About 100 well-wishers gathered for Saturday evening's kemem at the Marshallese United Church of Christ in Springdale, AR.
A new census report shows that Arkansas has the largest population of Marshallese people in the continental United States. Most of them live in Springdale, AR, in the northwest corner of the state. The Marshallese people are from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Australia. Many that come to the U.S. work at the chicken processing plants owned by Tyson Foods and others.
The population will likely only continue to grow because the Marshallese people have unfettered access to the United States because of a "Compact of Free Association" between the two nations.