Who Are the Marshallese?
The Marshallese are a Micronesian people numbering approximately 77,000—53,000 in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) and 24,000 in the United States (especially Arkansas, Hawaii, and other states). They speak Marshallese, a Micronesian language of the Austronesian family. The Marshall Islands comprise 29 coral atolls and 5 islands scattered across 750,000 square miles of Pacific Ocean. The Marshallese developed exceptional navigation skills using stick charts to map ocean swells. Their homeland was devastated by US nuclear testing (1946-1958); radiation, displacement, and climate change now threaten their existence.
Ocean Navigators
Marshallese ancestors settled the islands around 2000 years ago. They developed remarkable navigation technology: stick charts (rebbelibs) that mapped wave patterns, currents, and island positions, enabling accurate voyaging across vast ocean distances. Outrigger canoes enabled fishing and inter-atoll travel. Society organized through matrilineal chieftainships (iroij system); land rights passed through women. Subsistence combined fishing, coconut, breadfruit, and pandanus cultivation. The low-lying atolls—average elevation 2 meters—required adaptation to limited land and resources. This maritime culture produced some of history's most sophisticated non-instrument navigators.
Colonial Era
Spanish, German, and Japanese colonizers successively controlled the Marshall Islands. Japanese rule (1914-1944) brought development but also fortification and WWII devastation. US forces captured the islands; Kwajalein saw fierce fighting. Post-war US administration brought the nuclear testing era. The US conducted 67 nuclear tests (1946-1958), including the massive Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb (1954)—1,000 times more powerful than Hiroshima. Bikini and Enewetak atolls were evacuated; fallout contaminated other islands. Radiation caused cancers, birth defects, and environmental destruction. The Marshallese became nuclear guinea pigs; some were deliberately exposed to study effects.
Nuclear Legacy
The nuclear testing legacy haunts the Marshall Islands. Bikini and Enewetak remain uninhabitable; cleanup was inadequate. Runit Dome—a concrete cap over nuclear waste—is cracking as seas rise. Health impacts continue across generations. The US provided compensation through the Compact of Free Association, but Marshallese consider it grossly inadequate. The Marshall Islands sued nuclear powers at the International Court of Justice (2014). This nuclear colonialism—testing weapons on Pacific Islanders' homeland—represents one of the Cold War's worst human rights violations, still unresolved and ongoing.
Climate Crisis
Climate change now poses existential threat. Sea level rise floods communities, contaminates freshwater, and erodes land. King tides increasingly inundate atolls; some project the islands becoming uninhabitable within decades. The Marshall Islands leads climate diplomacy—hosting COP meetings, advocating for 1.5°C limits. Migration to the US (enabled by the Compact) accelerates; communities in Arkansas and elsewhere grow. How the Marshallese preserve identity if their homeland disappears—and whether international action can prevent that outcome—defines this navigating people's uncertain future. They face losing everything to powers that already took so much.
References
- Niedenthal, J. (2001). For the Good of Mankind: A History of the People of Bikini and Their Islands
- Teaiwa, T. (1994). "bikinis and other s/pacific n/oceans"
- Barker, H. M. (2004). Bravo for the Marshallese: Regaining Control in a Post-Nuclear, Post-Colonial World