Abstract: The historical experiences of Hawai‘i’s Okinawan American (Uchinanchu) community in connection with Okinawa after World War II helped to shape an understanding of their own cultural and ethnic distinctiveness, which was influenced by U.S. policies in Okinawa. In the aftermath of the war, Hawaiʻi’s Uchinanchu community worked to provide relief for their brethren in the devastated islands of their homeland. Their efforts were supported and indeed encouraged by the U.S. military. As the U.S. military transformed and rebuilt Okinawa, the U.S. sought to justify the occupation of Okinawa and its concentration of military bases on the islands. One means of doing this was referring to the Uchinanchu contributions to the rebuilding of their homeland as part of the expansion of US soft power. It can be argued that the emergence of a unique Okinawa American identity in Hawai‘i in the post-World War II period reflected America’s Cold War “public diplomacy” within a liberal multicultural discourse.
Keywords: Okinawan Americans, Okinawa, Hawai‘i, Cold War, Relief Efforts, Community Organizations, Indigenous Minorities, U.S. Militarization, USCAR, Uchinanchu
Introduction
思い故郷に通わさみりば I let my thoughts wander back to my hometown
[Omoi furusato ni kayowasamiriba]
戦争場の哀り思いまさて I think of the sorrow of the battlefield
[Sensōjō no awari omoimasate]
無情に渡らりみ人ならわし
[Mujō ni watararimi hito no narawashi] The ways of this world unrelentingly spread
まさて親兄弟の哀り知らば Sadder, when I think of the grief of my parents and
[Masate oya kyōdai no awari shiraba] siblings
ハワイめる人の志情の衣 Clothing from the beneficent people of Hawaiʻi
[Hawai meru hito no shijō no koromo]
やがて親兄弟ぬうれしなみだ Parents and siblings will soon shed tears of joy
[Yagate oya kyōdai nu ureshi namida]
ウチナ万民に地獄みして [War created] hell for all Okinawans
[Uchina banmin ni jigoku mishite]
This poem by Maui poet Saburō Agena was published in major Japanese newspapers as part of efforts to mobilize community support in Hawaiʻi for relief efforts in Okinawa (Higa, 1974, p. 171).1 These efforts were not just a reflection of the personal connections that existed between the Okinawan American residents of Hawaiʻi and Okinawa but also were sanctioned and supported by the U.S. military. The U.S. postwar occupying forces in Okinawa created a neoliberal security state through relief efforts aimed at rebuilding the war-torn infrastructure and promoting American rule in the territory.2 Similarly, World War II has had lasting impacts on the State of Hawai‘i with the U.S. military maintaining an active presence down to the present.
The historical experiences of Hawai‘i’s Okinawan Americans (self-referenced as Uchinanchu below) helped to shape an understanding of their cultural distinctiveness that was sanctioned by the U.S. However, the recognition of Okinawan Americans in Hawaiʻi as a “minority within a minority” originates from immigration during the early 1900s when the legal status of Okinawans in Japan as “shin-nihonjin” (新日本), new Japanese, underpinned the separation of Okinawan immigrants from “wajin” (和人) who came from other parts of Japan (Ziomek, 2019, pp. 30-31).3 To trace the origins of a distinctive Okinawan American identity in Hawai‘i, it is essential to examine their experiences on the plantations where mainland Japanese immigrants discriminated against Okinawan arrivals who followed them three decades later in the early 1900s (Uchinanchu, 1981, p. 224).4 Additionally, the wartime and postwar experiences of Okinawans need to be considered as the events of World War II and the Cold War would dramatically impact the formation of this diasporic community’s identity that complicate historical and contemporary issues of indigeneity, militarism, and self-determination in both Okinawa and Hawai‘i.
The Battle of Okinawa
On April 1, 1945, the United States Tenth Army invaded Okinawa as part of Operation Iceberg, a plan to occupy the Ryūkyū Islands. After eighty-two days of intense combat, about 17,000 Japanese troops surrendered, ending the final and bloodiest battle in the Pacific War. More than 12,000 Americans were killed and 37,000 were wounded, while nearly half of the estimated 250,000 Japanese killed were Ryūkyūans, including those serving with the Japanese forces in various capacities. Moreover, approximately one-third of the civilian population—possibly as many as 150,000 men, women, and children—were killed during the fighting and thousands became refugees (Dower, 2001, p. 54).5 Additionally, much of Okinawa’s infrastructure was destroyed in the year-long bombardment by the U.S. military before the invasion.
When American forces finally gained control over Okinawa, the monumental task of rebuilding and transforming Okinawa commenced. Approximately 42,000 acres of land were confiscated by the US military, dispossessing Okinawan landowners of their property as U.S. military installations were constructed throughout Okinawa Prefecture without compensation.6 As a result of the destruction caused by the fighting, the military established refugee camps in the area for the first eighteen months after the battle. The local population subsisted primarily on food, clothing, medical supplies, and other items provided by the military as free rations or as compensation for labor. Despite many challenges, widespread starvation and the spread of disease were prevented as Okinawans and American military officials began wrestling with the fate of this island nation as Cold War tensions increased in the Asia-Pacific region. These events were closely monitored by Okinawans who had immigrated to both the United States and Hawai‘i who maintained connections to their ancestral homeland. Hawaii Uchinanchu, in particular, experienced a dramatic transformation in their social, economic, and political status within Hawai‘i due in part to their contributions to postwar relief programs fostering relationships between the U.S. occupying forces and host communities to facilitate the U.S. military occupation as new installations were built and troops were deployed to engage in the subsequent U.S-Korean War (Allen, 2009, p. 188).7 Hawai‘i’s diasporic Okinawan community that had immigrated nearly five decades earlier would ultimately play a critical role in the relief and rebuilding efforts spearheaded by the U.S. military to stabilize Okinawa and promote a narrative of military benevolence.
Okinawan Immigration to Hawai‘i and the Experiences of the Prewar Okinawan Community
In 1900, the first group of Okinawan immigrants arrived in Hawai‘i seeking employment for ambitious young men (Uchinanchu, 53).8 Approximately 20,000 Okinawans immigrated from 1900-1924, about half of whom either returned to Okinawa or moved to the continental United States. In addition to discovering the difficulties of plantation labor, many encountered prejudices from mainland Japanese (Naichi), who considered them “foreigners” or “outcasts.”
Naichi’s discriminatory views toward Okinawan immigrants reflected a government-sanctioned caste system in Japan whereby ethnic minorities, including Okinawans and Ainu, were distinguished as lower-class citizens. At the time of immigration in the early 1900s, Okinawan immigrants were classified as “shin-Nihonjin,” new Japanese citizens, following the annexation of the Ryūkyū Islands as Okinawa Prefecture in 1879. Additionally, officials forced Ryūkyūans to comply with linguistic and cultural assimilation policies by adhering to behavioral norms set by the central Japanese government to avoid punishment for using the Ryūkyūan language or practicing Okinawan religious customs (Uchinanchu, 55).9 In Hawai‘i, Naichi discouraged “intermarriage” with Okinawans, and some referred to Nisei Okinawans (2nd generation Okinawan settlers) with the phrase, “Okinawa ken, buta kau kau” (pidgin Japanese, [people from] Okinawan Prefecture, eat pigs) in reference to pork as a staple of the Okinawan diet, something viewed as unclean by Naichi (Uchinanchu, 41).10
According to researcher Arakaki Makoto, four factors emerged that would diminish the divide between these two groups in Hawai‘i. First, the “Naichi discrimination pressured Okinawan Issei (1st generation settlers) to reject their language and culture and to encourage their Nisei children to assimilate into Japanese and American communities (Nakasone, 2002, p. 200).”11 Additionally, the second generation of both groups primarily spoke English as their first language and shared similar experiences, resulting in the language divide diminishing. Further, the discrimination faced by both Japanese and Okinawans during World War II helped to erode the gulf between the two communities as people in mainstream America and in Hawai‘i referred to both as “Japs”. Finally, as many Naichi were not in positions of socio-economic power, their attitudes had little effect on the advancement of Okinawan Nisei who became vital members of Hawai‘i’s postwar community, in part because pork became an important source of protein for Hawaiians during the war (Uchinanchu, 217).12
Historian Mitsugu Sakihara highlights the war as critical in “destroy[ing] many of the old social barriers and discrimination” as wartime work shortages opened new economic opportunities for many, including Okinawans and Japanese Americans who also served in the armed forces (Sakihara, 1980, p. 15).13 As discrimination decreased in the postwar period, Uchinanchu and other Okinawan American identities became celebrated and embraced in part due to their wartime experiences, particularly after the Battle of Okinawa in 1945 and the resulting relief efforts in the immediate postwar period. These efforts helped to (re)create connections between Okinawa and its diasporic communities, particularly in Hawai‘i, that were in part facilitated by the U.S. Cold War policies in the Asia-Pacific region (Tozzer, 1944, p. 46).14
World War II Relief Efforts of Hawai‘i Uchinanchu
Even before the conclusion of the war, Okinawans in Hawai‘i had made informal efforts to seek out and assist their relatives. During World War II, Okinawans in the Hawaiian Islands provided Okinawan Prisoners of War (POWs) incarcerated in Hawai‘i food, cigarettes, and other sundries to make their stay less onerous (Stephan, 1984, pp. 30-33).15 K. Howell, commanding officer of the POW base camp, noted that one of the biggest problems confronting officials in charge of the 10,619 POWS in Hawai‘i was locals fraternizing with Okinawan POWs, who comprised roughly one-fourth of the total number of prisoners in the Islands (Hawaii Times, 1945, 2).16 Local Okinawans often visited Okinawan POWs out on work detail in the community and gifted them cigarettes, fruit, candy, and even money in spontaneous gestures of friendship as fellow Okinawans (Allen, 1950, p. 196).17
“Many residents of Hawai‘i, however, wanted to do much more to support the people of Okinawa particularly after “official and unofficial reports reaching Honolulu that Okinawans [were] in urgent need of clothing and [would] suffer severely this winter unless relief [was] provided” (Honolulu Advertiser, 1945, p. 3; Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 1945, p. 7).18 Some of this information likely came from Nisei soldiers with Hawai‘i connections who were in Okinawa as part of the occupying forces (Harrington, 1979, pp. 317-318; Higa, 1988, pp. 160-161).19 However, according to Tarō Higa, a Nisei veteran who helped to mobilize early relief efforts, some within the Japanese community in Hawai‘i criticized these efforts even in the postwar period as unnecessary:
[H]owever, in an unfortunate incident from the group of victory believers, that is “Hisshōkai”, I was threatened several times as these self-advertisers from the same town opposed the rescue movement. The reason for the opposition from these people was that as Japan was winning the war, it was not necessary to send relief supplies. It was because they believed that in the near future, the Imperial Japanese Navy will proudly arrive at Pearl Harbor and rule over Hawaii (Higa, 66).20
Although Higa did not identify these individuals as Japanese or Okinawans, victory groups did exist in Hawai‘i due to the upheaval of the postwar period and the censorship of news that made individuals susceptible to rumors (Stephan, 1984, p. 172; Lind, 1943, p. 21; Kimura, 1947, pp 84-85; RASRL, 1948, p. 1).21
Organizers also were immediately confronted by two important questions about the appropriateness of “aliens” and other Japanese Americans undertaking relief efforts in light of existing anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States, and the U.S. Navy’s need to receive permission to send goods collected in Hawaiʻi to Okinawa (HUOA archives).22 They soon arrived at a solution: “Appeal to the religious organizations in Hawaii, whose principles of humanity do not discriminate between enemies and friends, and solicit their guidance and advice (HUOA archives).”23 Numerous American Christian organizations that operated through the Licensed Agencies for Relief in Asia (LARA) were active in postwar Japan in sending aid. (Headquarters; Rogers, 1994).24
Thus, as early as December 14, 1945, Okinawan residents in Hawai‘i began participating in relief efforts organized by the Council of Churches on Hawai‘i Island to ship 500 boxes of clothing aboard a U.S. military vessel to Okinawa as part of the Okinawa Relief Association (Hawaii Tribune-Herald, 1985, p. 44).25
Figure 1. The clothing drive relief committee sits behind boxes packed with clothes in Maui, Hawaiʻi, on Dec. 15, 1945. The postwar humanitarian effort was initiated by a second-generation Uchinanchu who enlisted as a U.S. service member from Hawaiʻi. (Photo provided by Dan Nakasone)26
Figure 2. The Okinawan community in Hawaiʻi gathers to support a postwar relief effort initiated by a second-generation Uchinanchu and U.S. service member from Hawaiʻi. (Photo provided by Dan Nakasone)27
Other relief efforts included providing medical supplies and goods, even sewing machines, used eyeglasses, school supplies, and equipment that an Okinawan American women’s group known as Lepta Kai (The Penny Club) provided to the residents of Okinawa (Honolulu Advertiser, 1951, p. 13; Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 1950, p. 23; Adaniya, 1981, p. 327; Kobashigawa, 1985, 38).28 Thus, women also took an active role in relief efforts, reflecting community-wide support for these endeavors. Subsequent shipments followed in 1949 of over 2,750 goats, 500 of which were purchased by residents of Hawai‘i, in a collaboration with the National Heifer Project committee of New Windsor, Maryland (Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 1948, p. 6; Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 1949, p. 2; Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 1949, p. 18; Honolulu Advertiser, 1949, p. 7).29
Figure 3. The USS Owen transportation of pigs to Okinawa during postwar relief efforts. (Photo courtesy of Shinyei Shimabukuro, provided by Jon Itomura, grandson of one of the seven Okinawan voyagers)30
Okinawan Americans’ collective relief efforts were a sign of goodwill toward their relatives still living in Okinawa, which further reinforced the U.S. military’s efforts to feed Okinawans in the war-torn occupied territory. While Uchinanchu efforts were not unique and were limited in scale—Okinawan residents in the American mainland also contributed to relief initiatives—it is important to note how these actions, supported by the U.S. military who provided the necessary transport vessels and facilitated the distribution of these donations, created a unique bond between Okinawa and Hawai‘i (History, 1988, p. 133).31 They also highlight the agency of local Okinawans in supporting humanitarian efforts and defining their role, and subsequently their identity, in the postwar period.
Figure 4. An elementary school in Shuri, Naha City, receives books from Hawaiʻi during the post-World War II relief effort. The postwar humanitarian effort was initiated by a U.S. service member from Hawaiʻi who was a second-generation Okinawan. (Photo provided by Dan Nakasone)32
The Okinawan Americans’ collective relief efforts remain a significant event within Hawaiʻi’s Okinawan community as they fostered a distinct local identity among the estimated 28,000 Okinawans in the Hawaiian Islands in the postwar period that celebrated Okinawan culture within a shared experience of hardship and the overcoming of prejudice and discrimination (Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 1950, 3; Tozzer, 58).33
One of the best-known relief efforts benefitting Okinawa’s recovery following World War II was organized by the Hawaiʻi United Okinawa Relief Association, a civic organization that sent 550 pigs from Omaha, Nebraska across the Pacific to replenish Okinawa’s hog industry crippled during the Battle of Okinawa. Before the war, there were 140,000 pigs in Okinawa but by the war’s end, only 2,000 remained. In an event celebrated as “Pigs from the Sea,” organizers raised $47,00034 and sent seven men to accompany the pigs from Portland, Oregon to Okinawa in a voyage that took nearly a month and is credited with rejuvenating the hog industry in Okinawa (Chinen, 2004, p. 1).35 Even today, this story is celebrated as one of the seminal events that created a bond between Okinawa and Hawai‘i (Higa, 1978; Higa, 1974).36 However, an often overlooked part of the story is the assistance of the U.S. military in this and other relief efforts as they provided the necessary transport vessels and assisted in the distribution of donations to the Okinawan population (Kudaka, 2019).37 Not only did American military forces support civilians in Okinawa displaced by war after the Battle of Okinawa, but also Okinawan American service members, who as part of the occupying forces, shared the news of the devastation of Okinawa with family members in Hawaiʻi.
U.S. Occupation and the Promotion of Okinawan Culture
Following the enactment of the 1951 U.S.-Japan Security Treaty that severed Okinawa from the rest of Japan, the U.S. military promoted goodwill efforts between American personnel and Okinawans to facilitate their continued presence in Okinawa as a critical component of the U.S.-Japan Security Alliance and other U.S. military policies in the region during the Cold War era (Ferguson and Turnbull, 1999, pp. 2, xiii).38 This approach is consistent with a strategy that political scientist Joseph S. Nye Jr. later termed “soft power” that “rests on the ability to shape the preferences of others” through the promotion of culture, political values, and foreign policies while pursuing military objectives (Nye, 2004, pp. 5, 11).39 Similarly, Japanese Americans in Hawaiʻi are presented as successful and assimilated Americans in various publications as part of the promotion of a positive view of the United States in the postwar period (Yaguchi, 2014).40 Hideko Yoshimoto refers to U.S. activities in Okinawa throughout the Cold War as “public diplomacy” to support its military and national security objectives, as many Okinawa continued to play in essential role in U.S. military strategy in Asia and the Pacific (Yoshimoto, 2019, p. 2).41 The military bases in Okinawa provided one of the most important permanent U.S. footholds in Asia, continuing after Reversion to the present.
Yet even before a formalized relationship existed between Japan and the United States that sanctioned the presence of the American military in Okinawa, American military officials were already emphasizing the difference between Okinawa and Japan to legitimize the continued occupation of Okinawa Prefecture while re-legitimizing the rest of Japan’s sovereignty. On June 1, 1944, the Office of Strategic Services Research and Analysis Branch (in Hawai‘i) released a report entitled “The Okinawans of the Loo Choo Islands: A Japanese Minority Group.” The report detailed the historical difference between the two groups in Hawai‘i in a section entitled “Cleavages” noting, “In these islands it is the prejudice of the Japanese toward the Okinawans about which we hear most (Tozzer, 74).”42 Extrapolating from its observations on Hawai‘i, the report foresaw the possibility of using the cleavage between mainland Japan and Ryūkyū along with previously Japanese-occupied territories such as the Marshall Islands and Davao in the Philippines. Highlighting this “natural” cleavage “founded on racial differences together with those of language and culture,” the report encouraged the cultivation of differences between Japanese and Okinawans during World War II (Tozzer, 84).43
As military interest shifted to the occupation of Okinawa by October of 1944, when it became evident that Taiwan would not have to be occupied by the U.S., the Murdock group, which had been researching Okinawa, produced a report that was published by the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations on December 15, 1944. This report was entitled “Civil Affairs Handbook, Ryukyu [Loochoo] Islands” and, like the June report, emphasized the cleavage between Okinawans and Japanese (Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, 1944, p. 43).44 Masanao Kano has extensively detailed efforts by the American military administration to emphasize the differences between Okinawans and Japanese and highlight the liberation of Okinawans from Japanese forces (Kano, n.d., pp. 54-56).45 These efforts to identify Okinawans as different from Japanese were also consistent with subsequent efforts by the Japanese government to justify the presence of American military bases on Okinawa rather than on the main four islands of Japan (Allen, 2002, 7).46
The Okinawan people faced a period of statelessness under the U.S. military occupation where their legal status was neither that of a Japanese citizen, formerly as “Shin-Nihonjin” residents of Okinawa Prefecture nor a U.S. citizen by residing in a U.S.-occupied territory. However, unlike Japan’s government in the earlier twentieth century, the U.S. occupation took an active role in promoting Okinawan music and dance as part of its efforts to separate Okinawa from Japan and referred to its duties to control the local population as “civilian affairs activities” (Yoshimoto, 3).47 Yoshimoto notes that when USCAR succeeded the Military Government (MG), officials were well aware that polls had indicated that many Okinawans wanted to return to Japanese sovereignty. While reserving veto rights over local legislation, “USCAR deployed public relations campaigns to positively spin the U.S. authority over Okinawa, while promoting a favorable image of the U.S. presence” (Yoshimoto, 5).48 Thus, U.S. officials referred to Okinawans as “people” or “inhabitants” rather than “citizens” and avoided the use of the term “Okinawa,” its former name as a Japanese prefecture. U.S. administrators instead embraced the term “Ryukyus” to stress the differences between Okinawa and Japan and emphasize the region’s local and historical identity. However, since most Americans were unfamiliar with the name Ryūkyū, the term “Okinawa” was used in Congress in governance, finance issues, and within the media.
Critical to this endeavor to cultivate a positive image of the U.S. military and foster a separate Okinawan identity were community-based organizations both in Okinawa and Hawai‘i which had experienced military rule and occupation under martial law during World War II (Scheiber and Scheiber, 1990, pp. 341-378; Anthony, 1955).49 While scholars like Yoshimoto focused on domestic events and organizations in Okinawa that helped to propagate a positive view of the U.S. military, this study focuses on the “public diplomacy” that military officials engaged in with diasporic Okinawan communities, particularly in the Pacific, as Okinawa provided important bases for U.S. forces during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Yoshimoto notes that after World War II and throughout the Cold War, the U.S. “expanded its overseas public diplomacy and public affairs efforts” to minimize the inherent contradiction between promoting democracy abroad against “communism” while maintaining a militarized presence in another sovereign state (Yoshimoto, 153).50
Reconstituting Hawaiian Okinawan Identity
Located literally between East and West in the Pacific Ocean, the expansion of the University of Hawai‘i had a role to play in Hawai’i’s public diplomacy. The founding of the East-West Center, an international training and education center that Congress established in 1960, one year after the granting of statehood, was significant. At the East-West Center, students, educators, and foreign leaders would be imbued with “the American way of life” and receive technical training and education under the supervision of Baron Goto, a Japanese American educator, and head of East-West Center’s Institute for Technical Interchange (Kamins and Potter, 1998, p. 77).51 While Mire Koikari focuses on the importance of the University of Hawai‘i and the East-West Center in Cold War domestic training and technical interchange, she also notes the centrality of Hawai‘i Okinawans in the relief efforts that highlighted their postwar integration in America’s Cold War narrative of inclusiveness and multiculturalism:
As Japanese and Okinawan Americans in Hawaii began to participate in the occupation as educators, instructors, advisors, and technicians, their involvement not only reinforced the American claim of multiculturalism and racial equality, but also gave Hawaii’s immigrant communities invaluable opportunities to assert their worthiness as American citizens-subjects despite their minority “alien” status (Koikari, 2015, p. 12).52
Although Hawai‘i was granted statehood in 1959, it had been a hard-fought battle due to the large number of non-whites in the Islands that for many years had made Hawai‘i and its residents seem “unfit”, indeed, an “impediment” to statehood (Hawaii Hochi, 1932, p. 1; Bell, 1984).53 However, scholar Christina Klein shows that during the Cold War, this same multiethnic, multicultural, multilinguistic population was recast as an asset as it was Hawai‘i’s “Asian population that held out the promise of securing access to the markets and resources of Asia”, particularly during the Cold War (Klein, 2004, p. 251).54 Dean Itsuji Saranillio notes how the efforts of Japanese Americans in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and 100th Infantry Battalion to promote their loyalty and assimilability also helped statehood proponents to “further argue for statehood by working though racial difference, not extinguishing it” (Saranillio, 2018, p. 140).55 This revisioning of Asian Americans in the Islands coincided with local Okinawan efforts in Hawai‘i to recast their “minority within a minority status,” to challenge perceptions of racial inferiority, and to highlight their socio-economic ascendancy in the postwar period. Koikari notes the involvement of Japanese Americans and Okinawan Americans in Hawai‘i who were strongly pro-American, as an “indispensable part” of the U.S. occupation of Okinawa (Koikari, 105).56 It is important to note that these displays of loyalty and patriotism to America within Okinawan American communities in Hawai‘i, were not unique as other groups such as Chinese Americans were also intent on highlighting their anti-communist stance during the Cold War period, particularly during the Korean War (Wu, 2014, p. 112).57 However, their role in the relief and rebuilding efforts spearheaded by the U.S. military to stabilize Okinawa helped to advance a narrative of military benevolence that promoted statehood in Hawai‘i and the maintenance of military bases throughout Asia and the Pacific (Saranillio, 2018, p. 14).58
Okinawan Americans in Hawai‘i were uniquely positioned in the postwar period due to their differentiation from Japanese Americans from mainland Japan and their descendants. This separation from the wider Japanese American community and their rising economic status became the cornerstone of their unique identity in the Islands (Atta and Atta, 1981, pp. 188-203; Nakasato and Taniguchi, 1981, pp. 204-216; Kimura, 1981, pp. 217-222; Hiura and Terada, 1981, pp. 223-232; Hokama, 1981, pp. 243-259).59 Noriko Shimada notes the ascendancy of the local Okinawan population in Hawai‘i was due to the wealth they accumulated both during and after the war that in turn allowed Hawai‘i’s Okinawans to contribute to postwar relief efforts in Okinawa. Shimada argues, “the U.S. Occupation of Japan and U.S. military rule in Okinawa had a positive influence on Okinawans in Hawai’i, by helping them alleviate feelings of social and racial inferiority (Shimada, 2012, p. 118).”60 In the postwar years, the Okinawan community in Hawai‘i for the first time attained a largely positive self-image sharing in the benefits of Americanization (Koikari, 136-144; Asato, 2006; Tamura, 1994).61 Spearheading this effort were community-based organizations in Hawai‘i that eventually coalesced into one unifying entity known as the Hawaii Okinawa Rengo Kai, or United Okinawa Association (UOA), and was later renamed the Hawaii United Okinawa Association (HUOA) in 1995. The HUOA ultimately became the representative body for the local Okinawan community in Hawaii that united the various azasonjinkai (字村人会, villagers’ associations) that for years had remained separate due to different dialects and regional identities.
The Role of Community-Based Organizations in Promoting Cold War Connections
From the end of World War II until 1972, when Okinawa was returned to Japan with U.S. bases and military forces intact, USCAR acknowledged the UOA as the official representative of Okinawan Americans in Hawai‘i. In this capacity, the UOA hosted official visitors from Okinawa and participated in various government-sponsored programs. On September 21, 1951, when the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty was announced that separated Okinawa from the rest of Japan, the various member clubs united their relief efforts in a ceremony held at the Nu‘uanu YMCA auditorium and attended by over 300 people (Otani, 1951, p. 1).62 The UOA resolved that members unite to effectively help in the rebuilding of Okinawa, to contribute to the “prosperity and welfare of Hawai‘i,” and “ in accordance with the American principles of liberty and equality by denouncing all alien, destructive, and unpatriotic ideas.”63
The emphasis on upholding American principles of liberty and equality and the denunciation of “alien, destructive, and unpatriotic ideas” also reflected Cold War fears in the Islands. On October 7, 1949, the territorial legislature passed a concurrent resolution requesting the United States House Committee on Un-American Activities to come to Hawai‘i to investigate what it claimed were potential “communist” threats that existed in the territory. As a culmination of the investigations, one month before the inauguration of the UOA, authorities arrested the “Hawaii Seven” who were tried under the Smith Act for: “(1) unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly to advocate and teach the duty and necessity of overthrowing the Government of the United States by force and violence, and (2) unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly to organize and help organize as the Communist Party of the United States of America a society, group and assembly of persons who teach and advocate the overthrow and destruction of the Government of the United States by force and violence” (Holmes, 1994, p. 190).64
Accusations of disloyalty were particularly acute for Okinawans in Hawai‘i who were still considered aliens until the McCarran-Walter Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. During World War II the Office of Strategic Services estimated that officials incarcerated approximately 200 Okinawans (Tozzer, 60).65 Initial organizing efforts by the UOA were also hindered by the questioning of several Association leaders by officials from the Immigration and Naturalization Service for alleged communist sympathies. Although nothing resulted from these inquiries, Ruth Adaniya notes, “Rumors of communist influences spread (Adaniya, 1981, p. 328).”66 Officials accused International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) leaders with Okinawan ties, such as Tom Yagi, of communist sympathies, and although he recalled the “hardship and embarrassment” placed upon him and his family, he and 38 others who became known as the “Reluctant 39” took the Fifth Amendment as a matter of principle (Uchinanchu, 229).67 Thus, official declarations of loyalty to the United States stated in the founding resolutions of the UOA were designed not only to deflect communist accusations against the leaders but also to reflect the role of the UOA in Okinawan American relations during the Cold War.
In its capacity as the representative of Okinawans in Hawai‘i, the UOA was important in such programs as the Hawai‘i-Okinawa Farm Youth Training Program started in 1953 that brought trainees from Okinawa to work and live for six months with farmers in Hawai‘i (Hawaii Tribune-Herald, 1965, p. 5).68 Of particular significance is the Hawai‘i-Okinawa Friendship Mission, which was started in 1959 as a way to foster better relations between Americans and the people of Okinawa. The Civil Affairs Section (G-5) of the US Army Pacific, Fort Shafter, in Hawai‘i recognized that Okinawans in Hawai‘i would be suitable goodwill intermediaries since “they were American citizens who knew the language of Okinawan people and shared with them the same ethnic background” (Adaniya, 1981, p. 330).69 The program proved successful as evidenced by the U.S. Army’s expansion of the Friendship Mission to include Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, and other countries with an American presence. Thus, the relationship established among the U.S. military, the UOA, and occupation authorities helped to formalize transnational ties between the Okinawan community in Hawai‘i and their ancestral homeland of Okinawa through a common history of war and occupation (Ueunten, 2007, p. 57).70
The Question of Reversion within the Okinawan Community in Hawai‘i
While UOA representatives welcomed officials, students, and dignitaries from Okinawa, the question of the status of Okinawa and its reversion to Japan was one of great debate within the Okinawan community in Hawai‘i in the postwar period. According to Mitsugu Sakihara, many believed that “it would be in the best interest of Okinawa to become a U.S. territory” due to many Issei recalling their early life in poverty in Okinawa, stories of the benefits of U.S. occupation, and the Nisei’s embrace of Americanization (Sakihara, 1981, p. 117).71 Casting doubts about American control over Okinawa were individuals such as the Reverend Jikai Yamasato of the Jikoen Hongwanji where donations for relief efforts were collected as well as Dr. Minoru Shinoda, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.72
On August 27, 1960, Tom Yagi, International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) director on Maui returned from a trip to Okinawa and addressed similar concerns about continued U.S. control over Okinawans. He reported, “Okinawans find their natural desire for dignity and self-respect, frustrated by the U.S. occupation. The majority want to become part of the Japanese state.” He described how members of the American occupation team were living in “plush conditions,” while the majority of Okinawans were “poverty stricken.” Yagi also questioned the humanitarian necessity of the U.S. presence in Okinawa, alluding to the military importance of Okinawa in the Cold War: “Many whom I talked to said the US-Japanese treaty was not a document for peace, but a stepping stone for another world conflict between the so-called Free World and the socialist countries of Red China and Russia.” While the Army had “no immediate comment” after Yagi’s article was published, Yagi’s claims were met with rebuttals from other members in the Okinawan American community, such as businessman Yets Higa, who sponsored an “unofficial fact-finding tour” to counter Yagi’s claims (Honolulu Advertiser, 1960, A-5).73 According to Higa, “Nobody is starving in Okinawa,” adding that “[s]entimentally, perhaps, the Okinawan people lean toward Japan. But they know that economically and socially they are much better off under the U.S. I don’t think they’ll want to change any time soon (Honolulu Advertiser, 1960, A-4).”74
This debate, centered on Japanese and American control over Okinawa, also reflected the ambivalence within the community regarding the relationship between Okinawans and Naichi due to experiences of prejudice and discrimination against Okinawans in Hawai‘i as well as Japan. Previous efforts to unify the various local clubs had failed for several reasons, including “considerable opposition to forming such an exclusively ‘all Okinawan’ group on the grounds that special recognition of Okinawans represented a reversal of their past collective efforts to eliminate prejudicial treatment of Okinawans as a separate group regarded as inferior by other Japanese in Hawai‘i” (Kimura, 1968, p. 337).75 Additionally, many held distinct cultural perspectives and spoke different dialects of Uchināguchi (沖縄口; ウチナーグチ) that separated various groups. Thus, many hesitated to join an organization that highlighted the distinct Okinawan identity that had made them the target of prejudice by Naichi. Compounding these issues of identity, prejudice and acculturation was likely the complicated status of Okinawa itself to both the United States and Japan. Mitsugu Sakihara highlights this complexity in the various name changes of the UOA that reflected the changing status of Okinawa during the Cold War from Hawaii Okinawa-jin rengōkai (Hawaii United Association of Okinawan people) to Okinawa kenjin rengokai following the reversion of Okinawa in 1972 (Sakihara, 118).76
Contemporary Understandings and Challenges to the American Military in Indigenous Politics and Identity
Until the 1972 Reversion to Japan the UOA’s involvement in relief efforts and cultural exchange as a liaison between Okinawa and the United States reinforced Okinawans’ sense of distinctiveness from other Japanese in Hawai’i. Moreover, these roles enhanced their connections to Okinawa, and their embrace of Okinawan culture. Thus, much of the focus of the UOA in the postwar period was centered on cultural promotion that began as early as 1971 and coalesced in 1982 in the annual Okinawan festival that celebrates Okinawan dance, music, language, food, and history (McDermott, Tseng, and Maratzki, 1980, p. 124; Shimada, 2012, p. 131).77 Revealingly, this celebration of Okinawan culture through various activities led by locality clubs (azasonjinkai) coincided with the second Hawaiian Renaissance in the 1970s that witnessed the embrace of Hawaiian music, language, dance, and other cultural practices. The Hawaiian Renaissance also renewed calls for activism against militarism and development in rural areas and on other islands besides O‘ahu (Goodyear- Kaʻōpua, Hussey, and Wright, 2014).78 However, perceptions of the need for this kind of political activism against the military in both Hawai‘i and Okinawa are uncommon among most Okinawans in Hawai‘i, with a few notable exceptions. While many Okinawans in Hawaiʻi embraced the cultural awakening of the 1960s Civil Rights and Asian American movements, there was community silence concerning the anti-war and anti-draft movement that inspired and mobilized other ethnic communities at this time to engage in radical political protest (Fong, 2008, pp. 299-300).79 Many also did not critically comment of the reversion of Okinawa to Japan and the important corollary issues related to civil rights and militarism. This absence and the conservative pro-American nature of Okinawan identity in Hawai‘i should be understood within Hawai‘i’s complicated history of colonialism and imperialism with Asian immigrants, who are often accused of complicity in the subjugation of indigenous peoples (Okamura and Fujikane, 2008).80 Still today there is relative silence from the HUOA regarding the growing anti-war movement in Okinawa based in part on the recognition of indigenous rights.
Many Asian American communities in Hawai‘i, while embracing cultural elements of their distinctiveness, also feel part of a “local” culture that is both a unifying and homogenizing influence, to the extent that activist Chris K. Iijima notes that “only Hawaiians’ indigenous culture—now resurgent after centuries of assault—can lay claim to being the authentic ‘local’ one” (Louie and Omatsu, 2006, p. 9; Darrah-Okike, 2020, p. 5).81 Thus, in promoting their assimilability in the postwar period, which was highlighted in their participation in relief efforts that were supported by the U.S. military, many Okinawan Americans in Hawai‘i implicitly rejected commonalities with other colonized and indigenous peoples, despite their own experiences with imperial Japan and later America. However, the very complexity of this issue and the variety of responses to the narrative of American military benevolence—that IWLU leader Tom Yagi challenged—demonstrate differences and complexity even among settlers who must navigate between different colonizing forces and interests (Elkins and Pederson, 2005, p. 4; Saranillio, 2018, p. 74).82
Additionally, the promotion of a conservative diasporic Okinawan American identity is consistent with Japan’s complicated relationship with Okinawa and its celebration of American ideals of freedom and liberty at the expense of Okinawans.83 The Japanese government has actively suppressed Okinawan free speech and expression, particularly concerning the expansion of American military bases.84 In response, local organizers have convened large anti-base demonstrations and Okinawan residents have elected anti-base governors who have refused to sign leases to maintain the bases (Ota, 1999, p. 205; McCormack and Norimatsu, 2012; Johnson, 1997, pp. 389-397; Smith, 2014).85 Base opponents call for the removal of the bases because of their negative impacts on the environment, multiple, high profile rapes and sexual assaults by US servicemen and civilian workers of local Okinawan women and men, and the economic dependency of some on the U.S. military presence for employment on the bases and by mainland Japanese contractors servicing them (Suzuyo, 2016; Johnson, 1999).86 Despite this opposition, from a macropolitical perspective the Japanese and American governments rely upon the continued U.S. military base presence in Okinawa Prefecture to fulfill the terms of the U.S.-Japan Security Alliance and Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA).87
Conclusion
As Asian settlers in Hawai‘i, Okinawan Americans embody a unique paradox highlighting their indigeneity within a colonized land. The postwar period represents the renaissance of Hawai‘i Okinawan identity and the embrace of the traditional elements of a once derided culture by Okinawan Americans that was consistent with the U.S.’s liberal multicultural narrative during the Cold War. While Okinawan Americans celebrated their success and ascension in the postwar period through their participation in relief efforts and celebration of Okinawan culture, the detrimental effects of U.S. imperialism and militarism were overshadowed in the liberal multicultural environment of the Cold War that sanctioned militarism, expansion, and conquest.88
By promoting goodwill relief efforts among Okinawan community organizations in Hawaiʻi and through the rebuilding of Okinawa, the U.S. attempted to justify the military occupation of Okinawa and its base-centered economy. Thus, the emergence of Okinawan and Okinawan American identities in the post-World War II period reflected America’s Cold War “public diplomacy”. The Cold War played an important role in Asian Americans’ transition from a “yellow peril” to a “model minority” in which Okinawan Americans experienced the economic and educational achievements of Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans (Odo, n.d., p. 229).89 Indeed, both Okinawa and Hawai‘i would be sites of America’s soft diplomacy efforts that witnessed the emergence of an Okinawan American identity in Hawaiʻi focused on culture, arts, and cuisine, thus overlooking the militarized, gendered, and inherently unequal position of Okinawa in the U.S.-Japan bilateral security alliance.90 In this context, legacies of imperialism and militarism still impact and complicate Okinawan American identity today, particularly concerning recent campaigns to reclaim indigenous rights in both Okinawa and Hawai‘i and growing opposition to the American military presence in Okinawa.91
The experiences of Hawai‘i’s Okinawan Americans in the postwar period and the present highlight an important recognition of settler colonialism by Uchinanchu and the legacies of war and imperialism in both Hawai‘i and Okinawa. Their experience also reveals how Uchinanchu identity is an ongoing process of negotiation and recalibration among various groups and interests struggling to define their relationship with each other, the land, economics, militarism, and politics (Roher, 2016, pp. 55-64).92 The Hawai‘i United Okinawa Association and other cultural organizations emerging from the Cold War era continue to maintain a visible presence in Hawaiʻi today, even as both Okinawan and Japanese Americans are largely recognized as assimilated into the mainstream society in the communities throughout the Hawaiian Islands.
