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Amnesia Atomica:
Reflections on the Twin Existential Threats
From 1946-1958, the U.S. government detonated 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands as part of the U.S. nuclear testing program. Equivalent to 1.6 Hiroshima-sized bomb detonated daily over the twelve year period, the tests have ongoing biological, ecological, and cultural consequences for the people of the Marshall Islands.
This exhibit, which is facilitated by RTT and MEI, showcases the work of Marshallese youth living in diaspora through art to raise awareness of the twin existential threats of nuclear testing and climate change on the Marshall Islands, its people and lands.
Take me to
Project: A Journey Home
The intergenerational impact of nuclear testing
on Marshallese diaspora via community poem and animated video presented by Reverse the Trend
Take me to
MEI is a 501c3 not-for-profit organization located in Springdale, Arkansas, where the highest concentration of Marshallese in the continental United States reside. Our mission is to raise awareness of Marshallese history and culture, including the nuclear testing legacy and the impact of climate change, and to facilitate dialogue to foster positive social change.
Take me to
The Center for Nuclear Studies @ Columbia University, K1 Project, aims to promote informed debate on issues related to nuclear technologies and proliferation. via multi-faceted approaches from filmmaking to policy to scientific research.
Reverse the Trend: Save Our People, Save Our Planet amplifies the voices of young people primarily coming from frontline communities, who have been directly affected by nuclear weapons and climate change. RTT was established on January 21, 2021. We are fiscally sponsored by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
Our motto is that youth must rise up and take action!
We operate at the international, national and grassroots levels by engaging directly with youth from frontline and marginalized communities through our partners and advisors. We are heavily involved in international peace and security discussions as well as environmental justice initiatives at the United Nations and regional engagement. We believe that it is necessary for youth to engage and interact with experts and diplomats from their region and the international community to ensure that youth voices are expressed on pressing issues related to international peace, nuclear disarmament, and environmental justice.
Our Coordinators: Lovely Umayam of Bombshelltoe Policy x Arts Collective, Danielle Samler of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, and Christian N. Ciobanu of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
“A Journey Home,”
a community poem and animated video presented by Reverse The Trend, Bombshelltoe Policy x Arts Collective, Marshallese Educational Initiative, and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Foundation
The intergenerational impact of nuclear testing
on Marshallese diaspora
“A Journey Home,” written by six Marshallese students living in Springdale, Arkansas, is a community poem honoring the many meanings of home: as Arkansas, as the Marshall Islands, and as Earth that needs to be protected for the next generation. Springdale, Arkansas is home to the largest population of Marshallese in the United States. Local organizations estimate more than 12,000 Marshallese live in Springdale, with the population expected to increase as new families immigrate and existing ones expand. Many of the youth have only been to the Marshall Islands once when they were very young, while others have not visited at all. But many of them are beginning to learn about the Marshall Islands' terrible nuclear legacy: their native homeland was the site of 67 nuclear tests conducted by the United States from 1946 to 1958. Overall, three hundred nuclear tests were conducted in the Pacific region. These nuclear tests inflicted both long-lasting environmental harm and humanitarian suffering amongst the citizens of the Pacific region.
”A Journey Home” is a collaborative product between the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Marshallese Educational Initiative, Bombshelltoe Policy x Arts Collective, and the Reverse the Trend Docuseries, a creative platform for high school and college students to engage in art-making as a form of self-expression, and agent of change for climate justice and nuclear nonproliferation.
Animated video series (trailer) and audio of the poem
Written by Daphne Peter, Marcina Langrine, Joyce Hirose,
Neimony Netwan, Trina Marty, and Benetick Kabua-Maddison;
Edited by Lovely Umayam; Directed and Animated by Catherine Killough
Group Photo with Marshallese Youth, Summer 2021
A Journey Home Trailer
Animated by Catherine Killough
Recording of the full poem
“A Journey Home”
performed by Marcina Langrine
Video statement by Reverse the Trend Producer,
Lovely Umayam
ABOUT LOVELY UMAYAM - Lovely Umayam is a writer and a nuclear nonproliferation expert. She is the founder of the Bombshelltoe Policy and Arts Collective, a creative organization pushing for an active exploration of arts, culture and history to promote nuclear nonproliferation, arms control and disarmament. Bombshelltoe is the first-prize recipient of the U.S. Department of State’s Innovation in Arms Control Challenge in 2013. Lovely is also a Non-Resident Fellow at the Stimson Center, where she conducts research on technologies like blockchain (distributed ledger technology) and their potential applications for tracking nuclear materials and protecting related facilities. She spearheads Reverse The Trend's Docuseries.
Video Statement by Director and Animator, Catherine Killough
ABOUT CATHERINE KILLOUGH:
Catherine Killough is a Korean American visual storyteller and emerging animator. Prior to her collaboration with Bombshelltoe Policy x Arts Collective and RTT, she worked on advocacy campaigns for nuclear disarmament, demilitarization, and peace-building efforts to bring an end to the Korean War. She is currently a Communications Fellow with ChangeWire. She has an MA in Asian Studies from Georgetown University and a BA in English Literature from the University of Arizona.
Marshallese Educational Initiative
The Marshallese Educational Initiative is a 501c3 not-for-profit organization located in Springdale, Arkansas, where the highest concentration of Marshallese in the continental United States reside.
We were founded in July 2013 by non-Marshallese educators and Marshallese community members to raise awareness of Marshallese history and culture and facilitate dialogue by blending academic research with community outreach.
Today, we offer a variety of services and programming specific to women, youth, and seniors, and the agencies that serve them, as well as programming in the arts and humanities.
One of our primary goals is to raise awareness of the ongoing biological, ecological, and cultural consequences of U.S. nuclear testing and
As an intercultural organization, we actively promote and facilitate dialogue among diverse communities to foster positive social change. Our primary focus was and remains, education.
These art pieces were created by Marshallese youth who are working with MEI to learn about our nation’s history and the ongoing consequences of our shared nuclear legacy with the United States. I hope these beautiful pieces will encourage people to learn more about our nuclear and climate stories and help us achieve a nuclear-free and livable planet for all.
- Benetick Kabua Maddison, MEI Assistant Director
& Project Specialist for Youth, Nuclear, and Climate Issues
Learn about US nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands and its ongoing consequences
MEI video
Columbia University
K=1 Project |
Center for Nuclear Studies
Director: Ivana Nikolic Hughes
Founding Director: Emlyn Hughes
From K=1 Project:
Though recent years have witnessed a revitalization of scholarly and public interest in the topic of nuclear technologies, there has not been a corresponding increase in the extent of involvement by scientists in the pursuit of needed policy and the education of the public.
The K=1 Project, Center for Nuclear Studies at Columbia University, seeks to rectify this situation by providing opportunities to prepare future scientists and scholars to become leaders and experts on the topic of nuclear technologies.
The K=1 Project is centered around its undergraduate programs, reflecting the view that the younger generation must be prepared today for the heavy responsibilities they will inherit in the future. Through these programs, students have had the chance to tackle complicated issues related to nuclear weapons and power in a hands-on manner and from the perspective of various disciplines.
Through the available links to short videos, interviews, articles, and research papers, anyone can delve into a related topic and obtain a deeper understanding of nuclear proliferation and nuclear energy production.
Go to...
K=1 Project's educational videos breaking down complex nuclear weapons and energy related concepts
By: Bassel El-Rewini
K=1 Project founding director, Emlyn Hughes, speaks for France 24 English on the pressing issues surrounding nuclear arms and energy use.
In a series of studies and projects conducted in the Marshall Islands in the midst of the Pacific Ocean, K=1 Project researchers found that the effects of the United States’ nuclear weapons testing remain apparent more than sixty years after the bomb detonations ended in the atoll chain.
2022 Documentary on the Marshallese diaspora community in mainland United States
A film by Redd Coltrane, produced by the K=1 Project and presented by the K=1 Project and the Marshallese Educational Initiative
K=1 Project research in the Marshall Islands
Members of the K=1 Project, Center for Nuclear Studies, have traveled to the Marshall Islands more than a dozen times and have engaged in several research expeditions in the region. The research trips were conducted in an attempt to learn about the Marshallese nuclear legacy and to assess radiological conditions stemming from the US nuclear weapon testing program, which took place between 1946 and 1958.
On May 20, 2017, Professor Emlyn Hughes and eight undergraduate student-researchers from Columbia University’s K=1 Project, Center for Nuclear Studies, boarded The Windward off the coast of Ebeye in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), a country in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean. This was the beginning of a research voyage that would take them across the northern Marshall Atolls, ground zero for the 67 nuclear tests that the United States Government conducted in the 1940s and 1950s. The testing resulted in severe radioactive contamination of numerous islands, which continues to have impact on Marshallese society to this day. The 2017 trip was the third of a series of trips members of the K=1 Project have conducted on the Marshall Islands, with the goal of better understanding the history and the consequences of the nuclear tests on the environment and well-being of their inhabitants.
2014 trip
The first research trip to the Marshall Islands in 2014 focused on social and legal understanding and culminated in the production of the documentary Marshalling Peace. This documentary is informed by testimonies of Marshallese people, Marshall Island government representatives, as well as US nuclear experts, including former Secretary of Defense, Bill Perry. It describes the legal battle the country undertook against nuclear-weapon states for their failure to comply with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to engage in meaningful disarmament efforts. Through this experience, our center became interested in ascertaining current radiological conditions on the affected islands, as a way of helping the Marshallese people in their decision-making related to resettlement. At the same time, K=1 Project members realized that the story of these islands and their people is an important one to continue to share with the world to help raise global awareness of the danger of nuclear weapons.
K=1 Project Student-led documentary: Follow the Marshall Islands' legal team as they head to battle with some of the most powerful countries in the world, in an effort to rid the world of nuclear weapons.
2015 trip
The K=1 Project team returned to the islands in the summer of 2015, with the goal of measuring external gamma radiation levels on some of the northern Marshall islands (Enewetak, Medren, and Runit on Enewetak Atoll; Bikini and Nam on Bikini Atoll; and Rongelap on Rongelap Atoll), all of which were exposed to high levels of radioactive fallout during the testing era. These measurements provide an estimate of the external radiation a person living on the islands is exposed to in a given year. Results from this first trip suggest that external gamma radiation levels are above the standard for total radiation exposure, agreed upon by the government of the United States and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) (100 mrem/y = 1 mSv/y) on the island of Bikini. For other islands, where external gamma radiation is below the agreed upon standard for total exposure, the study highlighted the critical need for more independent measurements, in particular of exposure through contaminated food. Our results were published in a research publication with five junior women student authors (six women authors total) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
2016 publication in PNAS. Radiological results from the 2015 K1 Project research trip to the Marshall Islands.
2016 trip
The K=1 Project team returned to the Marshall Islands in 2016. Professor Emlyn Hughes led a trip along with Glenn Alcalay, Inge Hughes, and Jenni Hill to conduct further study and meet with Marshallese leaders. Inge and Jenni also created a short film featuring Marshallese youth and their experiences growing up in the RMI.
2017 trip
K=1 Project’s trip in the summer of 2017 aimed to address further questions related to the issue of northern atoll resettlement. Are the fruits, which are the main food product grown in the Marshall Islands, contaminated by radiation, and to what extent? Is the soil from which the fruit get the nutrients and water contaminated? The K=1 Project team measured radiation levels in fruit and soil in some of the islands of the Bikini Atoll, Utirik Atoll, Rongelap Atoll and Enewetak Atoll. Fruit collected included coconuts, pandanus and breadfruit, staples of the native Marshallese diet. Background gamma radiation levels were additionally measured in areas of interest not tested during the 2015 trip, such as Enyu Island and additional locations in Bikini Island, on Bikini Atoll; Ekuren and Japtan Islands on Enewetak Atoll; Naen Island on Rongelap Atoll; and Utirik, Aon and Elluk Islands, on Utirik Atoll. Prior to the 2017 trip, members of the K=1 Project team were also trained to scuba dive with the goal of collecting ocean sediment for further radiation measurements. For instance, finding the depth of maximum radiation in the ocean sediment provides insight into the levels of radiation to which benthic species are exposed. Given that radiation found in the top layers of the sediment may travel through the food chain, thus having persisting effects on both the native ecosystem and the diet of the Marshallese people, this is an important contribution to the full radiological picture. Diving skills also allowed the team to explore the hidden history, as they dove to some of the ships sunk as a consequence of the nuclear tests, including the Saratoga.
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2018 Project
Our team also went to the Bikini, Enewetak, and Rongelap Atolls in July/August of 2018, when we made follow up measurements on external background gamma radiation levels, collected soil samples, and collected sediment cores to ascertain contamination in the ocean sediment. The data from this trip and the 2017 trip were reported on July 15, 2019 in three PNAS publications: one on background measurements and soil, one on food, and one on ocean sediment in the Bravo crater. You can read about these three papers and our findings here. The studies were also widely covered by the national and international media.
Midwestern Atoll
By Redd Coltrane
Presented by the K1 Project and Marshallese Education Initiative
ABOUT REDD - Redd Coltrane, Class of 2021 at Columbia College studied Music and Sociology and was also at The Juilliard School in Timothy Cobb’s double bass studio. Originally from Columbus, Ohio, Coltrane has spent much of his life exploring storytelling through various art forms, the latest of which being filmmaking. In his music career, he has been invited on various orchestral tours throughout North America, South America, and Europe and has been honored with numerous local, state, and national awards.
Redd is now pursuing an MFA in Film & Television Production at the University of Southern California and remains involved in the K=1 Project.