Marshallese woman, Marshall Islands, by Chewy Lin Photo & Film

If we’re talking about nuclear justice, please don’t forget the Marshall Islands.

Many people have already pointed out how the Oppenheimer film glosses over the effects of nuclear testing on Indigenous communities in the United States, and it’s undeniable that more people need to know about this. More attention also needs to be paid to the Marshall Islands, where the legacy of US nuclear testing still affects the Marshallese people to this day. Most Americans don’t even know where the Marshall Islands is—let alone what the US government did there during the Cold War.

Between 1946 and 1958, the United States detonated 67 nuclear weapons on the Marshall Islands, which was then a US trust territory. The tests yielded the same level of radiation as 7,000 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs, or 1.6 Hiroshima bombs every day for 12 years. The US government didn’t even evacuate some islanders from close proximity to the testing grounds. The fallout—which spread across the islands and beyond—caused deaths, miscarriages, stillbirths, radiation sickness, cancer, and many other health problems, with high cancer rates persisting to this day. Whole islands remain uninhabitable, and generations have been displaced.

It gets even worse. The US government knew that certain islands were too dangerous for human habitation and resettled the Marshallese there anyway; then US scientists studied the effects of radiation on them without their knowledge or consent in a secret program called Project 4.1. The US government secretly brought radioactive waste from Nevada and buried it in a concrete dome on Enewetak Atoll that is now vulnerable to erosion from the rising seas. And the US military also used the Marshall Islands for at least a dozen biological weapons tests. The US government did all of this to the Marshall Islands while it was a trust territory under US protection.

But in the decades since nuclear testing ended—even since the Marshall Islands’ independence in 1986—it has never received full compensation from the United States. Never.

There is a lot more that everyone should know about this history, and I recommend starting here to learn more:

It's well-known among Godzilla fans that the 1954 Castle Bravo H-bomb test at Bikini Atoll, which irradiated the crew of the Lucky Dragon No. 5, was a major influence on the monster's original film. But that was just one of the 67 nuclear weapons the U.S. tested in the Marshall Islands from 1946 to 1958, blasts which still reverberate. The radiation they released has left Bikini Atoll uninhabitable to this day, and continues to affect residents' health.

Godzilla has visited the Marshall Islands before. Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah reveals that he lived on the fictitious Lagos Island as an ordinary dinosaur and stumbled into a World War II battlefield before an H-bomb test mutated him. (Well, he was mutated a different way after the Futurians altered the timeline, but let's not get into that.) The Monsterverse reimagines the Castle Bravo test as a covert attempt to kill him, as shown in Godzilla (2014), Godzilla: Awakening, and (soon) Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. The Marshallese themselves, however, are absent from King Ghidorah and appear only fleetingly in the Monsterverse tales.

What I'm getting at is that we're long overdue for a Godzilla story that centers the Marshall Islands, and ideally comes from the Marshall Islands. Japan and the U.S. have had him to themselves for too long; it's time Toho let the other country involved in his birth take a turn. The low-lying Marshall Islands face a very real "minus one" scenario as climate change causes the sea to rise—and potentially breach a massive concrete dome there that's full of American nuclear waste. Godzilla might be the perfect vessel to carry that story, and the U.S.'s nuclear legacy there, to a wider audience. After all, how many of us would know about the Lucky Dragon without him?

Runit Dome. Concrete sarcophagus containing 73,000 cubic meters of radioactive debris from 68 nuclear detonations and biological warfare remains on Marshall Islands.

Marshall Islands stick chart compared to Google Earth

A so-called meddo (a map showing the location of certain islands and the sea areas between them), sailing map of the Marshall Islands archipelago, date unknown 

These so-called "stick chart" consist of thin strips of coconut fruit and midribs or pandanus roots that were bound together with coconut fibres in straight or curved lines to form a frame-like structure. At various points in the frame, small shells were tied together using two or more sticks. The shells and the joints represent the location of the islands, while the sticks represent the currents and swells in the sea. Stick maps are basically rough maps of the ocean. This map was used by the Micronesian settlers in the Marshall Islands, but it was not used by everyone. Only initiates were generally allowed to use them and knowledge was passed down from father to son. When exactly such maps came into use is not known, but the islands were settled around 2000 BC and it is assumed that such charts already existed then.

I am pleased to be showing this collage at the Tension Fine Art group show Extempore 24 from 22 February – 2 March 2024

Maps to the Stars

Framed, 30cm x 40cm

Collage and pencil

£135

This collage incorporates a landscape by the wonderful painter Agnes Pelton and a Marshall Island stick chart, used to navigate the sea. The pencil grid is a nod to Agnes Martin (another great painter and source of inspiration), whilst doubling as a template for a cubomania.

Tension Fine Art

135 Maple Rd,

London

SE20 8LP

Gallery is open Thurs – Sat 11am – 5pm.

Please reblog for a bigger sample size!

If you have any fun fact about the Marshall Islands, please tell us and I'll reblog it!

Be respectful in your comments. You can criticize a government without offending its people.

Les troupes d'assaut américaines attendent de progresser vers l'intérieur des terres – Bataille de Kwajalein – Campagne des îles Gilbert et Marshall – Guerre du Pacifique – Atoll de Kwajalein – Iles marshall – 31 janvier 1944

Marshallese dancers, from Marshall Islands, by virtualdubaiexpo

Flag Wars Bonus Round

Majuro, Marshall Islands

Paul Jacoulet

Young Girl of Jaluit, Marshalls

1939