If you?re looking for the presence of a Micronesian religious community in the US, you?ll have to go to the Midwest to find it. But if you visit during December, be prepared for temperatures hovering around zero. When I woke up this morning, the thermometer registered five degrees, but everyone says it?s even colder at night. This place makes New York City seem like Miami Beach. Read More
I was inspired by the pilgrimage I made here in New York last weekend. Not to a church or a holy site, but to a secular shrine. Not even to the World Trade Center, the scene of the terrorist attacks 12 years ago and a site visited by millions each year.
It was to the Statue of Liberty, that towering bronze woman, a gift of France in the late 19th century, the symbol of what this country stands for. ?I lift my lamp? says the verse on the plaque at the base of the statue. But what lamp is that?? What does the torch that the robed woman holds aloft mean? Read More
That?s the question that I found myself trying to answer last week in Hawaii. The ?strange people? were, of course, Micronesians who have moved to Hawaii over the past years. They include 8,000 FSM citizens, another 3,000 or 4,000 Marshallese and hundreds of Palauans.
The East-West Center generously paid my way to Hawaii and set up a number of interviews, talks and radio and TV appearances during the week. Most of the events highlighted two recent publications of mine: Making Sense of Micronesia, the book published by University of Hawaii Press, and Micronesians on the Move: Eastward and Upward Bound, a monograph that EWC is releasing in a week or two. The first is on my struggle to understand island custom, and the other is on the migration of FSM people over the years. Read More
Last year at this time, a group of us had just begun our survey of the ?missing Micronesians,? as one of the MicSem videos put it: those people from FSM who had left their islands to find a home abroad. On this blog, some months ago, I posted a few paragraphs on the results of the survey. ?The full report of the survey is available through the FSM National Government, and within a few months the East-West Center should be publishing a monograph on the subject. Read More
Over the past several months, some of us have been working on a survey of Micronesian migrants to the US and its territories.? The point of the exercise was to put numbers to what we all know has been an explosion of emigration from the islands. Since there has been no increase in jobs in the islands, people are bringing their families abroad to find employment there. Read More
Ever since my return from Micronesia at the beginning of this month, I?ve continued roaming–but closer to home.? Just last week there were short trips to DC and BC.? The latter was a weekend visit to Boston College to work with new Jesuit volunteers destined to begin two years of service in Micronesia, Tanzania and Ecuador.? What do you tell young college graduates with stars in their eyes and a little apprehension in their hearts at what they will face?? Why not tell them what always served me well?? Hang on for a great ride, but Read More
Hawaii (9,000 FSM citizens as of 2008)
Washington (perhaps several hundred, as many as 800)
Oregon (perhaps 1,500-2,000)