Namoluk Beyond the Reef

by Marshall, Mac

• ISBN13: 9780813341637
• ISBN10: 0813341639
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-02-01
• Publisher: Westview Pr

Summary

This case study examines emigrants from Namoluk Atoll in the Eastern Caroline Islands of Micronesia, in the Western Pacific. Most members of the Namoluk community (chonNamoluk) do not currently live there - some 60% of them have moved to Chuuk, Guam, or the mainland US (such as Honolulu, Hawai'i or Eureka, California). The question is how (and why) those expatriates continue to think of themselves aschonNamoluk, and behave accordingly, despite being a far-flung network of people, with inevitable erosions of shared language and culture.

Author Biography

Mac Marshall is professor of anthropology at the University of Iowa, with a secondary appointment as professor of community and behavioral health. He is former editor of Medical Anthropology Quarterly and currently serves as Secretary of the American Anthropological Association.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	ix
List of Abbreviations and Acronyms	xi
Series Editor Preface	xiii
Preface and Acknowledgments	xv
Openings	1	(16)
Opening Dark Seas	1	(2)
Opening a Wider World	3	(3)
Opening the Floodgates of Migration	6	(2)
Opening My Argument	8	(6)
Opening Myself	14	(3)
Namoluk Atoll, 1969	17	(26)
Lagoon in the Middle	17	(2)
The Outside World Discovers Namoluk	19	(3)
Colonialism Comes to Namoluk	22	(5)
Day-to-Day Life at the End of the 1960s	27	(7)
The Four E's	34	(1)
Primordial Sentiments of Shared Identity	35	(8)
Journeyings	43	(18)
Arriving at the Reef of Honolulu	43	(1)
Waves	44	(9)
Colonizing Merika	53	(2)
Bad Trips: Beer and Turkey Tails	55	(3)
Venturing	58	(3)
Namoluk People, 2002	61	(16)
Getting the Lead Out	61	(1)
The Motorboat Revolution	62	(3)
Typhoon Pamela: More Winds of Change	65	(2)
Changes in Infrastructure	67	(1)
Changes in Social Structure	68	(2)
Continuities	70	(4)
Exodus	74	(3)
Heading Off to College	77	(12)
The Legion of the College-Bound	77	(2)
Chon Namoluk and College Education	79	(7)
The Xavier Connection	86	(1)
From Coconuts to Coconutchat	87	(2)
Heading Off to Collage	89	(16)
It's a Surreal World Out There	89	(1)
Unheralded, Largely Forgotten Jobs	90	(4)
Movin' Up	94	(2)
Living in a Collage	96	(9)
Reef Crossings	105	(8)
Migrants: The New Namoluk	105	(1)
Migration Patterns	106	(7)
Four Locations Beyond the Reef	113	(20)
Roaming the Globe	113	(1)
Weene: The First Step	114	(3)
Chon Guamoluk: Living Where America's Day Begins	117	(5)
Will Dreams Come True in Blue Hawai'i?	122	(4)
Eureka! I've Found It!	126	(7)
Closings: Points of Departure	133	(14)
No Island Is an Island	133	(2)
Points of Origin	135	(2)
Nested Identities	137	(2)
Points of Entanglement	139	(2)
Your Place or Mine?	141	(2)
The Perspective of Folks on the Shore	143	(1)
Coda	144	(3)
Glossary	147	(4)
Suggestions for Further Reading	151	(2)
References	153	(8)
Index	161