Creating Options: Forming a Marshallese Community in Orange County, California

We describe the development of a Marshallese community in Orange County, California, from the late 1970s until the early 1990s. It is among the older and larger Marshallese communities in the United States; other substantial Marshallese communities are centered in San Diego, Califor nia; Eugene, Oregon; Springdale, Arkansas; and Enid, Oklahoma (Allen 1997). Smaller communities exist in Texas, Missouri, Arizona, and else where in California. These communities originated in the travels of stu dents for higher education while the Marshalls were under US adminis tration. Since 1986, a Compact of Free Association between the new Republic of the Marshall Islands and the United States has allowed Mar shallese people to migrate freely to the United States, leading to the cre ation of new Marshallese communities there, as well as the expansion of existing communities. We estimate that three-to-four thousand Marshal lese now live on the US mainland, plus over two thousand in Hawai'i. We began research in the Orange County Marshallese community in 1988. In addition to participant observation and ethnographic interviews, we obtained data from a survey of individual migration, education, and employment histories; and from household censuses conducted in 1991 92 and 1995. This interview illustrates the diverse factors that have affected Marshal lese migration. In her case, these include travel with the iroij, health care, wage employment, Marshallese and US government programs, church membership, marriages, family ties, and family obligations. These pro cesses occur within a network of linked households, where migrants can find temporary shelter or a longer-term residence. These various factors have been involved in changes over time in the composition of the Mar shallese migrant community in Orange County. the eco nomic "dependence" of the Marshallese, but we suggest that a longer-term Abstract Founded by individuals pursuing higher education in the United States, the Mar shallese community in Orange County today also represents family and national interests in access to business opportunities, employment, education, medical services, and other goals. This community has become an "official" Marshallese overseas community, site of the first Marshallese consulate in the mainland United States, and a link between overseas Marshallese and the home islands. Individuals and family units traverse networks of inter-linked households, high lighting processes of Islanders' investments, including at least a short-term rever sal of theoretically expected remittance flows. We explore the process of com munity formation, and compare rural and urban sites in the Marshall Islands to call attention to the community's place in a system of geographically dispersed locations within the global political economy.


Creating Options: Forming a Marshallese
Community in Orange County, California Jim Hess, Karen L Nero, and Michael L Burton We describe the development of a Marshallese community in Orange County, California, from the late 1970s until the early 1990s. It is among the older and larger Marshallese communities in the United States; other substantial Marshallese communities are centered in San Diego, Califor nia; Eugene, Oregon; Springdale, Arkansas; and Enid, Oklahoma (Allen 1997). Smaller communities exist in Texas, Missouri, Arizona, and else where in California. These communities originated in the travels of stu dents for higher education while the Marshalls were under US adminis tration. Since 1986, a Compact of Free Association between the new Republic of the Marshall Islands and the United States has allowed Mar shallese people to migrate freely to the United States, leading to the cre ation of new Marshallese communities there, as well as the expansion of existing communities. We estimate that three-to-four thousand Marshal lese now live on the US mainland, plus over two thousand in Hawai'i.
We began research in the Orange County Marshallese community in 1988. In addition to participant observation and ethnographic interviews, we obtained data from a survey of individual migration, education, and employment histories; and from household censuses conducted in 1991 92 and 1995.
Just southeast of Los Angeles, Orange County is mainly urban and densely populated, with large Latino, Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, and Iranian communities. In 1991 the Orange County Marshallese community had nearly three hundred people distributed among forty-three house holds. Most of the Marshallese live in ethnically mixed blue-collar neigh borhoods whose per capita incomes are close to the California mean. Ini tially more dispersed among the cities of Orange County, Marshallese households have become centered in Costa Mesa, a city of 100,000, where they are concentrated in two neighborhoods, nic Our Town. Our 1995 census indicated that the po about 8 percent per year to around four hundred, an today.
The Orange County Marshallese community has become in many ways an "official" migrant community, with a high degree of formal recognition by the Marshallese government. The community has hosted public meet ings convened by the president and his cabinet when they came to the Uni ted States, and for several years the Marshallese government had a con sulate in Orange County. The history of this community illustrates the effects of political interests, the key role of education, mediation by diverse institutions, and the importance of connections through both family and nonfamily networks in facilitating the international movement of people.

Migration Theories and Pacific Island Migrants
Migration theories based on micro-economic models of indiv sions or macro-structural effects of the "world system" (Woo sey and others 1993) have been concerned largely with labor Taken together, they leave a gap between the micro level of action and the macro level of societal-level forces. In attemp this gap, researchers have given particular emphasis to ho units that make migration decisions (Wood 1982) and play a migrant adaptation (Chavez 1985). These approaches still unde macro-structural processes other than the economy, motivat than employment, and social institutions other than hous 1989).
Researchers studying Pacific Island migration have provided more eth nographically based insights into the motivations and experiences of migrants. Scholars have emphasized cultural identity within migrant com munities (Lieber 1977b;Linnekin and Poyer 1990), the effects of migra tion on gender and family (Gailey 1992;Marcus 1993;Small 1997), the role of social networks and religion in facilitating migration (Ravuvu 1992), and the long-term persistence of social ties between migrant com munities and home communities (Macpherson 1994). Much of the dis cussion of these social ties has focused on remittances.
Dennis Ahlburg and Michael Levin argued for a "human capital" model of Pacific Island migration, in which people travel to gain higher returns on investments in human capital such as education, with additional desti nation attractions such as climate, entertainment, and consumer goods (1990). Bernard Poirine emphasized the role of migration in human c tal formation. He viewed remittances as part of an "informal family credit market" involved with human capital investments, where remittances a return by children of the parents' investment in their education (1998,75 The mirab model linked Pacific Islander migration to a pattern of ec nomic dependency upon migration, remittances, aid, and bureaucracy, c ceptualizing families as firms that allocate persons and resources (Bertr and Watters 1985). Although this was an advance in terms of an econom explanation, it is still under-attentive to social and cultural process a perpetuates a flawed model of Pacific nation-states dependent on met politan countries. Kerry James emphasized the broader social context exchanges between migrants and the home community, seeing cash rem tances as part of a larger network of exchange relationships, organized the family or community level (1997). For James the mirab emphasis remittances produced an under-recognition of counterflows of other exchange items, such as Tongan wealth items, which are produced by women's labor. In a similar vein, Matori Yamamoto discussed the role fine mats in ceremonial exchanges in several Samoan diaspora commu ties (1997).
Anthropologists have long recognized that people invest in social re tionships that may yield social, political, economic, or psychologic returns. Sociologists have recast these processes in economic metapho that have proven useful for introducing social relationships into otherwise narrowly neoclassical economic models. Writing about Cuban migrant Alejandro Portes and Julia Sensenbrenner (1993) used Pierre Bourdieu (1985) concept of social capital to refer to the social resources within migrant community. James Coleman distinguished between human c tal and social capital: "human capital is created by changes in persons th bring about skills and capabilities that make them able to act in new ways.
. . . Social capital, however, comes about through changes in the relati among persons that facilitate action" (1988,100). Coleman listed sever social relations that form social capital, including exchange obligation information channels, family relations, and community organization Social capital explains the advantages of spatial clustering of migrant but this form of capital does not depend strictly on place. For Marshall in Orange County, social capital is obtained partly through the main nance of ties with the home islands.
Recently, Ramon Grosfoguel and Hector Cordero-Guzman have argued that social capital models fail to recognize government policies that affect the "context of reception" of migrant groups (1998). They claim that Cuban migrants-a political process-than by Along with many cultural anthropologists, G Guzman favor the transnational approach to m the older emphasis on migrant adaptation and fo social, economic, and cultural relationships a (Basch, Glick Schiller, and Blanc 1994; Gupta transnational approach emphasizes a more com which identities in multiple communities rema economic, and political relations are "unboun globalization theorists emphasize, forces drivin nationalism include enhanced transportation an sive electronic communications and media (Han We see these various theories as cumulative. Transnational associations of Marshallese support migration for jobs, but also for education, ameni ties, health care, and various other purposes. Social and human capital are important factors in this process, which is embedded in US geopolitics as mediated by multiple Marshallese and American institutions. Circulation of individuals and families is possible, and economies as well as social systems may be spread across locales. We further argue that the general framework for transnational exchanges does not entail any particular con figuration of exchanges. Particular exchange relationships are shaped by specific historical circumstances, and by a variety of political relationships between island nations and metropolitan Pacific rim nations. If that rela tionship takes a unique turn, as has happened with the compacts of free association between the United States and the new Micronesian states, then the exchange relationship itself may take a new form. We describe a situation in which the overseas community was created through the pur suit of education and not labor migration, where relatively high incomes are available from rents paid for strategic assets and military facility land use as well as compensation for nuclear testing, and where remittances (gifts and money) are more often sent from the island community to the migrant community than in the reverse direction.

Marshallese Mobility
The history and social institutions of the people of Ae Islands) have shaped Marshallese migration practices. The and Ratak (eastern) chains of atolls and the western outlie and Ujelang, which today constitute the Republic of the M were settled by seafaring peoples between two and three thousand years ago. Contrary to common conceptions of "insularity," island peoples in general, and especially those dwelling on fragile atolls, are highly mobil and maintain active interisland linkages (Alkire 1989;Nero 1997). Fo example, in the Marshall Islands, the population of Ebon in the 1850s wa "always in flux" (Hezel 1983, 203); between twenty and thirty percent o all residents would depart or arrive with the iroij (chiefs) as they travele with their courts to receive tribute and conduct business.
Marshallese social structure facilitates a high level of spatial mobility, with individuals and families traversing networks of geographically dis persed households linked by kin. The bases of Marshallese social structure are land rights and bwij (usually glossed as matrilineages, but see Carucci 1997). Kinship is bilateral, but bwij membership is primarily traced through female descent, and bwij are joined in exogamous matriclans.
Bwij have use rights in one or more parcels of land, called weto. This strip of land, generally a few hundred feet wide, crosses an island from lagoon to ocean so as to include the various ecological zones and thereby provide the bwij with access to the various plant species necessary to main tain life. The weto is central to Marshallese identity. As one informant said, being a Marshallese is having land from the first moment you draw breath. A bwij's several weto are often dispersed across a number of islands in an atoll, any of which may be used for residences, and people shift between weto. Bwij are not named, but weto are, and the weto can be used to designate relationships. The island, atoll, and island chains in which weto are located become hierarchical levels of identity as a Marshal lese person moves farther out into the world.
A woman's children have equal rights to use the resources of a bwij's land, under the management of the senior member of the bwij or alab. These rights are shared with other bwij members and affines (Carucci 1997;Kiste 1974;McArthur 1995;Rynkiewich 1972;Spoehr 1949;Tobin 1954). Land use rights extend through paternal links to the weto of father and grandfather. A Marshallese married couple thus usually has access to the households of parents, siblings, and parents' siblings, through both husband's and wife's sides. Households are large and complex by com parative standards (Burton, Nero, and Hess 2000). Individuals or groups frequently move among these households for personal, social, or economic reasons. With increased inter-atoll marriages, available households also may extend through more than one atoll; hence internal migration does not usually require the establishment of a new household. Land rights through clans on other islands or atolls constitute another mechanism for population mobility. Historically these right drought or typhoon damaged a group's land sionist high chiefs, iroij laplap, initiated wa Grants of land rights by the chief for services mechanism for diversifying land rights and

Colonial Contexts
Colonial enterprises refocused population movements to fav tion and resource extraction and introduced wholesale com tions. On Likiep, many people were relocated after two Eu traders purchased it for use as a plantation. Marshallese also in the Pacific labor migrations of the late 1860s and 1870 the phosphate mines of Nauru (Underwood 1989) or as pla in Fiji, Samoa, or Hawai'i, while women of the northern at for sale as mistresses to plantation overseers (Westbrook 1 1983, 237-240). The German  and Japanes administrations emphasized copra production and trad Jaluit as an administrative center that attracted people seek tion, and other services. At its height Jaluit was home two shallese, approximately 20 percent of the native populatio between five hundred and a thousand Japanese (Peattie 19 struction of Japanese military installations forcibly displ tions of the Marshallese communities on Enewetak, Kwaja Mili, Maloelap, and Wotje, and entire populations were rel the Second World War. Population dynamics underwent further changes during the US admin istration. Again entire communities were relocated, to enable the US nuclear tests on Bikini and Enewetak (Kiste 1974;Mason 1954;Tobin 1967) and the development of a missile test base on Kwajalein (Mason 1989). During the US period the Marshallese population grew rapidly (Gorenflo and Levin 1995), and two dense urban concentrations developed. The first is on Ebeye islet in Kwajalein Atoll, where relatively high wages have brought Marshallese, their dependents, and people from throughout the Pacific (Alexander 1978). The second urban center is in the Djarrit-Uliga Delap district of Majuro Atoll, administrative center under the US trust eeship and national capital since independence. Most population growth has been in these two urban centers. Most of the other Marshallese atolls have also experienced population growth, but their age structures are skewed by the movement of the burgeoning school-and working-age population to the new urban centers (Gorenflo and Levin 1995). Currently about 67 percent of all residents live on Majuro or Kwajalein atolls, with the remainder scattered over the other twenty-two inhabited atolls and islands. Twenty-four percent of all Marshallese resided on a different atoll in 1988 than in 1980. By the 1980s the Marshallese nation had become mainly urban, and many Marshallese had participated in wage employment. Projections based on the 1988 national census population of 43,380 predicted future populations as high as 215,000 by 2035 (rmi 1989). A new census in 1999, however, showed only 51,000 resident Marshallese, 4,000 to 9,000 below the projections. Although part of the difference is due to a moderate decline in the birth rate and an overestimation of growth rates due to enu meration errors in earlier censuses, the largest part of the difference has been attributed to migration [Mi], 1999). Highly mobile Marshallese have incorporated new regions into their social geography.

Education and Migration
The seeds of the Orange County Marshallese community wer the late 1940s when the US government decided to maintain trol over Micronesia (Kiste 1993). Initially, Micronesians' righ in the United States were restricted primarily to students, mem military, and spouses of American citizens. Marshallese migra some young women who married Americans; these "aunties" as a social resource for new arrivals. Some dozens of Marshallese also traveled to the United States as students, but there appear to be no data on whether any remained and settled.
In response to international criticism of the US role in Micronesia, the 1962 Solomon report recommended expansion of education and social services in the Trust Territory ( Kiste 1993). The United States greatly increased spending on social services, expanding educational opportuni ties, building new schools, and hiring many Peace Corps teachers. Schol arships were created for tertiary education, and in 1972 Micronesians became eligible for US federal education grants. Education was seen by Micronesians as a way to gain access to the new jobs that were created in the islands' public sector (Hezel and Levin 1987). At the same time, demographic changes in the United States put many colleges in a financial bind, and some of them sought to fill empty places by recruiting Micro nesian students. High school guidance counselors in recommended community colleges in the United State personal knowledge or catalogs supplied by the institu 1970s, leaders in the Marshalls called for students to pu tion to help the future development of their communi Notes: Does not include students enrolled in extension programs. These coun tries did not exist throughout the period; numbers for the FSM are aggregated from the TTPI districts, now states of the FSM.
* De jure population by home area. lese graduated from high school, and increasing numbers enrolled in c leges (table 1). Before 1980 most migrants to Orange County were in the college-a group (18-26, table 2), and the early migrants who enrolled in Orang County schools formed the nucleus of the new community. Among the schools, Southern California College1 has played a special role. It is af iated with the Assemblies of God, an important denomination in the M shall Islands. Its early students have often provided leadership as office and founders of the community club, and community members used hold church services on campus.

Community Formation
Which factors led to the formation of Marshallese overseas communities?
Many observers noted that in the 1980s the Marshallese traveled less fre quently in pursuit of education, advancement, and adventure, compared to other Micronesian peoples (Nero and Rehuher 1993). Nevertheless, stu dents came, and some, like Emiko,2 who was attending school full-time after she moved from Kansas to Costa Mesa in 1978, made a transition: "When I came here my parents didn't know I was in California. They got mad with me coming here because they heard the reputation of the kids here, so they stopped sending me money, so I had to find some kind of job in order to help out with my cousin." When interviewed, she was married, had children, was working full-time, and was thinking about taking word processing courses. She had not achieved her original goal, which was to get a college degree and return to a good job in the Marshall Islands.
Some students stayed in the United States after leaving school. Often this was occasioned by the birth of a baby, which helps to transform a young Marshallese from short-term student to long-term resident and may lead to the establishment of a local household. The newborns' require ments for care and financial support led many young parents to drop out of school and take jobs. A job decreases dependence on ties to home and increases ties to the local community. It increases a person's ability to acquire consumer goods that are either not available or relatively expen sive in the islands.
Births are also an important factor in the growth of the Orange County community. Children born in the United States accounted for 30 percent of the community membership in 1991. The birth rate has increased signif icantly in recent years, so that the fertility rate in the community at the time of our study was comparable to that in the Marshall Islands. One mother said the community would now "bloom with kids." T of these children, who hold US citizenship, has implications f growth and permanence of the community.
Marriages are almost entirely with other Marshallese, a p by a balanced sex ratio. In the Orange County community, 78 females over the age of fifteen arrived in the United S 1970 and1989. This figure suggests a high degree of gende migration to the United States, but it may be affected by a people who do not marry form fewer ties that would keep them ted States and hence would be more likely to return home. R ever, several young women have married non-Micronesians, ing extra-community ties, the likelihood of permanent US r community diversity.
Once a family has formed, life is expensive in Califor because rents are high. As a result, it can be difficult to accumu money for trips to the islands. As the community grows, comm ities make increasing demands on members' time and financ One interviewee said travel costs kept some people in Ca thought the Orange County community made big demands did not like to see anybody get too far ahead as their success the rest. Community support is a cost of building social capi dant expectations of providing support to others in the com deplete family resources and reinforce the ties and constrai people to the community.

Few of the Orange County Marshallese settled original
County. Most were dispersed throughout the United States. R noted the dispersed nature of Micronesian immigrant residen ted States compared to the dense networks of Samoan com questioned whether Micronesian networks could provide th support to facilitate future immigration as Samoan commun For the Marshallese, at least, the answer is affirmative, as County and other communities have coalesced through resettlem the United States and then expanded by hosting new migran Why did the community form in Orange County, given th ple first lived elsewhere in the United States? We suggest th tors were at work. The first is proximity to the Los Angeles Airport, a major point of entry for flights from and to the Pa County is a convenient stopover for people on their way to the country, making the community a popular location for m Marshallese people who are en route to other destinations. Further, it relatively economical for Marshallese to visit home. The second factor the mild climate. A third factor may well have been the favorable Calif nia economy of the 1970s and 1980s. The defense build-up of that tim created new jobs in California during the late 1970s and the 1980s, in bo defense plants and related service industries. Orange County, in particular, has had consistently low rates of unemployment.
Finally, there is the lure of Disneyland. Emiko, originally a student at Kansas school, reported, "We didn't go home for the summer. We decid to come here to go to Disneyland. . . . and then we ended up staying." female elder stated, "First I came here to visit my daughter and second I wanted to see what I always saw in the movies and what other peop were talking about, how the US was the greatest in the whole wide wor I cannot name all the good things about the US but the things that c tured my attention were I had never seen a lot of food and mountain hills, big trees. Then I went to all these places except for Disneyland. Maybe this time I'll try to go to Disneyland."

Migration Processes
Older Marshallese who live in Costa Mesa, California, reporte of migration histories. Ester's interview illustrates the diverse pr Marshallese migration over several generations.
My parents were born and raised on Namdrik. And they travelled iroij on Namdrik but mainly they went to Ailinglaplap. Now dur American times they went to Majuro

Migration Patterns in the Early 1980s
From 1979 until the mid-1980s the number of Marshallese arriving in Orange County decreased. During this period fewer high school graduates arrived, and in education the emphasis shifted to younger Marshallese relatives of Orange County residents, primarily of high school and junior high school age (table 2). A shift among youth toward children under age eighteen was motivated in part by problems encountered by earlier arrivals in coping with the US educational system (Shmull 1978). Few of the Mar shallese schools prepared students to perform at the level expected of first year college students, and limited language skills were often a hindrance. Perhaps just as important were cultural differences in time management and the relatively high importance of social obligations versus school activities; these affected class attendance and completion of requirements "on time." Many families began to send youth to the United States earlier to help them to prepare better for college. It was increasingly possible to send these younger students because they could live with family members.
Over time, foster parenting of young people for their education has become a major aspect of community life. By the time of our 1991 census, 16 percent of all community members were persons under the age of twenty-two who were living in households with relatives other than their parents. Sixty-three percent of all households had at least one such me ber. Other young students were taken in by Americans who had work in the Marshalls and forged ties with their families.
Also during the 1980s there was a decrease in overall Marshallese co lege enrollments (table 1) following the implementation of Marshalle self-government in 1979. Informants reported that jobs in the Marsha were then opening up as the new ministries were staffed. Many of th new opportunities required only a high school education. With good jo opening in the Marshalls, many saw little reason to take on the risks a expenses of overseas travel. Also, some of those interviewed noted n problems in the handling of scholarships, such as failure to pay awar on time, which discouraged some applicants and forced some students drop out.

Patterns in the Late 1980s
In the mid and late 1980s, migration demographics changed again. The number of arrivals increased from 1984 to 1988, followed by a decline during the 1989-1991 recession. Adolescent students continued to pre dominate among migrants, but the number of people in all age categories increased. The most significant factor in this increase was the implementa tion of the Compact of Free Association in late 1986, which gave all Mar shallese citizens access to the United States and secured the residential rights of many who were no longer students.
The advent of free entry in the postcompact period brought the first signs of labor migration, and arrivals of people between the ages of eigh teen and forty-four increased. Migration also rose for other family pur poses. An example is the case of a couple in their thirties who had been students in the United States and returned to the Marshalls to work in gov ernment jobs. They decided to move back to the United States with their younger children, so that the children could get a better education. After six years they became sufficiently established to bring over their older chil dren and several nieces for enrollment in high school.

Elders
The postcompact period also saw the arrival of many senior adu elderly woman described her experience. Her story has elements c to those of many elders living in the community.

My oldest daughter went to high schoo Majuro for another year and finished he
Most of my children came here and gra other son, he came here and went to O years but he didn't complete it. There w we always sent money to the sponsor h In 1984,1 came to stay with my childr went to school. We planned that I came he I was here I changed my mind to stay. and he went back, because he wanted to to prepare whatever he had to do.
The move to the United States is but one of a series of life transitions for many elders. Taniel attended Japanese school in Jaluit, then worked for the Japanese until he was clandestinely evacuated from Jaluit by the US military during the Second World War After the war Taniel moved to Nam drik to make copra. In 1970 he moved to Majuro to work for a brother in-law. He then found government employment as a janitor, and in 1991 he was living on his retirement income in Orange County.
Reasons given by informants for the migration of elders included the desire of elders to be with children and grandchildren, interest in seeing the United States, helping working parents with household work, and the role of elders in managing family affairs, conflict resolution, and health care. Older people sometimes come to obtain treatment not available in the Marshall Islands, and some stay long enough to seek eligibility for medical aid or supplemental security income. However, in one case, the direction of medical services was reversed: an older woman skilled in tra ditional Marshallese therapeutic massage techniques came to California to help her daughter with a difficult pregnancy. She stayed and helped relatives with other medical problems such as a broken leg, removing the hospital-imposed cast to apply massage therapy.
Community members move people between locations as a strategy for dealing with social conflict. We heard four reports in two years of indi viduals sent by their families to Orange County, generally for a period of a few months, to remove them from conflicts at home. Conversely, one young man reported that after he graduated from high school, he was just hanging around and getting into trouble, so his uncle sent him back to the Marshalls. Married and with family responsibilities, he recently returned to Orange County with his family to find work.
These practices are the direct consequence of the removal of barriers to Marshallese migration. Now Marshallese can follow island practices of moving family members across locations as necessary, for many reasons. These seemingly unusual characteristics of the Marshallese community might occur in other Pacific Island migrant communities were it not for international barriers.

Characteristics
With the high birth rate and the many arrivals of youth for edu Orange County Marshallese population is young, with a mean years. Age patterns differ by gender (table 3). Under age twenty more males than females, with a sex ratio for that age group of age forty there are many more women than men, with a sex rati 0.41. The net effect is that the mean female age (22.7 years) is gr the mean male age (18.9 years). This pattern may reflect Mar der roles. Marshallese matrilineages control vital economic Mothers form the core of Marshallese families, whereas the fa Marshallese endorse a common aphorism: "Ou but our father is the father of others." Women ov are fairly recent arrivals, are elders who have c bers and to provide help, guidance, or managem Orange County Marshallese households, with a are smaller than those in urbanized Majuro A Islands as a whole (8.7; rmi 1989). As in the M Orange County vary considerably in size, rangin and household composition principles are simila Nero, and Hess 2000). Couple-based households of 43 households). Most households (25) consi either vertically (9) or horizontally (16). These fa same-and cross-sex sibling sets, as in the Mars In the early 1990s, much of Orange County Ma revolved around the Jake Jobol Eo Club. This clu the Navigators, which performs at the annual P Long Beach, California, at social gatherings of ot at Marshallese community events. In 1989, duri research, this band went on tour in the Marshal formed at a dinner for the new Japanese ambass The performances included dances by a youth g it was their first view of the Marshalls since the During the late 1990s, community life has pla church groups, which now include both the As main Marshallese denomination, the "Protestan Christ, who worship in the Corona del Mar Con church, a replica of a traditional New England ch the most expensive neighborhoods in California, gion in extending the social capital available to important community events include first birthda and visits by Marshallese from other communit Consistent with the community's focus on County Marshallese have relatively high levels of 12.9 years for men and 12.5 years for wome twenty-five, 94 percent of the men and 75 perc least twelve years of schooling, while the compa shall Islands are 40 percent and 24 percent, res percent) and many women (40 percent) have some education past high school (table 4).4 However, while many have attended college, few resi dent community members have completed a tertiary program. Most of the college graduates have returned to the Marshall Islands, where they hav access to good government jobs.5 Conversely, those who left their hom land for education and did not complete their studies tend to stay in Ca fornia. When discussing the possibility of return, some said they firs desired to complete what they "set out to do," that is, acquire a colleg degree. A former resident of the United States, interviewed in Majuro, said that someone who had not finished school might fear being thought a fa ure and be reluctant to return.
In 1991, 22 Orange County Marshallese students, 13 males and 9 females, were enrolled in tertiary institutions. Most were enrolled in two year community colleges, with just one in a four-year college. Most were from nineteen to twenty-five years of age; 39 percent of those in that range were enrolled in college. Community members had a high rate of partic ipation in higher education, but few recent arrivals had come to attend college. Because of the perception that youth in school with other Micro nesians spend too much time socializing and fail to complete their work, current Marshallese practices place college students in schools that have few other Micronesian students. College-age students were often directed Emiko and Lucky, many in the Marshallese com than they had originally aspired to, and most in blue-collar jobs even when they have som men and a few women are machinists, a numb a company that subcontracts jobs for the aero occupation for women is assembly of medical on an assembly line for a manufacturer of art strated her competence during a crisis, was mad other Marshallese women, including Emiko, g Some Marshallese, mostly women, work in clerical positions. Typical managerial jobs are tied to production, such as a shift supervisor. A few people with two-or four-year college degrees work in accounting, legal and insurance jobs. The occupational structure for Orange County differ from that in the Marshall Islands in having fewer professional and tech nical jobs, many more production and transport jobs (61 percent of th total), and no jobs in agriculture and fishing (table 7). The occupationa structure partly replicates Lieber's (1977a) finding for Kapingamarangi i relationship to Pohnpei: occupations in the community of origin diversif   as involvement with the world system creates n context of the migrant community many of these groups, and occupations are less diversified. Ra also be an issue, as Macpherson, Bedford, and S gested for New Zealand Samoans, but we believ government jobs in Majuro and Ebeye for gradu a more important factor.
Jobs are often located through other Marsh strategy is to sign on with a temporary employ practice allows people to find out whether they place; if they do they can try to be hired as p other Marshallese, temporary work allows the fl employment with periods of family or community enables them to maintain continuity with a com targeting labor for specific cash needs. Describing his home communities, Hermond said, "My father's from Likiep, Arno, Mili, Wotje, Mejit, and Utirik. And my mother is from Majuro, Kwajalein, Namu, Ailinglaplap, Maloelap, Wotje, Aur." Like Her mond, most Marshallese often have social ties through the father's side and the mother's side to a number of atolls, ties that often involve land rights. In the Orange County community, most of these ties are to just a few atolls. We asked 43 Marshallese from the community to list their home island or atoll,7 and the birthplace of their father and mother. Out of IZ7 responses to these three questions, 67 listed just 5 atolls out of the 24 inhabited locations: Majuro (16), Jaluit (14), Kwajalein (14), Likiep (13), and Ailinglaplap (10). Other frequent mentions included Mejit (9), Ebon (7), Wotje (7), Namdrik (7), and Arno (6). We also asked people where they had land rights and obtained similar responses.
Orange County Marshallese tend not to be from the so-called nuclear atolls that receive compensation from the US government. Of the locations included in the nuclear claims compensation program, two people had ties to Utrik, one had ties to Enewetak, and one has ties to Rongelap. Bikini and Kili were not listed. In contrast with these minimal links with the "nuclear atolls," the Enid, Oklahoma, community studied by Allen (1997) includes a group of Bikini relocatees, and nuclear claims money plays an important role in Enid community politics. Education has played a key role in forming Marshallese m nities, and it is a major focus of social exchanges between M Orange County and their relatives in the islands. In inter lese migrants usually focused on getting a good job as the r education. Many of them considered several options when t cation decisions, including Guam, other Micronesian locati and the mainland United States. The options tended to be world system, and they have been influenced by changes in US policies. More recently, since independence, new alliances an have opened opportunities in Australia, Fiji, Japan, and N A young man reported on exchanges with his family in "When my father was still alive, sometimes I used to send h But my mother always sent me things .... Sometimes peopl to buy something for them. My mother used to send me m I was working she stopped or unless I asked her .... My aun sent me money to help me out even though I was not askin (something) every other month. My parents sometimes wi maximum and my auntie about $zoo maximum." The focus on education in the Marshallese migrant comm duced an unusual pattern of exchanges with relatives in the In 1993 we surveyed a sample of 43 community members o fourteen. Of these, z8 reported some kind of exchange. O ing exchanges, 8 reported sending goods home in the p reported sending goods and money; 11 received money money and sent goods. Goods sent included clothing (by f category), perfume, foods, birthday gifts, and pictures (menti z individuals). Although no respondents reported receiving g Marshall Islands, we know from our own observations tha foods and handicrafts are often brought by visitors.
Those who received money listed the following purposes (6), clothing (z), rent (1), medical expenses (1), and basic n In three of the iz cases the money was paid to the hous behalf of the individual. The value of money received $z3,ooo) exceeded the value of goods and money ($6,Z5o) s a ratio of nearly four to one.8 Nearly half of the 3Z exchanges reported involved transf ents to children-11 remittances of money from the Mar Orange County and 3 transfers to children in the Marshalls. Childr Orange County made 9 transfers of goods and money to parents or parents in the Marshalls. Another 7 exchanges involved siblings, w transfers from Orange County to the Marshalls dominated by 6 t Two transfers were made from Orange County to "family." Henc only is the net flow of wealth from the Marshall Islands to the m community, but transfers to older generations make up less than one-t of all exchanges. This is the opposite of the usual Pacific Island patt which remittances are sent from the migrant community to elders at The pattern is made possible by the position of the Marshallese nat the global system, in which money flows to the Marshall Islands fro United States, based on US strategic interests.

Marshallese Places in Context
World systems theories emphasize the geographic distribution opportunities across a global political economy, and educa tunities correlate with economic level. We postulated that t of Marshallese communities at different levels of the world sy reveal this distribution of opportunities. Orange County is Los Angeles, a "global city." Majuro, the capital and center vices, is an urbanized atoll with direct international air an vices. The rural atolls have economies based on a mixture of subsistence production, earnings from copra, government jobs such as teaching, and exchanges with family members who have wage jobs in Majuro or Ebeye. Table 8 compares occupation statistics for different Marshallese resi dence sites, showing concentration of students in the semi-periphery and core, and reproductive work in the periphery. The percentage of students is 2.5 times higher in Majuro than in the rural locations, where there are few schools that offer classes beyond the eighth grade. The lower percen tage of people listed as homemakers in Majuro reflects women's desires to earn money, unwaged labor in family businesses, and the higher urban cost of living. Moving to the data from Orange County, we see lower unemployment, fewer women defined as homemakers, and twice as many students.
These factors are reflected in the age structures shown in table 9. Chil dren under age ten are concentrated increasingly toward the periphery, where the costs of social reproduction are met primarily by household subsistence production. When children get older, many are sent to urban Investments and resources are allocated across differentiated opportuni ties. Because the educational and employment opportunities in Majuro become more limiting when a person is ready for tertiary schooling and wage jobs, the percentage of people in the 20-29 and 30-39 age groups increases with locations closer to the world system core. This pattern flat tens out in the 40-49 age category, reflecting the brief time depth of this particular migration system; the first few arrivals were entering their for ties at the time of our 1991 census. One way of summarizing the distribution of people through the eco nomic system is by comparing the dependency ratios for each locale-that is, the ratio of people under 15 and people over 65, presumed to be eco nomically inactive, to people between 15 and 65. The ratio for the rural Marshall Islands is 1.50; for Majuro, 0.99; for Orange County, 0.63. This increasing concentration of people of working age (16-64) in central loca tions reflects the geographical distribution of opportunities and costs.
Overall, these data show that education and employment of Marshal lese in Orange County extend patterns found in the Marshall Islands, and the two locations are integrated by economic and social processes. All of the data can be interpreted as the rational allocation of family members to different settings within a transnational system.

Conclusion
The Orange County Marshallese seem at first to be an excepti usual Pacific Island migration patterns. Money flows from the the migrant community; resources flow from parents to their chi children are sent to the migrant community to get a good ed that they can compete for good jobs in the islands and abroad. we think these patterns are manifestations of cultural practices those reported elsewhere. The differences are due to the uniqu ship between the Marshall Islands (and the other freely associa and the United States. Other factors include the short time sp overseas community, compared with other overseas communiti ferent circumstances in the relationship of the Marshallese a Micronesians with the United States will, however, result in differences in the immigrant communities as they mature. We ex may generalize to other overseas communities who tionships differ from those with New Zealand and Goodenough first made the argument that simila will produce different social patterns, depending u context (1955). Island social systems have historicall adaptations and the possibility of migration to see ily members move freely between locations depend Colonial and neocolonial labor policies have interfe ity in that Islanders were allowed (or forced) to m poses, mainly employment and education. The abilit family members was minimal, producing "split" fam ers living in the migrant community and youth and (Barker 1994).
For residents of the former US Trust Territory of t compacts of free association have lifted these r shallese can bring elders to the United States to man can send youth to live with distant relatives for p What remains constant is the emphasis among migr exchanges.
The Marshallese case, while supporting the import migration processes, also demonstrates the danger o cesses to a narrow version of economics. The Marshallese islands were con nected to metropolitan regions by transnational institutions, involving religious, colonial, and military ties. These ties formed the context in which migration has been supported between the Marshalls and the United States. Through these connections and a few key individuals, the Marshal lese established social and geographic centers around which communities have formed, gathering people who had initially established residence in other locales.
Although Marshallese migration contrasts with the general Pacific pat tern of migration for labor and remittances, it also replicates a familiar story of Islanders' travel in pursuit of a goal, with intentions of ultimately returning home (eg, O' Meara 1993). Falling short of the requirements for "bootstrapping" (Marcus 1993), they remain abroad. While abroad, how ever, they continue to serve as resources for their families by supporting future migration, and as resources for their country in its pursuit of eco nomic development.
Some analysts may focus on wages and remittances, and on the eco nomic "dependence" of the Marshallese, but we suggest that a longer-term perspective is required. Our data demonstrate that the Marshallese are choosing investment as well as consumption-investment in developing human resources and in building social networks for the pursuit of eco nomic and political goals. This strategy is practical because of the level of US transfer payments and the support of international development agen cies. The strategy of investment is supported at state, community, and household levels. Investment strategies must be understood with reference to access to metropolitan resources and to possibilities of maintaining households and communities that cross international boundaries.
Jim hess conducted the primary ethnographic research, with the assis tance of five Marshallese community members. The project had the formal approval of the community organization, Jake Jobol Eo Club (jjec). We have made information from our study available to the local and home Marshallese communities, and community members have commented on drafts of this paper.
We especially wish to thank George Briand, former president of Jake Jobol Eo, the JJEC Board of Directors, and Bue Garstang, Que Keju, Taraur Ria, Lilly Ria, Neibaj Silk, and Josephine Wase. This research was funded by a gift from Dr Robert Gumbiner and by the University of California Pacific Rim Program.
Notes 1 Recently renamed Vanguard University of Southern California. 2 All informants' names are pseudonyms.
3 The Enid, Oklahoma, community has a different pattern, with more young women than young men, and equal numbers of men and women over age forty. 4 A loglinear analysis shows that levels of education vary with location and gender, and gender with location, but that the variation in the relationship between gender and education across locations is not statistically significant.
5 Based on personal observation and confirmed by community members and personal communication with Hilda Heine, former secretary of education of the Marshall Islands. 6 Our informants said that households should be formed among kin, since friendships may not be strong enough to withstand the stresses of living together.
However, our survey assistants noted several cases where a closer relationship, such as cousin, was used to label a more distant clan connection. They said this occurred because not enough closer relatives were available to join in house holds.

Abstract
Founded by individuals pursuing higher education in the United States, th shallese community in Orange County today also represents family and na interests in access to business opportunities, employment, education, me services, and other goals. This community has become an "official" Marsh overseas community, site of the first Marshallese consulate in the main United States, and a link between overseas Marshallese and the home isla Individuals and family units traverse networks of inter-linked households, lighting processes of Islanders' investments, including at least a short-term rev sal of theoretically expected remittance flows. We explore the process o munity formation, and compare rural and urban sites in the Marshall Islan call attention to the community's place in a system of geographically disp locations within the global political economy.
keywords: community formation, exchange relationships, family relation Marshall Islanders, migrant communities, migration decisions, Orange Cou