains ignorant of U.S. activities during this time period—not because Americans are cold or uncaring, but because this top-secret military history was not known or discussed. This ignorance makes Americans victims of the Cold War as well, albeit in a much different form.
For most Americans, the Cold War is over. But what happened to the Marshallese people in the intervening years? What happened to the radiation? What happened to their lands? What is the quality of life like for the people who lived but saw their land, health, culture, and economy decimated by Cold War terror? It is important to follow the people of the Marshall Islands on their continued exodus from the homelands they can no longer inhabit because of residual radiation levels to distant locations in search of health care and economic opportunities. In particular, we must consider the structural violence that is a persistent reality for Marshallese migrants to Washington State and other locations. Structural violence is a term made popular by anthropologist and physician Paul Farmer as he considered the ways that our institutions, through policy and practice, render violence on marginalized people by failing to provide adequate support so they can live a healthy life.1 The structural violence that fails to provide adequate health care to Marshallese on their home islands migrates along with the Marshallese to the United States, where they remain on the outside looking in, and unable to access the state-of-the-art services that their posttrusteeship bodies need.
Structural Violence: The Failure to Provide Life-Saving Health Care in the Marshall Islands
In terms of radioactive iodine alone, the United States released 6.3 billion curies of iodine-131 into the atmosphere as a result of its testing in the Marshall Islands—an amount 42 times greater than the 150 million curies released by the atmospheric testing in Nevada, 150 times greater than the estimated 40 million curies released as a result of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, and 8,500 times greater than the 739,000 curies released from Atomic Energy Commission operations at Hanford, Washington.
After the deployment of atomic weapons during World War II, the United States needed to learn more about the capabilities of its newest weapon—more information than the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki provided. The United States decided to make a proving ground out of its small islands in the northern Pacific Ocean that the United States acquired as part of a United Nations trust territory following the war. As the trust territory administrator, the United States promised to safeguard the well-being of its inhabitants. Many people assume that the islands were deserted during the Cold War tests, but they weren’t. In 1958, the final year of the testing program, the census counted over fourteen thousand people living in the Marshall Islands.2
On the atolls of Bikini and Enewetak in the Marshall Islands, the United States detonated sixty-seven atmospheric atomic and thermonuclear weapons from 1946 to 1958. From nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall Islands, the United States learned how its naval fleet would survive a nuclear attack. In 1946, U.S. researchers anchored navy vessels, including the Japanese flagship captured at the end of World War II, the Nagato, in Bikini’s lagoon. While most of the weapons tests took place above ground to study the impacts of the blast and fallout on the land and people, detonations such as Test Baker took place underwater to research the impacts of the United States’s newest weapon when unleashed directly into the ocean. Test Baker debilitated and sunk many vessels that remain on the bottom of Bikini’s lagoon today. The world knows this location as the bikini bathing suit, or the home of SpongeBob SquarePants, but not as the sacred homelands of the people of Pikinni, known as Bikini.3
Also in the Marshall Islands, the United States detonated its largest weapon ever tested, the Bravo shot of March 1, 1954, the equivalent of one thousand Hiroshima-sized bombs. Bravo exposed the crew of a Japanese fishing boat near Bikini, Marshallese residents downwind from Bikini, and U.S. servicemen to levels of radiation that caused death and lifelong illness. Following Bravo, U.S. government researchers evacuated some of the islanders and enrolled them in a secret medical experiment, called Project 4.1, to study the effects of radiation on human beings. Later, the U.S. government resettled the unwitting participants in this program on an island highly contaminated with radiation to learn firsthand how human beings ingest and absorb radiation from their environment.
During the Cold War, the United States made immeasurable political strides as nuclear superiority guaranteed status as a superpower and ushered in a period of nuclear deterrence. This political advancement of the United States came with a high price for the Marshallese, however, whose health and environment continue to display the scars of U.S. nuclear achievements.
Recently the U.S. National Cancer Institute predicted that the Marshallese will experience hundreds more future cancer cases directly linked to the U.S. nuclear-weapons testing program. The radiological illnesses from the testing program continue to overwhelm the capabilities of the public health infrastructure in the Marshall Islands.
Despite the radiation levels released in the Marshall Islands, the indisputable link between cancer and radiation exposure, and the recent NCI predictions, there is no oncologist in the Marshall Islands, no chemotherapy, no cancer registry, and no nationwide screening program for early detection of cancer. Thus, the United States released large amounts of radiation in the Marshall Islands, radiation exposure causes cancer, and there is no cancer care available in the Marshall Islands. This is abhorrent, considering that the United States was the only governing authority of the Marshall Islands when it used the islands to test its weapons. The only way to treat cancer and have an opportunity to survive is to leave the country. This is a poignant example of structural violence, as the fact that the U.S. government fails to provide cancer care means that Marshallese die from cancers that could be treatable elsewhere.
Structural Violence: The Inability to Access Health Care for Low-Income, Legal Migrants in the United States
Currently, Marshallese are able to migrate to the United States to live, work, and go to school. They do not require a visa because of the unique history between the United States and the Marshall Islands, a bond that enabled the United States to exert its right to detonate weapons of mass destruction in the islands.
Given that the nuclear weapons testing by the United States shaped all aspects of life, and the destruction of life, beginning with the Cold War, it seems reasonable to Marshallese citizens who migrate to the United States that Americans should know about the U.S. government’s activities in the islands. It seems reasonable to expect compassion, empathy, and care. Sadly, this is not the case, and our failure to know about this history and its consequences denies us the opportunity to advocate for and support the Marshallese people who enter our communities.
The Marshallese come to the United States seeking access to opportunities not available in the Marshall Islands as a result of U.S. decision making during and after the trusteeship. In Washington State, Marshallese arrive willing to both engage with and contribute to their communities, but also with needs: needs for health care, education, and employment opportunities. Marshallese contribute to communities through church, school, and service projects, like the Marshallese in Lynnwood, Washington, who organize to feed the homeless twice each month. They pay taxes, contribute to Social Security, and serve in every branch of the U.S. armed services to protect the interests of the United States.
As with other migrant communities that lack the health and educational resources to reach their full capabilities, many Marshallese struggle with poverty. In Washington State, Marshallese adults are less likely to have a bachelor’s degree than those from any other ethnic group.4
For low-income, legal residents in the United States, the federal government provides Medicaid benefits to serve as a safety net to extend health care benefits to those who are least able to access it. The people of the Marshall Islands—people who are in the United States legally, people whose homelands are irradiated, people whose bodies carry the radiogenic burdens of the Cold War—are not eligible for Medicaid.
The failure to extend Medicaid to the Marshallese is another form of structural violence. Our policies that exclude Marshallese from access to health care designed for low-income, legal residents means that migrants continue to be excluded from U.S. health care services. What does this mean for the Marshallese? For Lucky Juda, who was in utero during the Bikini people’s evacuation of their home islands for the Bravo detonation in 1954, it means that he was denied access to health care. Lucky and his family were part of the group of Bikinians who were prematurely resettled by the U.S. government on Bikini in the 1970s when the United States declared that Bikini was “safe” for human habitation. After determining that the Bikinians absorbed more cesium than any known population as a result of their relocation, Lucky and the other Bikinians left Bikini, and Bikini remains uninhabited to this day. Bikini is Lucky’s homeland, the land which he inherits from his ancestors, yet he cannot access it, and cannot utilize the resources available to him for food (coconuts, breadfruit) or for economics (fish, copra).
In 2016, Lucky developed a heart condition that could not be treated in the Marshall Islands. He came to Washington State to visit his daughter and to access health care. Lucky was shocked by what he encountered in Washington.
Lucky, whose name signals the hopes of his parents that he would meet a better fate, has not been fortunate. He represents the continued violence of Cold War nuclear testing. Lucky cannot access his homelands because of radiation contamination. He lives in a nation with Third World health care yet has health care challenges created by First World arrogance. Thinking that the United States, which shaped every aspect of his life, has a responsibility to support his health care needs, Lucky came to Washington.
In Washington, Lucky encountered health care workers who had never heard of the Marshall Islands, or had any understanding or knowledge of the ways the United States destroyed many aspects of Lucky’s health and livelihood. Lucky felt disrespected, and he felt sad. He could not access Medicaid in the United States. He decided that there was no reason to stay in Washington, a place where people do not acknowledge or understand his hardships and a place where he could not access health care for low-income patients, like him. Without receiving adequate attention from health care providers in Washington, Lucky decided to return to the Marshall Islands. In the Honolulu Airport, Lucky had a heart attack and had to be rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. He was not fit to fly or to travel from Washington, yet it was pointless to stay in a location where providers would not care for him. What options does Lucky have? He is returning to the Marshall Islands where there is inadequate health care. The United States has failed Lucky at every turn: in the Marshall Islands, where he cannot access the health care he needs, and in the United States, where he cannot access the health care that is not available to him.
The Violence of Ignorance
The people of the Marshall Islands deserve our appreciation for the monumental sacrifices they incurred during the Cold War. More than a decade ago, the Marshall Islands submitted a petition to the U.S. Congress for additional assistance, primarily to create the capacity to respond to the health care burdens resulting from the U.S. nuclear weapons testing program. The U.S. government has not responded to the Marshall Island government’s request for assistance.
On March 1 of every year, on the anniversary of the Bravo detonation that changed the course of their lives, Marshallese in the United States huddle together, pray, cry, remember loved ones, and long for their homelands. They hope and ask for the United States to help provide them with the health care they need. They pray that the violence and hurt will be muted. In Salem, Oregon, in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in Enid, Oklahoma, these prayers go unanswered and beg all of us to consider how we allow this violence to continue, how we allow ourselves to stay in our privileged bubbles shielded from the horrors of the Cold War that reside with our neighbors. On March 1, 2016, during a day of remembrance held at the Burke Museum in Seattle, Lucky Juda reflected:
The whole Marshall Islands is condemned from the bomb. There is a lot of people that got sick. . . . Thyroid and cancer and a lot more . . . Tumors. All kinds of sickness. It is very sad for all of us people of the Marshall Islands. . . . The Americans thought that we are just like the animals. We are guinea pigs. . . . These are some of the things that I think about everyday. When I am thinking that all things that are going on, I wonder why did God let me live. Why was I born when all of this is going on. I shouldn’t have been born, I should have died at that time.5
The atrocities of the nuclear era are not something that happened just to people on far-flung islands of the Pacific; they are something that happened to all of us. While the Marshallese suffer the health care and other burdens of the era, we suffer, too; we suffer from ignorance—the ability to ignore. We suffer from the deafness of the needs of our neighbors. We are all victims of the Cold War.