 Think Tech Hawaii civil engagement lives here Good afternoon, and welcome to Pacific partnerships in education. I'm your host Ethan Allen here on Think Tech Hawaii with me today in the Think Tech studio is Paul Hattuck co-host and CEO of Prell and We've got a special treat for you today. Some of you may know the work of Kathy Kizner Marshallese poet Wow the UN a few years ago and got a standing ovation there. She has done a new poem onsite And we're just gonna jump right in that video and show it show it to you I'm coming to meet you. I'm coming to see you. What stories will I find? Will I find an island? Or a tomb? To get to this tomb take a canoe Take a canoe through miles of scattered sun Swallow endless swirling sea Gulp down radioactive lagoon Do not bring flowers or speeches There will be no white stones to scatter along this grave There will be no songs to sing How shall we remember you? You were a whole island once You were bred through trees heavy with green globes of fruit whispering promises of massive canoes Crabs dusted with white sand scuttled through pandanus roofs Beneath looming coconut trees beds of watermelon slept still swollen with juice And you were protected by powerful illoids chiefs birthed from women who could swim pregnant for miles Beneath a full moon Then you became testing ground Nine nuclear weapons consumed you one by one by one engulfed in an inferno of blazing heat You became crater an empty belly Plutonium ground into a concrete slurry filled your hollow caverns. We became two You became concrete shell. You became solidified history Inmovable Unforgettable. You were a whole island once Who remembers you beyond your death? Who would have us forget that you were once green globes of fruits pandanus roots and whispers of canoes? Who knows the stories of the life you led before? Here is a story of a turbo goddess She gifted one of her sons let out a piece of her shell a mountain cow A leathery green fragment hollow as a piece of bar It gave let out the power to transform into anything to houses and trees the shapes of other men Even kindling for the first fire. He almost burned us I'm looking for more stories I look There must be more to this than incinerated trees a cracked dome A rising sea a leaking nuclear waste with no fence There must be more to this than a concrete shell that houses death Here's a story of another shell anointed with power Layla used it to transform into kindling for the first fire He gave this fire to a small boy the boy almost burned his entire village to the ground Licks of fire left from skin and bones from strands of coconut leaves While the boy cried that I laughed Laughed This is a story of a people on fire. We pretend it is not burning all of us Here is the story Of the ways we've been tricked the lies. We've been fed It's not poisonous anymore Your illnesses are normal You're fine You're fine My belly is the crater empty for stories and answers Only questions Hard as concrete who gave them this power Anointed them with the power To burn I think that's a pretty powerful statement That's an incredible video Paul you can tell us a little bit about how prel got involved in this in this project One of the things prel wants to start doing is being a voice for issues in the region that most people don't know of And how many people have heard of the ruin at dome? We do know that there was some nuclear testing in the marshals But what most people don't know is there were over 67 nuclear tests done in the marshals 80 of all the nuclear power of those explosions that the us has ever tested took place in the in the marshals So the big tests were done there and a lot of people don't know this history And they don't know there's a huge dome on a small island Which is currently starting to leak radio radiation out into the surrounding lagoon And with the help of of kathy who's well known as a poetess and a voice from the region The beautiful cinematography of dan lin and especially the support of people like pamel middier We're able to now start getting stories like out like that out to a greater audience Absolutely this this needs to be known. I mean clearly this is a it's a major issue that we essentially dislocated a bunch of people off their traditional homelands and then Ruined the homelands for all time basically. Yeah, we want to we wanted to spread it here too We know that over the last couple years there's more people from the marshals and the FSM moved to hawaii There's been a bit of attention We think maybe this may evoke some more sympathy from the locals here when they understand These are people who've lost their land and were told that they were helping protect the world during these experiments and these tests And we should be maybe a little bit more welcoming to say come here because they have no place else to go Right, right. I mean the whole land area the marsh lylins is really miniscule relatively small number of square miles because it's just a little thin Sort of sandbars as it were uh and now parts of it have been Ruined for all time basically the people still cannot live In certain parts of that certainly Yeah, they'll never be able to go home and even the people living in n-o-wet talk They can't sell their fish. They can't sell their handicrafts the idea that they're very close to this active area of radioactive toxic poison makes it difficult to have any sort of viable economy Right, right. They're they're not going to get any tourism there Yeah, um as you say the the because the because that dome is leaking, but Lagoon there is actually contaminated and yeah, it's You really don't want to be eating plutonium, huh? No, that's a very bad idea And I've had people ask why can't they just move to another island? And that's the difference between maybe western or mainland american thinking Where we can move to oklahoma or montana There's plenty of open land on small islands all the land belongs to a clan or belongs to a family You just can't up and move on to someone else's land and those islands are very small So they have no place else to go So they've gone to places like ebi where there's 12,000 people living on point two nine square miles of land And so they're looking for new places and they're coming here Yeah, and I people we think sometimes of oahu is a small island But oahu is gigantic really compared to any of the islands and the marsh islands Virtually none of those have anything more than maybe what 250 yards wide at any point If you ever get to majaro, sometimes the island is the street You can look out your right hand window your left hand window. There's the lagoon. There's the ocean I think the highest point of land is six feet above sea level and that's a man made bridge Except for now mount majaro there there don't actually has about four stories worth of stuff piled up But again, that's that's another issue on small islands right? What do they do with the waste and we saw in that video what they They had to do because that that dome was actually made in the 1970s right before that The island was essentially littered with There was reactive material spread out all over the place and they just went kind of shoveled into the hole Turned it into a concrete slurry and covered it up And the u.s. Soldiers that went in there have faced all sorts of issues with cancers as they've grown older Right. Yeah, so I was just talking with a doctor recently on who had been in radiation conference And he says yeah, well more than 20 percent of them have Have various fulfill elements that are pretty pretty clearly triggered by that And that was they were only exposed for a relatively brief time and many years after the event It's it's it's sort of appalling it because they at one point actually allow people to return to at least to To bikini right just a few years after many of these tests were done People went back and they were told everything was cleaned up and didn't take long for them to realize that that was a mistake The islanders completely trusted what they were being told And so they were told please leave so we can do conduct these tests. It's going to benefit the world They had no idea why they were leaving And as you know, there were some islanders who were fairly close to some of the larger tests like castle bravo Who were impacted by the fallout? Oh, yeah, it's it's a sad chapter in our history One that's very difficult to get past But I believe we need a lot more sympathy for the people of the marshals and for inna wet talk and bikini Who are still dealing with this 60 something years later as we hear even now words like nuclear Bombs and nuclear were kind of being bandied about The ways they they should never be used again Exactly this is this is very a very good reminder that this stuff You don't really want to unleash this kind of force in the world. Uh, it it it really You not only can kill awful people but just destroys land in an ugly ugly way The islands were effectively those islands were effectively sterilized I mean they've had to replant the trees just to get trees back on the island because Every tree on the island was killed. So now it's uh It's a sobering chapter here. We're gonna uh, when we come back after our break We're gonna have an interview with with uh, Kathy kitchener who uh, is the poet is there who did that And but before we do that, we are actually going to take a brief break right now Host for young talents making way here on think tech Hawaii We talk every Tuesday at 11 a.m About things that matters to tech matter to science to the people of Hawaii with some extraordinary guests The students of our schools who are participating in science fair So young talents making way every Tuesday at 11 a.m only on think tech Hawaii mahalo And they're back here on pacific partnerships in education with me Ethan Allen your host don't think tech Hawaii and paul had a co-host of pacific partnerships in education And we were just watching I know we did this very powerful video about the legacy of the nuclear testing it's It's truly hard sometimes to understand how how we could do this how how we sort of How the u.s. Got to that stage and as you say when people on the island now Resent marshallies coming and moving here, which they of course have a right to do from the compact free association It's it's good to be reminded here, right? They've they've given up a lot for this country I mean they gave a plan they made a dramatic sacrifice, which I don't think was fully explained to them at the time They're still dealing with issues of of high rates of thyroid cancer and other sorts of cancers They can never go home So yes, I think we could be a little bit more sympathetic to their play right. Yeah Their rates. Yeah, as you pointed out some cancers are 10 20 40 times the what the general public are So they clearly got Many many of them got heavy doses and it's Caused long-term health impacts and interestingly enough the marshallies are specifically excluded from getting covered by medicaid too Yeah, there's interesting studies on what the rights are of the people that were near arizona new mexico When tests were done there versus what the rights of the marshallies get when it comes to health care or or Payouts for some of the the court issues that have arisen from the testing that was done And again in that sub-population of the American soldiers who cleaned up that mess in the 70s and you know all their Issues, but they're facing the same issues what they're being told is they're not facing any different rates of cancer The normal 60 year olds might face So they feel like they're they're being punished for doing things they didn't understand How serious they were at the time they were just following orders and obeying and helping clean up. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's a sad a sad chapter and let's at this point jump in and Bring up the video. We talked to had a chance yesterday to talk with kathy when she was on island here Briefly, I was hoping to get her actually on this show But she had to leave so we did our next best thing Chatted with her briefly and if we'll run that video Thanks for sitting down talking with me kathy you and deanna made a really wonderful video here Can you tell me why sort of what was it inspiration for this? Yeah, so the poem we created that's it's a poem video called an anointed and it's all about the rinded dome Which is located in any way the gato on the marshal islands So this was mainly actually an educational tool What we were really hoping to do was raise awareness on the existence of this dome So it has gotten a lot of features on news clippings lately like newspapers and you know news agencies have been coming out to to showcase it My project was a little bit different in the sense that it was meant to be kind of an artistic project And so what we did was I I've done poem videos from a lot of you know different locations And they're usually very simple straightforward. This became a lot more elaborate You know through my partnership with dan lin who's a photographer and also works with us here at pro And so Uh, well, we essentially what we're trying to do is raise awareness on this dome You know the fact that there is a community living downstream for me just 15 miles and that you know, it's it's it's a catastrophe really because it's it's a huge You know huge nuclear waste site. It's it's people are saying that it's leaking now leaking radioactive waste And it's this legacy this leftover legacy from the nuclear testing time period that was conducted by the us. Yeah I mean that then sort of I guess obviously my my next question, which is why now right why now? Yeah You know, I guess in the context like I'm not An international relations expert at all. Um, but we have these kind of you know, looming threats and issues kind of up in the air right now between um, the united states and and and north korea and then there was that missile scare here in boy and um, and then now there's this attack recently that uh, the us has decided to You know carry forward and so there's all these issues of militarization that are you know, um That are definitely making this world a lot scarier And so I guess this is this plays into that conversation, you know to show this is what happens, you know to To islands and to people and this is that you know a direct effect of militarization and so um I think that I think it definitely brings to light that this is a long-standing issue But this is not a new issue that this is an old issue and that you know The people that are affected first are the people who are you know more likely to be pushed aside, you know people of color people of um indigenous people People from the land who are easily what people, you know say it's forgotten in a sense, right, right? So that brings up the next point who do you see as the audience for this? Okay, so as the audience, I guess I see It's in english. So obviously it's an english speaking audience But I also understand that there's going to be a lot of marshalese people viewing it, you know And a lot of a lot of young people viewing it as well And so I guess it's mainly, you know, it's supposed to be meant for the outside For outsiders because of the fact that it is in english But there's like nuggets in there that I've you know, I've left for for a marshalese person that might you know Be able to understand it a little better. So You know like that might be able to appreciate it on a different level So like um, I talk about, you know white stones gathering white stones on graves So that's a part of a ritual that marshalese people have called Eirak, which is what we do at the end of It's our last funeral right in a sense. And so I do that I bring white I collect white stones. I bring these stones in this basket that we usually use to the dome And so You know, I like to say that in a sense the creating this video creating the poem and then performing it on the dome became a ritual for me In almost like a healing ritual between me and that island, you know between my relationship to that island And so it's it's very personal in a sense I'm not saying that this is how all marshalese people are going to view it and this is not how all You know marshalese people might view their relationship to that island But this is just something something that was very personal to me the visuals that dad added for any with You know that elevated the poem to another level So initially this poem is meant if you just look at the text, it's a very mournful sad piece But when you see the visuals of like children jumping into the water, you know of the elders Yeah, it's it's you know, it's also became, you know in a sense what I I saw is that through the poem and the through the video Aspect, you know adding that the visuals to the piece made it also like a love poem to the people of any weather And that's what I hope, you know, I hope that I'd be in any weather would would appreciate that on that level that it would you know To show that the community is thriving and that they're really beautiful people despite this horrific legacy Yeah, so is that really the message you want to leave people with it? I guess That's the hope and resiliency In a sense, I mean, I think that I want people to be aware of it as an issue I want people to start thinking of solutions, you know, I'm not constant. Yeah, exactly. It's tough, right? It is it's really tough and I'm not saying that we need to come up with it right now I mean, I mean, obviously this is something that would take a team of experts, you know It would take a team of experts to to talk it through, you know people with law or yeah with law backgrounds and scientific I don't have any of that. I mean artists. So this is next. This is this is not necessarily creating a solution It's just like let's talk about this, you know, yeah, let's bring this into our conversations Yeah, so that's all it's really just a starting piece Well, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed talking with you. Thank you for producing this amazing video. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me So it was great to have the chance to talk to Kathy a little bit and get get her perspective on that We'd seen initially a rough cut that Dan had brought in but it's nice to see the the final version And hear from Kathy a little bit about that So You to sort of circle back you had said early on that prella was really embarked on Trying to get more of the word out about important regional issues So what might what might be next on prell's Agenda that well, we we got a good chance to sit down with Kathy yesterday. As you may know, she's working with prell now That was Dan's first film too and it's beautiful cinematography. Very proud of him So we've been thinking of some other stories in the region We'd like to tell between six and eight stories a year of the region So for example, many people don't know of the impending ecological disaster in chook lagoon If you study your history, the japanese navy large chunks that were sunk there during world war two and those ships are filled With thousands of tons of oil Those ships are starting to break up And when they give way and all that oil bubbles to the surface, which has been you know below the water now for 60 plus years it will destroy chook lagoon There they don't know how to solve that problem The the japanese don't need to go in they after world war two They signed a treaty pretty much indemnifying them from from any of that the u.s Hasn't done anything chook doesn't have the technology or the money to go in So we see that as an issue that that needs to be explored Uh, you you've been doing some work on climate change You know islands like in the marshals where their highest points are just a few inches above sea level are feeling You know, and if you get a chance to see Kathy's video that she did Montefeli pennum in front of the united nations a powerful powerful story How people are especially during the higher tides watching the ocean go from one side of the island across to the other What's going to happen to them to them in the next 10 or 15 years? Even issues surrounding the compact and the freedom with which they can leave as The federated states of micronesia and the marshals are facing some difficulties Free entry under the compact has made it so easy for young people to leave This brain drain is impacting the development of those islands If everybody's moving here or to guam or to the mainland who is left behind to solve those issues So we see a number of things that pral can start to do That will give a voice to those regional issues That can maybe help bring some attention because we we need some help That's why we appreciate groups like you know and pam omidian herd leadership Helping to bring this to to a greater audience Yeah, excellent. It's why events like marshall is education day that I had featured a young woman who is organizing that And she was pointing out that yeah, they're working very hard to try to keep their young people there to try to Be sure they can have opportunities to get education But provide incentives to bring them back because they recognize that's that's key to Surviving as a country. You can't you can't have your own young people just leave, right? Yeah, and about one third of all marshall's and micronesians have left And are now many of them living here and in the mainland Their children many of their children have never seen those home islands So as they assimilate we're losing a chunk of the world that is very very rich in culture And the question is what's that region going to be like 50 years from now? Right, right Most of those islands are going to be Virtually uninhabitable if this if sea level rise continues which shows every sign of doing, right? And it's it's not really just the marshall's right. There's I mean there's Islands there's outer islands in chook and yeah, which are very low-lying islands They're facing some of the same issues as the salt water rises. It's difficult to grow food Tarot and banana plants are being inundated with salt water What what does their future look like and who is there to help address these issues? Right and curibos and the Maldives Same kind of issue. So it's not just one or two tiniest places. It's an Actually a large number of different cultures and countries across the south of pacific here And we like to say we've mentioned this before on the show. We're the canary in the coal mine Sure, these may not be You know issues that people in middle of kansas are facing right now But they are going to be impacted sometime in the future and If we can't help our younger brothers and sisters on these small islands What kind of people are we then? Yeah, absolutely. This is what partnerships and education are all about right? Yes, sir Excellent. Well, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. And it was a pleasure watching these things with you and talking with you As always and until next time. I hope you'll come back and see us again on pacific partnerships and education