Title

Nuclear nomads: Finding a new island

Type

Journal Article

Authors

Ratliffe, K.

Abstract

This qualitative study describes a small community of people in Hawai’i who were affiliated with Enewetak, an atoll exposed to nuclear testing by the United States after World War II. Pattern matching is used to compare their social and educational conditions to those of other involuntary migrant groups across the world. The Enewetak community is similar to others in its poverty, isolation, outsider status, and discrimination from the dominant culture, and the challenges that those conditions create. Students are perceived to have poor educational achievement and school attendance. A major asset for the Enewetak population is the diasporic nature of the community and the strength of its transnational kin and church structures, which provide advantages that many other involuntary migrant groups do not enjoy.

Citation

Ratliffe, K. (2018). Nuclear nomads: Finding a new island. Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education, 12(3), 139–154.