My primary question is, "Why should America care about the effects of climate change on the Marshall Islands?" This led me to other questions, namely what is the history between the US and the Marshall Islands, what are the effects of climate change on the Marshall Islands and how will this affect the United States of America? This question allowed me to further investigate and create an ethnographic short film on the Marshallese people and the steady increase in immigration from the Islands to the mainland of the United States. Taking a deeper look at how the Marshallese people feel about the subject and what they think must be done to help? I feel that this is an important topic that needs to be revealed because these Islands are disappearing and it is having a devastating effect on these people. Since World War II the United States has had a presence in the Marshall Islands, from the orchestrating of 67 nuclear tests during the cold war to the ever presence of the Army base on Kwajalein Atoll. This presence led to the Compact of Free Association and the approval for the Marshallese people to travel freely to the United States. Now with the United States backing out of the Paris Climate Change deal that was formed by the UN, one can only ask what the United States will do to help another country like the Marshall Islands that is being lost to climate change. These people will most likely be among the first climate refugees.
