For centuries, the people of the Marshall Islands have told their history through song. They sang of unrequited love, sea voyages, marine life, faith, family legends. Carlton Abon is perhaps the most famous of the islands’ young balladeers. With four studio and two remix albums, he was once a prolific recording artist on this central Pacific nation, which sits roughly 2,000 miles southwest of Hawaii. But over the last decade, Abon’s silvery baritone has transformed into a strained rasp. Friends made fun of his hoarse voice. By 2016, he could no longer perform even his own melodies, and so this singer-songwriter, who goes by the stage name Brother C, quit a promising career. “There has been no music, no nothing in my life,” said Abon, who has taken a job doing clerical work in Majuro, the country’s largest city, and now leads a reclusive existence. Abon, a stout man of 40 with a bristly beard and toothless smile, is one of at least a dozen prominent Marshallese musicians with voices damaged by thyroid disorders — a type of illness that increased in the Marshall Islands after residents were exposed to fallout from U.S. nuclear weapons testing. As these singers struggle to sing, it has compounded the challenges of keeping Marshallese folk traditions alive. “ Our history is passed down through music and chants. — Daniel Kramer, Marshallese music producer Between 1946 and 1958, nearly 20 years before Abon was born, the U.S. detonated 67 nuclear devices in the Marshall Islands that had a cumulative radioactive yield of more than 7,000 Hiroshima bombs. Radioactive fallout from the tests devastated people’s health and was later documented to have caused an elevated incidence of thyroid disorders. First reported in the country in 1961, these disorders have afflicted at least 1,500 Marshallese who were alive during the testing period. In Abon’s case, he developed a balloon-like nodule in his throat. Doctors surgically removed the cancerous growth, but his voice never fully came back. Today, his music survives only on a few of Majuro’s radio stations and in stereos of taxis that putter along the city’s only road. “He was, to me, one of the best contemporary artists that bridged the past to the future,” said Majuro-based music producer Daniel Kramer. “It affected him during the height of his creativity in music.” Marshallese musician and composer Carlton Abon, 40, unwraps recording equipment at his home in Majuro. In 2011, he began experiencing problems with his voice, and in 2016, a nodule in his thyroid gland was removed. He now hopes to start making music again. The Republic of the Marshall Islands consists of 29 atolls spread over 750,000 square miles, and in this once-remote part of the Pacific, radiation and cancer are hardly the only threats to the islands’ traditional arts. As is true elsewhere, a younger generation of Marshall Islanders has shunned the songs of their parents and embraced more modern sounds. Historically, the Marshallese performed through chanting, stamping and body percussion. Sometimes the singing was accompanied by the playing of shell trumpets, hourglass drums and concussion sticks. Storytelling was crucial. Composers, it is said, wrote tunes with help from ancestors and supernatural beings. Yet the nuclear tests helped unravel the cultural fabric of the Marshallese, which had already been frayed by centuries of Spanish and German colonial rule, Japanese annexation in 1914 and then the era of U.S. domination. The traditional songwriting “has not only changed, but it is dying,” said Abacca Anjain-Maddison, a former senator of the Marshall Islands. “We don’t see composers anymore.” Kramer, the music producer, said: “You have an older generation that was unable to pass down what it could if it was at its full potential. If even one or two of its talented artists are affected, it has a big impact on a small community.” “ Sometimes I wonder why all the people in the U.S. are not aware of what their government has done to these tiny islands. — Justina Langidrik, 67, musician Justina Langidrik leads the choir at the United Church of Christ in Majuro. Born on Kwajalein, she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 1984, soon after she gave birth to a son. One of these artists is Tarines Abon, 75, who continues to write songs and train choirs despite past treatments for stomach cancer and a thyroid tumor his doctors are now watching. When a Times photographer visited him at his Majuro home in May, Abon, no relation to Carlton Abon, struggled to reach some of the higher notes he was singing. By way of explanation, he pointed to his throat. Another artist is Justina Langidrik, 67, who sang as a soprano with the United Church of Christ choir in Majuro until doctors diagnosed her with thyroid cancer in 1984. The physicians removed Langidrik’s thyroid, taking away her singing voice, which she only partially regained a few years later. Today, when her health permits, she tries to teach her songs to young choristers. “There was a time when I used to think that I am just someone who was affected,” she said. “But I am a survivor. I am a survivor.” Langidrik’s speech is soft, and she keeps her graying hair tucked in a traditional floral headdress. A senior public servant, she has represented the Marshall Islands at various United Nations forums, trying to raise awareness of her country’s environmental challenges. “Sometimes I wonder why all the people in the U.S. are not aware,” she said, “of what their government has done to these tiny islands.”

Rosalina Bantol, 9, sits for a portrait in Majuro. She learned music from her grandmother Justina Langidrik.

Justina Langidrik, 67, teaches Marshallese music to her children, grandchildren and other youths on the island of Majuro. She underwent a thyroidectomy in 1987 and said she regained her voice partially a few years later, during a Christmas performance.

Thousands of miles separate the United States from the Marshall Islands, yet the two nations remain bound by legacies of the Atomic Age. For many Marshallese, the United States is home to a government that betrayed them but also a country that beckons with opportunity. About 30,000 Marshallese now live in the United States, many of them migrating to states such as Arkansas and Hawaii after Congress approved a 1986 compact that allows them to live and work here without a U.S. visa. At the same time, the U.S. military continues to use the Marshall Islands as a remote testing location. The U.S. Army operates rocket launches on Kwajalein Atoll — part of the secretive Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, which covers 750,000 square miles, an area nearly five times larger than California. The Kwajalein base is home to 2,500 permanent residents, most of whom are government contractors and their dependents. The base is an oasis of manicured lawns and swaying palm trees and is far different from the sandbar island that connects to it by ferry. That island, Ebeye, is a slum occupied by more people than it can shelter. Rudh Johnson, 59, lives among this labyrinth of abandoned concrete structures and mounds of rubble. Once a respected member of the United Church of Christ choir in Ebeye, Johnson was treated for thyroid cancer long ago. “Before the surgery I was a good singer, but not anymore,” she said. Three of Johnson’s fellow singers live on the densely populated island and have similar stories to tell. All three have scars on their necks. A short walk from Johnson’s tiny cabin lives perhaps the most popular couple of Ebeye — Telphina Jelke and Claudeo Jeadrik. Jelke used to sing in school, and that’s where Jeadrik, also a singer, heard her for the first time and courted her. They fell in love and married in 1973. Doctors diagnosed both of them with thyroid complications — Jelke received surgery in Hawaii, but Jeadrik couldn’t. Their voices are damaged, but they still sing biblical hymns together, unconcerned about how they sound. Claudeo Jeadrik and Telphina Jelke at their home in Ebeye, Kwajalein Atoll. Both have voices damaged by thyroid problems, but they continue to sing biblical hymns together. (Ali Raj / For The Times) Some of the couple’s children, and nearly half of the Marshallese in the United States, have put down roots in Springdale, Ark., where many work in the local meat-processing industry. It’s a working-class town where island immigrants have found jobs and homes and put their kids through school. One tie that binds is KMRW-FM, the Springdale radio station that keeps alive the traditional music and language of the islands. “The station brings the entire community together through music they grew up listening to,” said Larry Muller, a retired seaman who started KMRW in 2015. But along with bringing their culture to Arkansas, some old-timers have brought radiation sicknesses. Neisen Laukon, 66, grew up in Rongelap when exposures to radioactivity were at their peak. Her father, Rongelap’s paramount chief, helped his people evacuate the atoll in 1985. She has had recurring health issues all her life, including problems with her thyroid. It’s also possible she passed on her condition to her offspring. Her daughter Faith Laukon, 43, was born and raised in Missouri and never lived on the affected atolls. Yet she has hypothyroidism.