SPOKANE, Wash. _ They come from a low-lying Pacific island nation synonymous with U.S. nuclear weapons testing during the Cold War. In part because of that troubled history, one-third of the Marshall Islands' population _ roughly 27,000 and growing _ now reside in the United States, where their future is uncertain.
Under a 1986 bilateral agreement, the Marshallese people were permitted to enter the United States as "legal non-immigrants" in return for the U.S. military continuing to operate a weapons testing base in the Marshalls. Many islanders found jobs in meat processing plants in Arkansas, canneries in Oregon and various service industries in Washington state, including in Spokane, where church groups and family helped build a community providing newcomers with employment, homes, education and healthcare.
Now, amid tensions caused by lingering radiation and sea-level rise in the Marshall Islands, it is uncertain the two countries will renew a compact that has tied them together for 33 years. The pact expires in 2023, and if it is not renewed by the two countries, the 27,000 Marshallese in the U.S. will lose their legal status and perhaps be forced to return to an island nation racked by poverty, disease and rising sea levels.
China also has been seeking to increase its influence in the Marshall Islands, where the results of a recent election could complicate the U.S. presence in the Pacific and the fate of Marshallese here.
"It'd be a tragedy if our parliament decides to break from the United States," said Doresty Daniel, who came to Spokane two years ago, by way of Hawaii. "What the United States did in the Marshall Islands is a tragedy. But, what's the alternative? Do we really think China is going to treat us better?"
Many Marshallese expats hope the two sides will patch up their differences, allowing them to stay. But the situation is more unsettled than many have seen in their lifetimes.
In Spokane, thousands of islanders have made the city their home. After English, Marshallese is the second-most spoken language in the school system.
Some of the youngsters were sent here alone _ staying with siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles and friends _ to get an education unavailable back home.
On a recent December day, as freezing rain fell outside Spokane's inner-city Lewis and Clark High School, washing away the graying, sooty snow, a room of Marshallese teens laughed while explaining their familial relationships to a visitor.
"He's my brother," said Atina Jabuwe, 17, pointing to a 17-year-old boy sitting across from her in a small circle of seven students in Shannon Brown's English language development classroom.
"And so is he," she said, motioning to another 17-year-old boy in the circle before turning to three young women, whom she said described as her two sisters and "auntie."
"Well, not my sister-sister or brother-brother," she said as the group laughed. "They're what you would call cousins. But, she," she said, pointing to another young woman in the circle, "is really, truly our auntie."
A string of coral atolls sitting roughly 5,000 miles southwest of Los Angeles, the Marshall Islands was the site of 67 U.S. nuclear weapons tests between 1946 and 1958, which obliterated whole islands and exposed thousands of Marshallese to radiation. With an average elevation of seven feet, it is increasingly vulnerable to the scourges of climate change _ oppressive heat, bleached reefs and flooding.
"I got into a debate with a friend about that," Atina said."Are the islands shrinking or sinking? I say shrinking because the water is moving up. But she said sinking, because they are going under."
Unemployment is estimated at about 36%, and recently the islands have been battered by a record outbreak of dengue fever.
Although the Marshallese in Spokane aren't dealing with these issues directly, they are acutely aware, and worried.
Daniel, for instance, described the island she grew up on in Mili Atoll. "The beach where I played, and the coconut trees I climbed and played under, they are gone. It's just water."
Some students also struggle with the shared history of the two nations, which, as is the case nationwide, is not part of the Spokane schools' curriculum.
"I heard about what the Americans did to us," said Telirose Thomas, 18, a senior and cheerleader at nearby Rogers High School. "It's hard to imagine they did such a thing. It's seems so, well, un-American."
But she intends to return, as do most Marshallese _ even the younger ones who have grown up here.
"My parents work really hard, and they say someday they will go back," said Thomas, who arrived in 2013 and hopes to eventually become a neurosurgeon.
"But I want to be a doctor in the Marshall Islands. I want to be a doctor there because they don't really have any," she said.
