The Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore will host an End the Wars vigil on Thurs., July 5 from 5 to 6:30 PM in Mount Vernon at Centre & Charles Sts. The Pledge gathers in Mount Vernon on the first Thursday of the month to protest U.S. wars. Call Max at 410-366-1637. The article below illustrates why we must protest these maddening wars.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/us/for-marshall-islanders-hopes-and-troubles-in-arkansas.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120705
July 4, 2012
For Pacific Islanders, Hopes and Troubles in Arkansas
By BRET SCHULTE
SPRINGDALE, Ark. — Melisa Laelan is a royal princess far from her Pacific Island home, presiding instead over a landlocked realm of grain silos and poultry processors.
Her subjects here are 4,300 Marshall Islanders — the largest enclave in the continental United States — and many of them are adrift in a culture that confounds them.
“I feel obligated to protect my people,” said Ms. Laelan, 34, who spoke of her exalted heritage with reluctance. In the islands, she said, “it’s a very common thing to expect that someone from a royal family will provide for you.”
Her uncle is a tribal king who owns much of the land in Majuro, the capital. But Ms. Laelan herself has no riches to share. Her only power is a meager one: persuasion. A single mother, she provides for her 7-year-old son, Zion, with money she earns as a court translator. They live in a small apartment next to a discount muffler shop.
She enlisted in the United States Army after she graduated from her Marshallese high school. In 2005, she entered the civilian world and, like thousands of Marshallese before her, came to Arkansas.
Almost all of them live in this working-class town in the northwest corner of the state, where Tyson Foods has its headquarters. They arrived here hoping to escape poverty and poor health: their nation ranks third in tuberculosis deaths per capita. Diabetes is rampant. Leprosy still lurks.
The promise of a steady income is a big draw. Tyson’s minimum starting wage is $8.70 an hour, with benefits, a relative fortune for Marshallese. But the islanders discover that they will need to buy a car to get to work and, before that, that they will need to pass a driver’s test, which is not offered in their language. Many must pay rent for the first time. They puzzle over the American obsession with time, and they are ignorant of bureaucracy and health care systems.
“Their language is a problem; their culture is a problem,” said Kathy Grisham, executive director of the Community Clinic in Springdale, which treats low-income patients. “They don’t have a word for prevention. They don’t have words for all the body parts.”
Springdale, which is heavily Hispanic, is well equipped with teachers of English as a second language and with special programs, but “I’m having to start at a different level with my Marshallese,” said Deborah Hardwick-Smith, the principal of Parson Hills Elementary School, which is 30 percent Marshallese. School administrators struggle with tardiness and absences among the Marshallese.
Ms. Hardwick-Smith started giving alarm clocks to parents as presents. Last semester, she created a program to educate parents about American life and expectations for students. Now, “I’m seeing higher scores with my kids,” she said.
That is good news, because the number of Marshallese is likely to grow. The islands and the United States have been intertwined since World War II. The United States has detonated at least 67 nuclear bombs in its 750,000-square-mile territory. The radioactive fallout rendered some islands uninhabitable. And United States military operations there are powered by American processed food, beloved by locals but blamed for the explosion in diabetes.
A 1986 compact gave the United States continued military access, while the Marshallese got the right to work and live in the United States indefinitely without visas. More than a third of the Marshallese — about 20,000 — have seized the opportunity. Marshallese politicians routinely fly the 6,000 miles to campaign here, and in 2008 the Marshall Islands opened a consulate on Spring Street, above a barbershop.
The Marshallese trace their roots in Springdale to one person, John Moody, who arrived in the 1980s to work in a Tyson plant. He sent back word of plentiful jobs. Word spread through the islanders’ family-centered culture. “This place got a population” because “everybody is related,” said Jacob Masha, 34, who left Majuro in 1990 and is a distant cousin to Mr. Moody.
The increasing numbers add urgency to Ms. Laelan’s cause. Health care is a top concern. Her mother, who was uninsured, died in Arkansas the same day that she learned that she had a brain tumor. “To this day, we are still losing people because of a lack of services,” Ms. Laelan said.
Still, a clinic that caters to the Marshallese opened in November. Ms. Laelan enlisted some friends to form an advocacy group, the Arkansas Coalition of Marshallese. She has also teamed up with a Marshallese congregation of Seventh-day Adventists to plant community gardens. A nutritious weekly supper is held at the pastor’s home.
At a supper in June, about 40 people — many of the women in traditional flower print dresses — crammed into a small duplex. Kevin Harkey, a member of Ms. Laelan’s coalition, was disappointed by the turnout. “We usually have more than this,” he said. But he was pleased with the punctuality. “We’re trying to get people to practice being on time.”
The dinner was part worship service and part gospel of good eating. There was vegetable soup, but a bowl of doughnut holes, too. Mr. Harkey stopped a teenager from drinking a soda. “He knows that can lead to diabetes,” he said. The teenager put the can down and grabbed a doughnut hole.
A few days later, Ms. Laelan was out working on another cause: persuading state officials to offer a Marshallese-language driver’s test. Few can pass the English test, but many must drive to work or to the doctor’s office. As a court translator, she sees Marshallese incur fines and jail time. Some lose their jobs.
Ms. Laelan and lawyers from Legal Aid of Arkansas have petitioned the State Police, which administers the test, and are considering filing complaints with the federal Transportation Department. “We tried asking nicely, and that didn’t work,” Casey Bryant, a Legal Aid lawyer, said. “The lack of language access can be seen as a violation of the Civil Rights Act.”
The Marshallese around the table in the Legal Aid office were silent and seemed worried about the idea of taking on the United States government.
The princess made a plea to her people. “Please hang in there,” she said. “If we don’t do it, who is going to?”
© 2011 The New York Times Company
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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