Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner

Who is Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner?

Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner is a Marshallese poet, educator, and climate change advocate born in 1987 in Majuro and raised partly in Hawaii. She holds a B.A. from Mills College and a master's degree in Pacific Islands Studies from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa. In 2012 she co-founded Jo-Jikum, a nonprofit that engages Marshallese youth on climate change, nuclear legacy issues, and the arts, and she has since served as a Climate Envoy for the Marshall Islands' Ministry of Environment. She gained international attention in 2014 when she was chosen to open the United Nations Climate Summit in New York with her poem "Dear Matafele Peinam," written for her infant daughter about the threat rising seas pose to her homeland; she went on to address the COP21 climate talks in Paris in 2015. Her debut poetry collection, Iep Jāltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter (2017), is recognized as the first published book of poetry by a Marshallese author. Jetñil-Kijiner's work weaves together climate justice, colonialism, migration, and Marshallese identity, and has made her one of the most widely recognized literary and political voices from the Pacific Islands.

Sources: Jetñil-Kijiner, K., Iep Jāltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter, University of Arizona Press (2017) · United Nations Climate Summit 2014, opening ceremony address, New York · Poetry Foundation, "Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner"