The topic chosen to open Northwest Arkansas Community College’s Marshall Islands-themed semester may put a song in your heart, but it’s not likely to be a happy tune.
Jessica Schwartz, a Mellon Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in the music department of Columbia University in New York, will give a presentation titled Radiation Sounds: Marshallese Music and Nuclear Silences on Saturday at the Bentonville campus.
During a telephone interview Wednesday, Schwartz said she’ll talk about the aftermath of post-World War II nuclear testing by the United States in the Marshall Islands’ inhabited Bikini Atoll through a musical perspective.
Bikini Atoll is one of the 29 atolls and five islands that make up the Marshall Islands. These atolls are scattered over 357,000 square miles of a sparsely populated part of the world north of the equator in the Pacific Ocean. They help define a geographic area referred to as Micronesia.
Bikini Atoll was the location of 23 atmospheric atomic bomb tests in the late 1940s and through the 1950s. The Bravo test, in February 1954, at 15 megatons, was the most powerful bomb ever detonated by the United States. The H-bomb vaporized three islands and threw radioactive debris over nearly50,000 square miles.
In her presentation, Schwartz describes how unwitting Marshallese children ran around catching radioactive fallout from a thermonuclear test, thinking it was snow.
Besides the obvious detriment to the health and longevity of the Marshallese - radiation sickness, deaths, and birth defects in children of survivors - the nuclear testing resulted in cultural changes, as well.
“I think one of the really important ways that people can connect is on an expressive level,” Schwartz said.People from the Marshall Islands for the most part speak Marshallese with English as a second language.
“When you share music and histories and stories ... I wouldn’t necessarily say it makes people directly understand each other but maybe become more interested to speak with each other and learn more about each other, and then that can afford an understanding.”
It’s fitting that the Marshall Islands were picked for the college’s themed semester. Outside their homeland, there are more Marshallese living in Northwest Arkansas and Hawaii than anywhere else in the United States. The Republic of the Marshall Islands has a consulate in Springdale.
“To have their culture represented is really important, and to be taken seriously in an academic institution, I think it’s great,” Schwartz added.
Her lecture will include information and examples about how the Marshallese experienced the nuclear test through song and the tests’ effect on their singing, particularly among women. It had a negative effect on their ability to harmonize and fully engage in their capacities, Schwartz said. The radiation changed their voices, she said.
“It’s not going to be a happy talk,” she said, “but I think it’s am important one.”
Her presentation, scheduled for 2 p.m. in Room 108 of the college’s Student Center, will feature musical and dance performances by members of the Marshallese community.
The community college is providing an honorarium for her visit and lecture.
This is the fifth annual spring themed semester sponsored by Northwest Arkansas Community College’s Honors Program, led by April Brown. Other semesters focused on Ireland (2012), Native America (2011), the Caribbean (2010) and Southeast Asia (2009).
“The point of the themed semester is to bring in scholars, performers and have cultural events on campus to help educate the student population, as well as staff and faculty, about other people and cultures,” Brown said.
The college has several Marshallese students and the idea of a Marshall Island-themed semester is an idea the Honors College has been kicking around for quite awhile, she said. The planning has been spearheaded by the community college’s director for diversity and inclusion, Kathryn Birkhead.
Although a complete schedule of activities has yet to be finalized, the Honors College has secured an appearance by a former U.S. Ambassador to the Marshall Islands, Martha Campbell. A Bikini Atoll Commemoration Day is also scheduled.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 01/24/2013