Birth Stories - Marshal Islands
War, atom bomb testing and coronavirus
The silence around me grows with each day of the quarantine. At dawn and dusk, there is the sound of the birds who continue their spring rituals of mating, nests, eggs and new life. I watch them outside my window; the only company other than an aide coming with a meal. I make handicrafts for our church to sell to support schools in the Marshall Islands. I have worked the small pieces of colored fibres into flowers and animals for as long as I can remember, sitting with friends laughing and telling stories. It is only now that I do this alone, in this silence.
It is a surprise then, to hear a small tap on my door before a nurse squeezes through the opening she has made between me and the rest of the building.
I look up from my craft and smile. She tries to smile back, but with her mask, I can only see the fatigue and fear in her eyes. She points to the window and whispers, “Your family has come to see you.” All the staff whisper and walk on tip-toes, as if being quiet will trick this virus into thinking we aren’t here. The nurses don’t want us to know how many people have died but every evening there are news trucks reporting on the number of deaths. Everyday there are ambulances. There is round the clock news. Although we never leave our rooms, we know our friends are disappearing, one by one into the vast sea of coronavirus statistics. We know the staff is disappearing too; sick or unwilling to work here anymore. On the islands, the grandmothers told us the horizon was the heaven reaching down to touch the earth. If we lose this connection, we must wander the earth looking for this horizon of the sacred. I am without a horizon.
We, the residents of the Sunset Hills Rehabilitation Center, live on a small island of the old and sick. We can no longer leave our rooms. We are small Islands within this island. The water rises around us and there is no boat.
My son had hung an old dusty gecko weaving from the Marshal Island’s on my door. We bought it at the Majuro Airport on our last visit home for my grandfather’s funeral. With my inevitable death approaching, their renewed interest in my history has turned to desperation. In the time of the pandemic personal items are removed from our doors and thrown away. Never mind, I think, it is not a real gecko. One could never be lonely in the Marshall Islands when a sweet, green gecko came to visit daily.
For most of my life in the United States, I never spoke much of my childhood. I became accustomed to people not quite knowing what the Marshall Islands were or where they were. In time, I began to doubt my life story ever really happened. On forms, I am listed as Pacific Islander; a vast term for those of us born and raised on nearly invisible spots of green in a great ocean. We became one exotic group of people, instead of individual nations and cultures. We began to see ourselves this way too. We were Pacific Islanders instead of Marshallese or Hawaiian or Fijian. Of course the Marshall Islands was not the name we had given ourselves. It was the name of an explorer who came upon us and left his name. We always called ourselves, “Ri Majel” and our land as “Ralik-Ratak.”
I refuse the nurse’s offer of a wheelchair and take the walker, as the physical therapist had once instructed. I was only scheduled to be here for a few weeks while I recovered from hip surgery. The doctor insisted it would be better than going home right away. I hear my children yelling at the nurse on the phone, “After all my mother has been through in her life, we did not send her there to die. Do something.” They want to take me home but I am not allowed to leave. I have been exposed to a coronavirus. For some time, the authorities denied this but when residents started dying at alarming rates, they no longer can.
It was the same when the atomic bombs were tested on Bikini Island. They denied that we had been exposed to radiation until the birth defects and cancers spread amongst us. To us, exposure came in lies and the sky filled with a burst of red; of burns and cancer and deformed babies. Our quarantine came in crowded camps and a loss of our culture. Some of us were quarantined from our islands forever. My husband, Bless His Soul, dedicated his whole life to forcing the US government to accept responsibility for the exposure to radiation that the testing caused our people. He visited the islands often and in the end died of cancer. No one would say it was the radiation but I knew. Here,when we die, they say it was a pre-existing condition that kills us. It is always something else.
After much pleading and threatening, the nursing home allows my family to wave at us outside our windows. My favorite nurse's aide is Paula; a strong, cheerful woman from the Philippines, who had enjoyed sharing memories with me about life in the Pacific Islands. We can’t talk now with all the masks and special procedures. Many of the staff have gotten sick themselves or just stop coming to work. Paula keeps coming. She gives my children her cell phone number so they can call anytime. At 7:00, when the world bangs on pots and pans for the frontliners, I tell my family to shout and bang their pots for Paula. They leave food on her porch. Because they cannot take care of me, they take care of her.
I open the window and lean out into the warm spring sunshine. Cherry blossoms float through the air. Oh my, I think, what a big family has gathered there. Everyone must have been called, in case it is the last time they see their Babu. There are cousins and great nieces and friends and people from the church.
My grandchildren play music from the Marshall islands on a big boombox. It is not the music I grew up with but a hybrid of hip-hop and Marshallese rhythms. They download it on-line, in the hope of making me feel better. I smile. I wonder if they think this was the music of my army base youth. We were more likely to listen to the rock n roll songs of homesick soldiers sent to occupy our lands after the war. Songs that made us believe that the United States was our friend and would never hurt us. Who could not believe in Elvis Presley, with his sad eyes and broken heart. We were sure he and all the GI’s singing with him, knew exactly how our broken hearts felt. When Elvis was drafted, they were sure he would be stationed there with them. At her wedding they played “I Can’t Help Falling in love With You” on the ukulele.
“We brought you coconut water.” They call. This does not mean that my handsome young grandson climbed up a coconut tree, brought me down a beautiful fresh coconut, cut a hole in the top and offered it to me on a warm afternoon. No. It means they went to a Costco and bought me cartons of multi-flavored coconut water. I smile and thank them.
“I think I found the place in Japan where your father came from.” My granddaughter yells. She has decided that she will use a swab of fluid from her cheek to find the father I lost during the war; the father who was forced to leave the Marshall Islands before I was born. A love story of war and separation and loss that they have turned into our family’s own personal romance novel. My daughter is sure she will find out what became of him and meet her long lost cousins who have been searching for us all these years. She is in a Japanese Immersion Program at school and enjoys claiming a small genetic Japanese connection. “Tell me everything you know about your father.” She begs.
This is what I know. The Japanese were put in charge of The Marshall Islands, after World War I, by the League of Nations. Everything went pretty well until World War II, when our islands began to be converted into military bases.
The Japanese used The Marshall Islands to launch the attack on Pearl Harbor. After that, the non- military Japanese were removed from the islands and sent back to Japan. My father was an engineer. He had fallen in love with my mother, married her and thought he’d spend the rest of his life on the Wotje Atoll. They said you could hear my mother’s cries all over the island, when he was taken away. Although I was a baby inside her at the time, I still hear those cries in my dreams. I feel my father’s hands upon me as he kisses her good-bye. He puts his mouth to my mother’s warm, roundness and whispers, “I will come back for you.”
This story makes some people uncomfortable. They say the past is best forgotten but others say it’s important to know your family history. My daughter-in-law labors over the family tree and does not like the blank line which is my father. She is also troubled by my lack of an actual birth date and the only approximate date of my mother’s death. “It was sometime between the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the bombing of the Marshall Islands.” My grandparents had to make up a date to register me for school and that is what I use. She can not imagine that anyone could not know their actual birth date.
I watch the sun shine down on the little troop of visitors outside my window. My son is nervous. He is sure they will all get sick just from looking at me or from standing outside the window of such a world famous hotspot. He is equally sure that one day they will call and I will be the next statistic in the Coronavirus Pandemic. He does not trust that the staff will let them know if I am sick or even dead, so they insist on visiting me through this open window; to make sure I am actually alive. There is a story in the news that a place like this left their dead residents in a shed. My son looks at the sheds suspiciously.
There is a wetland nearby. I watch as a blue heron lifts up into the air over their heads. They gasp.
‘Cool.” The little one says.
“Cool.” I whisper back.
“We are praying for you. Everyone at the church prays for you and we even joined a national prayer circle to pray for you.”
One grandson is a climate activist and wears a “Stop Climate Change” t-shirt. He turns off the music and squints up at me. He heard that our islands are in grave danger of rising seas. Since then I have become a hero to him. He even asked me to speak at his Climate Club.
“My friends say they will keep fighting to protect the Marshall Islands, even if you die in there. They said not to worry.” His sister hits him. “Nana isn’t dying in there. We are getting her out.”
“ I didn’t mean to say you were going to die but just in case.”
“Thank-you.” I assure him that I appreciate this.
A middle aged man with a television crew turns the corner of the building and joins my family.
“This is how you have to visit your grandmother?”
He points the camera at my family who stare back silently.
“Are you filming what might be our last visit with my mother?” My son says.
Ignoring this concern, he calls up to me.
“Just a few questions.”
“When were you born?”
“I think it was 1944.”
“Where were you born?”
“Wotje Atoll.”
“Wotje what?”
My grandson interrupts. “Wotje Atoll. It’s a coral island In the Pacific Ocean in the Marshall Islands. It’s where she was born. She’s 76 years old. Okay?”
The reporter is quiet for a brief moment. “Isn’t that where the United States tested the atomic bomb. I thought you were all contaminated with radiation. Wow, that’s some story. “Atom Bomb survivor left to die in the coronavirus pandemic. Is that a pre-existing condition?”
“That's enough.” My son says as he pushes him away. “We are trying to visit with my mother in a very stressful situation.” The reporter mumbles an apology and waves to me. Maybe he’ll find another open window.
The reporter has inspired my daughter to record me telling my story. She points her iphone at me.
“Tell us about your birth one more time, so I can record it. You know about escaping as the bombs fell.”
“I was only hours old so of course I can only tell you what I was told.”
“After my father was sent back to Japan, a spy for the Americans, told us we had to escape to a smaller island. The US was going to start dropping bombs on us. If we could get to a smaller island, they would pick us up and we would be saved.”
“Why would they drop bombs on you.You didn’t do anything.” My granddaughter exclaims. “Your mother was having a baby.”
“You shouldn’t tell the kids this story.” My son says. “It’s probably not true even. It makes our country seem wrong and we were fighting a war. The Japanese just bombed Pearl Harbor.”
My grandson argues. “Why do you tell her it isn’t true. You can see it all on u-tube now. All the bomb craters and bunkers and cannons. You know we can even Google Earth here. Have you ever even looked? Besides the people of the Marshall islands didn’t bomb Pearl Harbor.”
“Bombs almost always drop on someone who is pregnant or about to give birth or who is just born. It’s the way war is and why we should try not to have them.” My daughter reasons in the same way her father had.
“Go on.” My daughter with the iphone says.
“My grandmother said that my mother labored quietly; that I was born prematurely. It was the shock of my father leaving and the threat of bombs, she said.”
My grandfather always took over at this point in the story. “Most people left at night but I waited till dawn to travel with your mother and you. We saw planes flying overhead but there had been many planes for many weeks, so we didn’t worry at first. Then they circled back and began to shoot at us. We tipped the boat over and tried to hide under the boat. As your mother swam, towards the boat, she was shot. In horror, I took you and watched helplessly as your mother sunk beneath the sea. The plane flew away as quickly as it had appeared. I righted the boat with you in my arms and sailed to the small island where everyone was waiting. By the time we got there you were cold and blue. We did not think you would live , but here you are our little miracle.” He always ended the story with a big hug for me. “
I can no longer remember all the grandchildren’s names, let alone the great grandchildren’s names. They look up at me in wonder. My mother was killed in the sea trying to escape the very bombs that killed her. This old grandmother was the baby, who almost died from first the bombs and then the cold.
An older teen says, “What happened next. No one tells the rest of the story. You get to the island and you survive and then what.”
I can see they do not want me to die without knowing the end of the story.
“Well” I begin. We went to live on another island and my grandfather got a job with the US army.”
“The same army that killed your mother?” I guess so I reply. My grandparents told me they did not mean to kill my mother and I should not hold any hard feelings. “
“I’d have hard feelings if someone shot my mom.” He answers.
“Anyway.” I explain. “ I got a good education and even got to go to nursing school. I met your grandfather when he was in the Peace Corps and we came here and had a big family which includes all of you. Your grandfather fought his whole life to get justice for the Marshallese people. He wanted you to be proud of who you are and to know your culture.”
A person in full protective gear rounds the corner and tells everyone it’s time to go. I suspect they don’t want the families to see a person who has died taken away but we all can see the ambulance.
My daughter cries. The teenagers play “I Will Survive” and everyone waves good-bye. They tell me this is the theme song of the pandemic.
“See you tomorrow.”
I shut the window and return to my bed to rest and remember. I click the tape recorder they had left for me and had refused to use.
“Once my grandfather got to fly back to Wotje to see if people could start returning. I begged him to take me. He showed me my parents house. It was still standing. “Your mother wanted that house to be perfect for you.” I rolled up the mat she had woven and took it with me, amazed that it was still there.
“The night you were born, there were no stars.” He told me.” That’s why they decided to leave so quickly. It was so dark. Your mother had cried for days but the night you were born, she was silent. You seemed to come out of the dark and into her arms without effort, without pain. They said her heart was so broken she could not feel the pains of labor.”
I stared at the house that would have been my childhood home. It had a beautiful view of the lagoon. It was perfect. But everywhere else we walked there were large bomb craters and Japanese bunkers and planes. My father put his head in his hands and wept. We visited our family graveyard and prayed for our ancestors. There was no one left. My father was trying to decide when people could return to their islands. He was to advise the US government about this.
My grandfather had planted a breadfruit tree over the place where he buried my placenta. We picked a breadfruit for my grandmother and got back on the waiting plane. From the sky, I could see the lagoon and the ocean and all the bomb craters. I saw my parents walking on the beach together, picking up shells and laughing as the day grew cool.
I saw my mother as my father’s plane disappeared into the sky. I heard her cries and caught my breath. I looked for the house I never knew, the place I was born and left in one short day. I picture my father returning and finding everyone gone. Walking on the beach before flying back to Japan.
I say I am from the Marshall Islands. I stopped saying my father was Japanese. It was too complicated and too hard to explain. I grow accustomed to people not knowing where the Marshall Islands were. I stop telling people my mother was killed while clinging to a canoe in the Pacific Ocean when I was only a few days old.
My grandfather decides that the best way for us to survive is to become as American as possible. I say. “The Americans killed my mother and maybe my father.” He tells me to never, ever say that again and he means it. I learn to be obedient and to be a good student and to speak English better than my own language. I am rewarded by being sent to nursing school. This is a big honor for my family. We live in a crowded neighborhood with metal houses. There was always the noise of babies crying and dogs fighting and people, people everywhere. All the people who ran away from the bombs seemed to be in one place.
I was sent to Fiji, with people from across the Pacific Islands. Many of us had suffered because of the wars that took place in our lands. We were young and hoped for a better future. At that time, the countries who won the war divided our islands up amongst themselves. “You take this island and I’ll take that island.” That is how it seemed to us. After World War I, we were given to Japan and now we were given to the United States. When I look back on it, it seems we were like a bag of candy, being shared amongst a group of children. We became a Trust Territory of the United States.
My grandfather got up each morning and went to work for the Americans and helped to negotiate many things with them. He would talk to the village chiefs and work to convince them that this was the best path to peace.
One year more people started coming to our crowded island from outer islands where the United States was testing bombs. I heard the grown-ups argue about this and the harm it was doing. The United States read scripture and told us that it would bring lasting peace; that this was God’s will.
One night a woman came to our house in labor, for my grandmother was skilled in helping women birth. This woman had been on an island where the smoke from the bombs had fallen. My grandmother started ordering me to get things for her for the birth. We prepared a bed on the floor and got hot water and boiled scissors and a string. The woman breathed hard but was silent, as my own mother had been.
When the baby came out, I was holding the woman’s hand. She squeezed it so hard, I thought it would break but she was silent. I could tell something was wrong. The baby did not cry and was soft and wrapped in a clear membrane without bones. I gasped. My grandmother quietly wrapped the baby and cut the cord. She shook her head. Only then did the mother scream out. She had given birth to a monster created by the American bombs.
When they tell me how dangerous this virus is, I think about that baby and the chemicals that killed her. Of all the danger the United States dropped on my country and her people.
“It can’t be any worse than having 108,496 kilotons of atomic weapons dropped on you. Now can it ?” The nurse looks confused. None of my kids or grandkids were ever taught this in school. This nurse had no idea what I was talking about. My kids say it's mean to talk about this in the middle of a crisis. Do I not know my nursing home is at the center of the epidemic?
In 1979, we became self governing. We entered into a compact with the United States so they could use our islands as a military base and we could go to the US, without a VISA. Many people from the Marshall Islands came to the US under that compact.
But I came on the path of young love. I married a Peace Corps Volunteer and flew away with him to the United States. He was a good man and we had a sweet life together. He offered me security, a loving family and an on-going commitment to my country. Once even took me back to the island where I was born. We walked around and saw the old World War II bunkers and the bomb craters. We enjoyed the lagoons and local food. We stayed a whole week; coming and going with the Friday plane. He interviewed the residents for his work on their behalf while I sat with cousins and aunties I had never met.
“If you please don’t get the coronavirus, we promise to go back to the Marshal Islands with you.” They call up to me. “Please just don’t get sick.” I smile and wonder if such promises can keep one from getting a very contagious virus. If hope and something to look forward to can act as an antidote.
My daughter cries. “You survived a war and nuclear testing and starvation. You can survive this. We’ll get you out of here.”
After nursing school, I had an opportunity to return to my island and be the nurse for the summer. It was then that I met my husband who was a Peace Corps volunteer. He was trying to introduce agriculture to the island so that they would not have starving times. The boxes of military foods were no longer being delivered and the United States wanted them to return to subsistence living. He planted whatever seeds he had packed before leaving home. The watermelons had done remarkably well. Everyone spit the seeds everywhere so soon Wotje was known as the watermelon island. We sat by the lagoon and ate watermelon as night surrounded us. It was so quiet compared to the city and we talked long into the night. He would swim by moonlight and beg me to join him. Finally I confessed I had not learned to swim. The story of my mother's death and my near death in the sea had scared me. He taught me to swim. We took boats to little islands and looked at the coral and fish with masks on. It was the best summer of my life. When summer ended, the full time nurse returned from her training and I went back to Majuro and worked in the hospital. We sent letters and packages on the Friday plane. When his time in the Peace Corps ended, he asked me to marry him. I followed him to the United States where he became a lawyer who fought for human rights; for our rights.
My grandson wants me to be mad about the bombing of Bikini Island. He wants me to feel rage for the mothers who could never have babies or had babies with birth defects. He wants me to seek revenge for the people who died of Leukemia. My husband worked tirelessly for the Marshall Islands, advocating for testing and compensation. He dedicated his life to my home with love and persistence but rarely anger..
The nurse brings me a few gifts from my family.They bring me my Bible that is translated into Marshallese; the one the missionaries gave me as a child. They send the small wooden box where I keep the piece of coral my husband gave me when he asked me to marry him. He always said we would have it made into a ring but we never did. We loved it just the way it was.
“Coral” he tells me is the most wonderful animal in the world.
“It doesn’t look like an animal.” I say.
“This is what they left behind after a long life. They leave a part of themselves to help grow these islands and protect them from the sea. They create places for new coral to attach and grow. I want to be like a coral. I want to leave something behind that is a strong foundation for whatever comes next.”
This was the man I married. He loved the Marshall Islands, I sometimes thought, more than I ever did. He read every book and followed every piece of news. He made sure the children went to cultural events at the church. It was his idea for us all to go back one more time but the cancer came and so he only visited in his dreams and perhaps in death.
As he lay dying in the home we built together, I wrapped his hand around the coral and whispered, “You have built a strong island.”
So many times I nearly died; as a baby escaping from gunfire, from the radiation of atomic bombs, of rising seas and now this virus. I look in the small box. There are postcards and photos of my island with all my favorite trees and the lagoons. There are people smiling and a rainbow and our traditional canoe. It is a box of my life.
Soon my family can no longer come. Everyone is asked to shelter in place. Each home an island, holding on as the sea rises and we build new islands of courage and hope. On the wall is a painting of a rainbow a great grandchild painted and the word “lokwe'' which means hello but also may a rainbow rise to greet you.
