ABSTRACT
The destruction of Okinawa after the Pacific War led Okinawans to look for new interpretations of their past to overcome the hardships of the present and imagine a new future. Although scholars have recently examined Okinawans’ memory politics, they have paid little attention to the history of Okinawans in South America and their memory construction during the American occupation of the Ryukyu Islands between 1945 and 1972. To fill this gap, this article analyzes Okinawans’ diasporic memory narratives in Argentina in conjunction with transnational memories circulating between 1945 and 1965. Community leaders in Argentina during this period intended to construct a compelling remembrance narrative that could support their identity claims in the face of an uncertain future for their home islands. While this process was shaped by existing transnational discourses, Okinawan immigrants in Argentina negotiated and accepted only those ideas that fit their local agenda and served as sources of diasporic identity and pride. Even if Okinawan immigrants claimed to be Japanese, these memories need to be analyzed as strategies to rebalance asymmetrical power relationships within Japanese immigrant society.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Igor Saveliev, Nathan Hopson, and Tristan Grunow for their insightful comments and questions on my drafts. I am also grateful for suggestions from my peers at Nagoya University.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
3 “Mainland” (naichi, or “inner land”) was an official term during Japan’s imperial period. It distinguished citizens of Japan’s main islands from inhabitants of conquered territories. It is still used today informally to distinguish between Japanese and residents of Hokkaido and the Ryukyu Islands.
11 Suzuki Citation2010; Tigner Citation1956. Some of the reasons that explain this choice were the cooperation of the new Bolivian revolutionary government in facilitating agricultural colonization in Santa Cruz de la Sierra and the interest that the Japanese government put in this region for its own emigration program. See Amemiya Citation2006, 181.
14 Aruzenchin no uchina-nchu 80-nen-shi henshū iinkai 1994, 192.
16 Comité de Investigación y Redacción de la Historia del Inmigrante Japonés en la Argentina Citation2005, 426.
21 Aruzenchin no uchina-nchu Citation80-nen-shi henshū iinkai Citation1994, 214. In 1951, only one percent of issei had Argentine citizenship. See Tigner Citation1956, 541.
22 Comité de Investigación y Redacción de la Historia del Inmigrante Japonés en la Argentina Citation2005, 448–457.
29 Aruzenchin no uchinaanchu 80-nen-shi henshū iinkai 1994, 281. See also Uehara Citation1968.
30 Oshiro Citation1961a. All translations are mine unless otherwise noted.
32 Comité de Investigación y Redacción de la Historia del Inmigrante Japonés en la Argentina Citation2005, 44–45.
34 The Taishō period refers to the reign of the Taishō emperor, Yoshihito (1879–1926) and followed the Meiji period (1868–1926). In 1920 there were around 300 Okinawans in Argentina, compared to 1,958 mainlanders. By 1952, there were 6,316 Okinawan families settled in the country, compared to 3,442 Japanese mainlander families. See Tigner Citation1956, 205–206.
37 Centro okinawense en la Argentina Citation2016, 129. These struggles were momentarily resolved by the strong leadership of COA, which is why the sources presented in this work do not represent all Okinawans.
55 According to Ryan Yokota, “reversion represented a new betrayal of their postwar quest for rights and freedom from military control.” Yokota Citation2017, 59.
57 Only in 1966 did the Japanese government standardize its policy on diplomatic support for overseas Okinawans, including travel documents. During a committee meeting with American administrators, Japanese officials agreed that "the Japanese government would be responsible for protecting Okinawans overseas, that the Japanese government and Japan's Overseas Emigration Agency would handle Okinawan overseas immigration, and the Japanese government would issue Japanese passports to Okinawans for overseas travel." Amemiya, 2016, 187.
59 One of the reasons that explain this tendency is because the Bolivian settlement was the first immigration program co-sponsored by American authorities that was only for Okinawans, thus they intended to protect their investment as a matter of prestige and hegemony during the Cold War. See Iacobelli Citation2013, 12.
62 Aruzenchin no uchinaanchu 80-nen-shi henshū iinkai 1994, 95–96.
81 On transnational Okinawan identity narratives, see Arakaki Citation2002. On the Uchinānchu Festival, see Ueunten Citation2007.
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Mariana Alonso Ishihara
Mariana Alonso Ishihara holds a Master of Arts in History. She is currently a doctoral student in the Japanese Studies program at Nagoya University, Japan. Her research interests include the Japanese diaspora, focusing on the history of Okinawan immigrants in South America.
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