“It's like not a very Marshallese way of life”

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused worldwide social disruption, but these social disruptions are not equally distributed across communities. For Marshallese Islanders, living in the United States under the Compact of Free Association (1986), these disruptions are especially concerning due to strong cultural values for direct, face-to-face communication in informal settings, called talk story. The Marshallese have been deeply affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, with infections, hospitalizations, and mortality rates that far exceed other populations in the United States. The Marshallese have a strong collectivist culture, and the COVID-19 pandemic and the public health responses intended to mitigate its spread have affected many aspects of Marshallese culture and everyday life. In this essay we explore Marshallese experiences during the pandemic, and creative resilience practiced by the community in meeting culturally important social needs through the use of telecommunication technologies. For the Marshallese, the COVID-19 pandemic’s social effects were most salient when discussing the rhythms of everyday life, including visiting neighbors, friends, elders, cultural celebrations, and sharing of food with others in their community. We argue that combining health research with nuanced culturally grounded perspectives allows us to see a more complete picture of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly for communities with historical traumas.