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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Northwest AR’s Pacific Islander Community Hard-Hit by Pandemic

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Thursday, February 4, 2021   

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Half of Arkansas' coronavirus deaths have been members of the Marshallese Pacific Islander community.

A new podcast explores the toll the pandemic has taken on the community, and the history behind decades of immigration to Arkansas from the Marshall Islands.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Marshallese people accounted for an alarming 38% of reported COVID-19 deaths in both Benton and Washington counties between March and June of last year, and 19% of all coronavirus cases.

Colleen Thurston, assistant professor of journalism and strategic media at the University of Arkansas, said interviews with Marshallese residents reveal the extent to which the public health crisis has devastated the community.

"One of the families that we interviewed for the podcast lost their family member," Thurston shared. "We've dedicated the podcast to them, to the Laukon family. We can only hope that by sharing these stories, folks are aware of how drastically affected communities like the Marshallese can be, and why they need support."

In the 1940s, the U.S. began nuclear testing on the Marshall Islands, displacing many people who lived there. Decades later, Northwest Arkansas is home to the largest population of Marshallese in the country.

The University of Arkansas recently launched Arkansas Atoll, a podcast series featuring stories of Marshallese residents.

Sarah Moore, video producer at The David and Barbara Pryor Center For Arkansas Visual and Oral History, said many Marshallese residents work in the poultry-processing industry, putting workers at high risk for contracting the coronavirus.

"Tyson was deemed an essential industry and they did not shut down," Moore recounted. "They just kept going."

Moore explained World War II-era nuclear testing led to acute radiation exposure and adverse health effects for generations of Marshallese. She noted because many Marshallese are non-citizens, they are ineligible for Medicaid and have lacked access to adequate health care throughout the pandemic.


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