Enid, Oklahoma is a mostly white community on the plains, almost dead-set in the middle of the United States, that has a curiously high number of people from the Marshall Islands, a land made up of more than 1,200 islands and islets between Hawaii and the Phillipines. Even longtime residents wonder how thousands of Marshallese ended up in Oklahoma, and the new documentary 67 Bombs to Enid has the horrifying answer.
Between 1946 and 1958, the United States detonated 67 bombs the Marshall Islands, most notably at the Bikini Atoll. Elevated cancer rates soon followed, and many Marshallese fled the islands, considering them uninhabitable due to irradiated land and food: A 2012 United Nations report said “near-irreversible environmental contamination” had led to “indefinite displacement.”
The purpose of the bombings was to test the power of nuclear weapons as the Cold War arms race with the Soviet Union accelerated. One test bombing, Castle Bravo on March 1, 1954, was 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.
The island’s leader in 1946, King Juda, had agreed to the U.S.’s request to temporarily relocate residents of the Bikini Atoll so that atomic bomb testing could begin, under the belief that such testing was important for the good of humanity. But wind and miscalculations over a decade irradiated vast swaths of the islands.
Some of the Marshallese featured in 67 Bombs to Enid believe they were also being used as “rats” or “guinea pigs” to see what effect the bombings would have on human life. Adding fuel to that notion is a 1950s news report, featured in the film, that features Marshallese men — described by a newsman of the era as “savages” — being tested for nuclear after-affects.
The film, which played Friday at the El Paso Film Festival, profiles many Mashallese now living in the center of the country that bombed and contaminated theirs.
The documentary shows some Enid locals opening their arms wide, supporting the Marshallese, celebrating their culture, and trying to right historic wrongs. Others express fear that these outsiders are just trying to get checks from the U.S. government, apparently unaware that the U.S. government of past generations is, in fact, the source of their woes.
The Marshallese try to assimilate, in many cases joining the military. And though a compact with the U.S. government allows them to work and pay taxes in the U.S., they are not allowed to vote.
Many came to Enid after a few Marshallese missionaries visited the town for school in the late ’70s, and invited friends and loved ones. 67 Bombs to Enid profiles many of them — including a man who, as a young child, watched the bombs light up the ocean sky.
The film details their medical struggles, and troubles fitting in so far from their ancestral home. But it also shows their endurance, pride, and love.
“It’s a beautiful community of people, and a resilient community of people. These terrible things happened to them, but they aren’t walking around like a tragic people — they’re vibrant and lovely,” the film’s El Paso-based co-producer Zach Passero, said in a post-screening Q&A Friday.
He’s one El Paso connection to the film. Another is El Paso-based Andrew Smetek, who handled the meticulous but understated sound design.
Making 67 Bombs to Enid
Taking at the Q&A with El Paso Film Festival founder and artistic director Carlos F. Corral, 67 Bombs to Enid co-directors Kevin Ford and Ty McMahan explained that they made the film with almost no budget because they thought it was an important story to be told. Documentarian Errol Morris agreed, and signed on as an executive producer in the hopes that it would help get the word out.
It’s working: The United Nations had reached out to show 67 Bombs to Enid, which is now on a festival journey with an eye toward the widest distribution possible. They hope the film will make audiences take the threat of nuclear bombs more seriously, all over the world.
“There’s nuclear weapons in the headlines every single day now. And so the mission became a little bit a bit greater — really trying to shed a light on on nuclear weapons and the dangers,” said McMahan, a former Wall Street Journal reporter whose past films include the documentaries The Mundo King, The Toy Cart and The 34 Project.
“Even if we’re not using them in war — just all of us as different countries that have nukes — even the accidental detonation of one can wipe out whole regions and create thousands of years of radiation sickness and poisoning,” added Ford, whose past films include the Richard Linklater-produced documentary The Pushback.
The El Paso Film Festival, one of MovieMaker‘s 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee and 25 Coolest Film Festvivals, continues through Saturday.
Main image: 67 Bombs to Enid.