What Price Paradise?

Dainah Amram remembers when her son Stevenson was a little boy who slept snuggled in the crook of her arm. In the small cinder-block shack on the Majuro atoll where he was raised, only memories remain of Stevenson. Three years ago, Amram borrowed $2,000 to send her son away. It’s unclear if he will ever return.

Learning Experience

Education is no academic matter to the Marshallese, who seek survival skills in a cash economy. “Can you give me a future?” The question hangs in the air. A young American woman named Amelia Balaji paces before a classroom of silent children. She asks again: “Who wants to give me a future?

An Economic Quandary

How the economy of this isolated nation fares will have a direct impact on Springdale and other cities in the United States where Marshallese have immigrated in search of jobs. On a sunny morning in September, the old economy and new economy came into the Majuro harbor in the Marshall Islands.

Traditions Kept And Lost

Impoverished islands are caught between the need for jobs and the loss of culture. Two men who live on opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean share one concern. They fear their Marshallese culture is slowly disappearing.