“Jellyfish Babies”
On Colonialism, Environmental Degradation, and Reproductive Toxicity in the Marshall Islands
content warning: mention of birth atypicalities, postpartum depression
In her poem “Monster”, Marshallese poet and environmental justice activist Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner ties together three painful threads: the Mejenkwaad, a woman demon from Marshallese legends who eats babies and pregnant women; “jellyfish babies” and other birth atypicalities afflicting the Marshallese since U.S. nuclear testing after WWII; and her own difficult experience with postpartum depression. Connecting legend to history to bodies is an ambitious undertaking. Yet, Jetñil-Kijiner unraveled these painful memories and spun them back together again in ways that reveal their complex relationality. Embedded in Jetñil-Kijiner’s poem is the intersection of colonialism, environmental degradation, and reproductive toxicity, present and past.
“Nerik gave birth to something resembling the eggs of a sea turtle and Flora gave birth to something like the intestines.”
US Nuclear Testing in the Marshall Islands
Located in the central Pacific, the Marshall Islands are a contested site of violent colonialism. The cherished atolls and expanses of blue have been home to the Marshallese since time immemorial. Yet, in the last century, the islands became an important route for war technology (both Japanese and American), transforming the Marshalls from a sacred site to a geopolitical epicenter. Since the Second World War, the sea and land of the Marshalls have been encompassed into circuits of imperial violence and strategic war positioning across the Pacific. The most enduring consequence of these colonial interventions has been the pollution of the Islands by U.S. nuclear testing following WWII.
Map of the Marshall Islands. The Bikini and Enewetak atolls appear in the top left corner.
Beginning with Operation Crossroads in July 1946, the United States designated the Marshall Islands as the site for all nuclear testing, with the intention of honing atomic weapons and understanding their destructive capacity. That same year, the United States asked the Marshallese community living on Bikini Atoll to temporarily relocate, invoking rhetoric about “the good of mankind” to forcibly displace the population. Bikinians were promised a return to their home after the U.S. completed testing, and were “temporarily” relocated to Rongerik Atoll, another Marshallese atoll located 125 miles away. In 1948, the U.S. military also relocated the Marshallese living on the nearby atoll of Enewetak in order to expand the testing.
Despite the relocation efforts, all the Marshallese living on surrounding islands became immediately exposed to nuclear fallout and suffered radiation disease when testing began, leading to high rates of cancer across the islands. On March 1st, 1954, the U.S. tested the largest bomb ever to be dropped on the Marshalls: Castle Bravo. This Bravo test amounted to the largest, single cause of physical harm suffered by the Marshallese due to trade winds which expanded the spread of nuclear fallout after the drop. Despite receiving advanced warning about the direction of the impending winds towards islands with Marshallese populations, U.S. military commanders actively decided against rescheduling the Bravo testing, sacrificing the health of the Marshallese nearby. Bravo, alone, is primarily responsible for much of the cancers, burns, and “defects” that the Marshallese continue to endure today.
Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner stands atop the Runit Dome - the disposal site of collected nuclear debris from U.S. testing - in her video Anointed.
An image of the Castle Bravo bomb drop that was later linked to the proliferation of cancers and birth “defects” afflicting the Marshallese.
“Jellyfish Babies” & the Proliferation of Birth Atypicalities in the Marshalls
The term “jellyfish babies” is a Marshallese moniker for a disturbingly common birth “defect” of babies born with transparent skin and no bones. These babies are unable to survive for more than a few days outside of the womb. “Jellyfish babies” described the new phenomena of traumatic births following U.S. nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands, and was just one consequence of the radiation spread. Despite the hauntingly common occurrence of pregnancies resulting in “jellyfish babies,” there is not much information available about reproductive health on the Marshalls. For one, searches regarding the health effects of nuclear fallout in the Marshall Islands focuses on the full range of cancers and growths that afflict the population. Further, the information about those affected by U.S. testing centers on American soldiers who conducted testing in the Marshalls, rather than the people who live and have lived in the Islands for generations. Overall, Marshallese people who have seen their reproductive health compromised by the continuing toxicity introduced by the nuclear testing are not addressed adequately in research. While the U.S. military and government continues to actively forget the violence they have caused in the Marshalls, the lack of acknowledgment of increased cancer rates and lower life spans further dismisses the existence of “jellyfish babies,” the people who birth them, and the trauma caused when birth atypicalities are ubiquitous.
“I had seven miscarriages. If it wasn’t for what the United States had done, my children would be growing up like the others.”
Toxic Pregnancies & Untenable Environments: the Intersection of Reproductive Justice and Environmental Justice
Above, a photo of Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner and her daughter, Matafele Peinem.
Reproductive toxicity describes the way a toxic environment interferes with conceiving, carrying, birthing, and raising healthy children. The term illuminates the way that climate change and environmental degradation can directly threaten reproductive health. Fighting for the right to “parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities,” as SisterSong directs us, necessitates that we integrate a serious understanding of climate justice into our activism. Connecting these issues and centering Indigenous communities that are affected the most require a paradigmatic shift in reproductive justice advocacy that recognizes the interconnectedness of all earthbound life. Nuclear fallout is only one way that reproductive toxicity manifests and threatens access to all tenets of justice. Others we might consider are Flint, MI’s undrinkable water, Standing Rock’s fight, and fracking everywhere.
As demonstrated by the case of the Marshalls, the intersection of environmental and reproductive justices only gestures at the enormous toll that colonialism, war, genocide, imperialism, and global capital take on bodies and communities. Nuclear fallout would not have been a concern for the Marshallese were it not for the U.S. military-industrial complex, white nationalism, discourses of disposable bodies, narratives of conquest, wartime rhetoric, and the global flow of capital. Toxicity is inflected by myriad legacies of violence. When they converge on bodies, often Black and Brown bodies outside the U.S., reproductive health and environmental sustainability can be profoundly threatened. An intersectional approach to environmental justice doesn’t just mean that feminists tote the “Reduce! Reuse! Recycle!” line. Instead, it insists that feminists interrogate both how their objectives might actually cause harm for others and how coalitions across oceans and bodies open up possibilities for a less toxic and violent tomorrow.
“To get to this tomb take a canoe. Take a canoe through miles of scattered sun. Swallow endless swirling sea. Gulp down radioactive lagoon. Do not bring flowers, or speeches. There will be no white stones to scatter along this grave. There will be no songs to sing.”