¹ Tarō Higa, 移民は生きる / 比嘉太郎編著: Imin wa ikiru (Tōkyō: Nichibei Jihōsha, 1974), 171. While the name 安慶名三郎could be read Akena Saburō, Agena is the more common reading and the 1940 United States Federal Census lists a “Saburo Agena” living in Makawao, Maui, Hawai'i. Year: 1940; Census Place: Makawao, Maui, Hawaii; Roll: m-t0627-04591; Page: 3B; Enumeration District: 5-15.

² Postwar development efforts implemented by the United States Civil Administration of the Ryūkyū Islands (USCAR) were critical, for example, in the establishment of the University of the Ryūkyūs (琉球大学, Ryūkyū Daigaku), abbreviated to Ryūdai (琉大) as the first institution of higher education in the Ryūkyū Islands on May 22, 1950. The university was an essential component of the redevelopment of the postwar occupied territory. See: University of Hawaii and Okinawa's University of the Ryukyus Celebrate 20th Anniversary of their Sister-University Relationship,“ University of Hawai'i News (Oct. 14, 2008). However, Okinawa remains the poorest of Japan's 47 prefectures with comparatively higher poverty rates (37.5% of Okinawan households; nearly triple that of the other 46 prefectures) and an average annual income of roughly 70% of similar jobs on mainland Japan. See: Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare Bureau of Family Affairs Division of Home Welfare, ひとり親家庭の現状と支援施策について[Hitori Oya Kamei no Genjō to Shien Shisaku ni Tsuite/ Report: Status of Single-Parent Families and Support Measures (Nov. 2, 2021); see also Steve Rabson, ”Henoko and the U.S. Military: A History of Dependence and Resistance,“ 10:4:2 The Asia-Pacific Journal (January 16, 2012).

³ Kirsten L. Ziomek, Lost Histories: Recovering the Lives of Japan's Colonial People (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Asia Center, 2019).

⁴ Uchinanchu, a History of Okinawans in Hawaii (Honolulu: Ethnic Studies Program, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, 1981), 224. Japanese in Hawai'i recognized Okinawan immigrants as distinct from them and were critical of particular cultural practices such as tattooing women's hands as tattoos were associated with criminals and outcasts.

⁵ John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 2001), 54.

⁶ The dispossession of Okinawan landowners through the U.S. military's confiscation of land during the postwar occupation remains a source of resentment among Okinawans, as well as a hotly contested legal and political issue. Although the U.S. government subsequently implemented a land leasing system to provide compensation to Okinawan landowners, some former landowners were entirely dispossessed due to the loss of records of land ownership predating the war and the massive casualties during the Battle of Okinawa. Surviving landowners were either able to reclaim their land or were awarded parcels of land by the U.S. occupying forces. These landowners eventually received compensation through leasing agreements authorizing the continued use of Okinawan land parcels for use by the U.S. military following the 1972 reversion. Notably, Governor Masahide Ota refused to sign the land leases, alleging that he had an obligation under the Local Autonomy Law not to authorize uses for Okinawa's lands in a manner that threatens the human security of Okinawan citizens. Saikō Saibansho [Supreme Court of Japan/SCOJ] Aug. 28, 1996, Gyo-tsu no. 90, Saikō Saibansho Hanreishū [Saikō Saibansho web] (Japan) (SCOJ's Grand Bench denying Governor Ota's appeal challenging the constitutionality of the Japanese National Government enforcing the governor's duty under Article 36(5) of the Land Expropriation Law to re-authorize the use of lands for U.S. military under the SOFA); Masahide Ota, “Governor Ota at the Supreme Court of Japan,” in Chalmers A. Johnson, Okinawa: Cold War Island. Edited by Chalmers Johnson. (Cardiff, CA: Japan Policy Research Institute, 1999). The Okinawa Prefectural Government has renewed its stance against the renewal of land leases under current Governor Denny Tamaki and has launched legal challenges opposing the construction of a new military installation in Henoko. See Gavan McCormack, “The Henoko Base Project: Okinawa's Tamaki Government at the Brink,” The Asia-Pacific Journal 16:24:2 (2018); Andrew Daisuke Stewart, “Kayano v. Hokkaidō Expropriation Committee Revisited: Recognition of Ryūkyūans as a Cultural Minority Under the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, an Alternative Paradigm for Okinawan Demilitarization,” Asian-Pacific Law and Policy Journal 4:2 at 418-26 (2003).

⁷ “Okinawa, Ambivalence, Identity, and Japan.” In Japan's Minorities (USA: Routledge: 2009), 210–227

⁸ Uchinanchu, a History of Okinawans in Hawaii, 53.

⁹ Uchinanchu, a History of Okinawans in Hawaii, 55.

¹⁰ Uchinanchu, a History of Okinawans in Hawaii, 41.

¹¹ Ronald Y. Nakasone, Okinawan Diaspora (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002), 200.

¹² Uchinanchu, a History of Okinawans in Hawaii, 41. Due to the prominence of Okinawans in the hog raising industry prior to the war, Okinawans were uniquely positioned to capitalize on the demand for pork during World War II. Uchinanchu, a History of Okinawans in Hawaii, 217.

¹³ Mitsugu Sakihara, “Discrimination overcome: Okinawan immigrant gains seen at 80th,” Honolulu Advertiser, 13 January 1980, 15.

¹⁴ The Office of Strategic Services estimated that officials incarcerated approximately 200 Okinawans during the war although specific individuals were not identified. Alfred M. Tozzer, United States Office of Strategic Services, Okinawan Studies, Volume 3: The Okinawans of the Loo Choo Islands: Japanese Minority Group (Honolulu: Office of Strategic Services, 1944), 86.

¹⁵ These actions by the Okinawan population in Hawai'i seem separate from efforts by the Japanese population in the Islands to support the Japanese military. John J. Stephan, Hawaii Under the Rising Sun: Japan's Plan for Conquest After Pearl Harbor (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984), 30-33.

¹⁶ “Fraternization With POWs Held Problem Here,” Hawaii Times, 26 September 1945, 2.

¹⁷ Gwenfread Allen, Hawaii's War Years: 1941-1945 (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1950), 196.

¹⁸ “Okinawans Need Clothes Group Says, Announcing Drive,” Honolulu Advertiser, 30 November 1945, 3; “Clothing Drive to Aid Okinawans Will Open Here Monday,” Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 1 December 1945, 7.

¹⁹ Many knew of family members still in Okinawa or had attended school in Okinawa and tried to coax civilians out of the hundreds of caves in Okinawa before American forces blasted them shut in an effort to secure the island. The Nisei of the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) have been particularly credited with saving thousands of Okinawan and Japanese due to their fluency in the Okinawan hōgen [dialect] that allowed them to reassure the people hiding in caves and burial chambers that it was safe to come out. This was a particularly challenging assignment as Japanese soldiers were often mixed with the civilians who discouraged and even prevented civilians from surrendering upon the threat of being shot. Joseph Daniel Harrington, Yankee Samurai: The Secret Role of Nisei in America's Pacific Victory (Detroit: Pettigrew Enterprises, 1979), 317-318; Tarō Higa, Memoirs of a Certain Nisei, 1916-1985=Aru Nisei No Wadachi (Kāne'ohe, Hawai'i: Higa Publications, 1988), 160-161.

²⁰ Tarō Higa, 移民は生きる / 比嘉太郎編著.; Imin wa ikiru (Tōkyō: Nichibei Jihōsha, 1974), 166.

²¹ The persistent rumors of Japan's victory even in the postwar period, which has been documented in primary sources, is of great interest to scholars as it shows that even within diasporic communities, pro-Japanese sentiment prevailed among some members. John J. Stephan, Hawaii Under the Rising Sun: Japan's Plans for Conquest After Pearl Harbor (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984), 172; Andrew W. Lind, The Japanese in Hawaii Under Wartime Conditions (Honolulu, New York: American Council, Institute of Pacific Relations, 1943), 21; Yukiko Kimura, “Rumor Among the Japanese,” Social Process in Hawaii Vol. XI (May 1947): 84-85; The Romanzo Adams Social Research Laboratory (RASRL), A-1989: 006, Box 10-11, “A Former Hissho-Kai Leader Aiding Relief Projects for Japan: Exposes Inner Activities of 'Katta-To,” 22 July 1948, 1; The Romanzo Adams Social Research Laboratory (RASRL), A-1989: 006, Box 10-11, “Interview with Mr. Tokuzo Shibayama—advisor of Hissho Kai,” 9 July 1948, 1.

²² “THE ORIGIN OF THE OKINAWA CLOTHING RELIEF DRIVE IN HAWAII,” Collection of Chizu Inoue, Hiroaki Hara, Dan Nakasone, Hawai'i United Okinawa Association archives.

²³ “THE ORIGIN OF THE OKINAWA CLOTHING RELIEF DRIVE IN HAWAII,” Collection of Chizu Inoue, Hiroaki Hara, Dan Nakasone, Hawai'i United Okinawa Association archives.

²⁴ Headquarters Ryukyus Command Military Government, Labor & Welfare department, “Ryukyus”, Hawai'i United Okinawa Association archives; Thomas. S. Rogers, “The Licensed Agencies for Relief in Asia: Esther B. Rhoads and Humanitarian Efforts in Postwar Japan, 1946-1952,” Quaker History 83: 1 (Spring 1994): 18-33.

²⁵ “Chronology highlights Okinawan years,” Hawaii Tribune-Herald, 22 September 1985, 44.

²⁶ Photo Album: Marine Corps Installations Pacific by Nika Nashiro, “Okinawa, Hawai'i Reflect of Postwar Relief Efforts, Reaffirming Spirit of Yuimaaru,” Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, 18 January, 2019.

²⁷ Photo Album: Marine Corps Installations Pacific by Nika Nashiro, “Okinawa, Hawai'i Reflect of Postwar Relief Efforts, Reaffirming Spirit of Yuimaaru,” Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, 18 January, 2019.

²⁸ Okinawans in North America also contributed to relief efforts directly to Okinawa as the separation of Okinawa from Japan during the American occupation resulted in most aid to Japan failing to reach Okinawa. “Okinawa Medical Group to Hold Meeting Oct. 28,” Honolulu Advertiser, 17 October 1951, 13; “Okinawa Medical Relief Association Soliciting Funds to Buy Supplies,” Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 31 January 1950, 23; Ruth Adaniya, “United Okinawan Association of Hawaii,” in Uchinanchu: A History of Okinawans in Hawaii, ed. Ethnic Studies Oral History Project (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1981), 327. Ben Kobashigawa, “On the History of the Okinawans in North America,” Amerasia, 12:2 (1985), 29-42.

²⁹ Okinawa Relief Group Launches $30,000 Drive,“ Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 12 November 1948, 6; ”Drive to Aid Okinawa With Goats at Half Way Point With $15,000,“ Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 4 January 1949, 2; ”Local Men Arrive in Okinawa With Goats,“ Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 23 June 1949, 18; ”Local Men Back from Okinawa Urge Aid for Isle,“ Honolulu Advertiser, 16 August 1949, 7.

³⁰ Photo Album: Marine Corps Installations Pacific by Nika Nashiro, “Okinawa, Hawai'i Reflect of Postwar Relief Efforts, Reaffirming Spirit of Yuimaaru,” Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, 18 January, 2019.

³¹ By 1949, there were 1,294 Okinawans in America who also supported various relief efforts, spurred by efforts led by Shingi Nakamura and Shinsei Kōchi who were sent to Japan as part of the American government's Atomic Bomb Casualties Commission. History of the Okinawans in North America (Los Angeles, California: Okinawan Club of America and the Asian American Studies Center, University of California, Los Angeles, 1988), 113.

³² Photo Album: Marine Corps Installations Pacific by Nika Nashiro, “Okinawa, Hawai'i Reflect of Postwar Relief Efforts, Reaffirming Spirit of Yuimaaru,” Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, 18 January, 2019.

³³ “Okinawans Stop Factional Rifts and Pledge Hearty Teamwork,” Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 27 March 1950, 3. By 1968, Yukiko Kimura estimated that there were approximately 35,000 Okinawans out of a total of about 225,000 Japanese, two-thirds of whom were Hawai'i-born. In 1932, the Japanese Consulate of Honolulu published a population report that revealed that most Okinawans in Hawai'i were concentrated in rural areas on O'ahu and on Hawai'i Island. United States Office of Strategic Services, and Alfred M. Tozzer, Okinawan Studies Volume 3, The Okinawas of the Loo Choo Islands: a Japanese Minority Group (Honolulu, Hawaii: Office of Strategic Services, 1944), 58.

³⁴ The equivalent of more than $570,000 in current U.S. dollars based on an inflation rate of 1,112.8% from 1948 to 2022. CPI Inflation Calculator, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (accessed Jun. 27, 2022).

³⁵ Karleen C. Chinen, “‘Pigs from the Sea,‘ 1948 Aloha Mission to Okinawa Comes to the Blaisdell Concert Hall,” Hawaii Herald 25:8 (April 23, 2004): 1.

³⁶ Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) made a documentary of this event and in 2004, a performance was held at the Blaisdell Concert Hall in Honolulu. Numerous books in Japanese have also detailed this and other relief efforts in the postwar period. Takenobu Higa, Hawai Ryūkyū geinō shi = History of Ryukyuan accomplishment in Hawaii (Honolulu: Higa Takenobu, 1978); Tarō Higa, 移民は生きる[Imin wa ikiru=The Immigrant Lives] Tōkyō: Nichibei Jihōsha, 1974.

³⁷ Shoji Kudaka, “A little tale about Okinawa's pigs from the sea,” Stars and Stripes Okinawa, February 10, 2019, accessed August 25, 2020. U.S. public diplomacy efforts include activities promoting community engagement between the U.S. forces in Okinawa and host communities. These narratives, however, make little or no mention of U.S. destruction of Okinawa during the Battle for the Islands which took so heavy a toll on Okinawan and Japanese lives.

³⁸ Goodwill efforts also exist in Hawai'i, another highly militarized island, where scholars Kathy E. Ferguson and Phyllis Turnbull note that “The local newspapers are saturated with military coverage, ranging from reports on changes in personnel to coverage of military ‘Good Samaritan’ activities, to local protests against stray bombs and hazardous materials stored near schools.” These goodwill efforts help to naturalize the military whose presence is “desirable, and constructive, therefore welcome.” Kathy E. Ferguson and Phyllis Turnbull, Oh, Say, Can You See?: The Semiotics of the Military in Hawai'i (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), 2, xiii.

³⁹ Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public Affairs, 2004), 5, 11. The U.S. military and USCAR's postwar relief efforts in Okinawa promoted the American way of life notably including the use of the U.S. dollar and English language.

⁴⁰ Yujin Yaguchi, “Japanese Reinvention of Self through Hawai'i's Japanese Americans” Pacific Historical Review 83:2 (May 2014): 333-349.

⁴¹ Hideko Yoshimoto, U.S. Occupation of Okinawa: A Soft Power Theory Approach (Victoria, Australia: Trans Pacific Press, 2019), 2.

⁴² United States Office of Strategic Services, and Alfred M. Tozzer, Okinawan Studies Volume 3, The Okinawans of the Loo Choo Islands: a Japanese Minority Group (Honolulu, Hawaii: Office of Strategic Services, 1944), 74.

⁴³ Okinawan Studies Volume 3, The Okinawas of the Loo Choo Islands, 84.

⁴⁴ United States. Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. Ryukyu (Loochoo) Islands ([Washington]: Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Navy Dept., 1944), 43.

⁴⁵ Masanao Kano, 戦後 沖縄 の 思想像 [Sengo Okinawa no shisōzō] (Tōkyō: Asahi Shinbunsha, n.d.,), 54-56.

⁴⁶ Matthew Allen, Identity and Resistance in Okinawa (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2002), 7.

⁴⁷ Yoshimoto, 3.

⁴⁸ Yoshimoto, 5.

⁴⁹ Martial law involved the outright suspension of constitutional liberties as civilian courts were declared closed, all government functions—federal, territorial, and municipal—were placed under Army control, and a military regime was established. The commanding general declared himself the “military governor” of Hawai'i and he controlled the entire civilian population with absolute discretionary powers. Harry N. Scheiber and Jane L. Scheiber, “Constitutional Liberty in World War II: Army Rule and Martial Law in Hawaii: 1941-1946,” Western Legal History 3:2 (1990): 341-378; J. Garner Anthony, Hawaii Under Army Rule (Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii, 1955).

⁵⁰ Yoshimoto, 153.

⁵¹ Robert Kamins and Robert Potter, Mālamalama: A History of the University of Hawaii (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1998), 77.

⁵² Mire Koikari, Cold War Encounters in US-Occupied Okinawa: Women, Militarized Domesticity, and Transnationalism in East Asia (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 12.

⁵³ “The Finger Points,” Hawaii Hochi, 14 January 1932, 1; Roger Bell, Last Among Equals: Hawaiian Statehood and American Politics (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1984).

⁵⁴ Christina Klein, Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 1945-1961 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004), 251.

⁵⁵ Saranillio, 140.

⁵⁶ Koikari, 105.

⁵⁷ Ellen D. Wu, The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model Minority (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014), 112.

⁵⁸ Dean Itsuji Saranillio, Unsustainable Empire: Alternative Histories of Hawai'i Statehood (Duke University Press, 2018), 14.

⁵⁹ George Atta and Claudia M. Atta, “Okinawans and Business,” in Uchinanchu: A History of Okinawans in Hawaii, ed. Ethnic Studies Oral History Project (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1981), 188-203; George M. Nakasato and Chad Taniguchi, “Okinawans in Hawaiian Agriculture: Poultry and Vegetable Crops,” in Uchinanchu: A History of Okinawans in Hawaii, ed. Ethnic Studies Oral History Project (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1981), 204-216; Yukiko Kimura, “Okinawans and Hog Industry in Hawaii,” in Uchinanchu: A History of Okinawans in Hawaii, ed. Ethnic Studies Oral History Project (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1981), 217-222; Arnold T. Hiura and Vinnie K. Terada, “Okinawan Involvement in Hawaii's Labor Movement,” in Uchinanchu: A History of Okinawans in Hawaii, ed. Ethnic Studies Oral History Project (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1981), 223-232; Lillian Y. Hokama, “Okinawan Participation in the Legislature,” in Uchinanchu: A History of Okinawans in Hawaii, ed. Ethnic Studies Oral History Project (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1981), 243-259.

⁶⁰ Noriko Shimada, “The Emergence of Okinawan Ethnic Identity in Hawai'i: Wartime and Postwar Experiences,” The Japanese Journal of American Studies 23 (2012): 118.

⁶¹ Koikari, 136-144. The pro-American stance of the Okinawan community in the postwar period was much different from the Americanization efforts experienced in the Japanese community during the 1930s (and by the Nisei during World War II) as traditional Okinawan values were celebrated as part of Cold War multiculturalism. This difference highlighted the incompatibility of the alleged un-American values of Japanese culture in an effort to close Japanese language schools that were thought to promote “Mikado worship” due to the growing military threat of Japan. In both instances, however, military considerations would promote a positive or negative view of Japanese and Okinawan culture. Noriko Asato, Teaching Mikadoism: The Attack on Japanese Language Schools in Hawaii, California, and Washington, 1919-1927 (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006); Eileen Tamura, Americanization, Acculturation, and Ethnic Identity: the Nisei Generation in Hawaii (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994).

⁶² Curtis Otani, “14 Okinawa Clubs in Unity Ceremony,” Honolulu Advertiser, 22 September 1951, 1.

⁶³ Adaniya, 328.

⁶⁴ Michael T. Holmes, The Specter of Communism in Hawaii (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994), 190. Those arrested were Jack Hall, regional director of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU); John Reinecke, former teacher; Jack Kimoto, an employee of the Honolulu Record; Koji Ariyoshi, editor of the Honolulu Record; Jim Freeman, mechanic; Charles Fujimoto announced chair of the Communist Party of Hawai'i; and Eileen Fujimoto, wife of Charles Fujimoto and secretary at the ILWU Longshore Local 136.

⁶⁵ Okinawan Studies Volume 3, The Okinawans of the Loo Choo Islands, 60. One year later, in 1952, the United States Senate and House of Representatives voted on the McCarran-Walter Act that allowed Japanese immigrants to become naturalized U.S. citizens.

⁶⁶ Adaniya, 328.

⁶⁷ Uchinanchu, a History of Okinawans in Hawaii, 229.

⁶⁸ “Isle YF's Travel to Okinawa, California,” Hawaii Tribune-Herald, 17 January 1965, 5.

⁶⁹ Adaniya, 330.

⁷⁰ Wesley Ueunten highlights “the conservative pro-American nature of the U.O.A. that developed as a result of its close association with the U.S. military and its formation during the Cold War” that helped to build a unique transnationalism between Hawai'i and Okinawa that still exists today. Wesley Iwao Ueunten, “The Okinawan Revival in Hawai'i: Contextualizing Culture and Identity over Diasporic Time and Space” PhD Dissertation University of California, Berkeley, 2007, 57.

⁷¹ Mitsugu Sakihara, “Okinawans in Hawaii: An Overview of the Past 80 Years,” in Uchinanchu: A History of Okinawans in Hawaii, ed. Ethnic Studies Oral History Project (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1981), 117.

⁷² Minoru Shinoda, “Okinawa's Status Is Challenge to U.S. In Asia,” Honolulu Advertiser, 27 December 1959, E-18.

⁷³ “Okinawa is Fine Shape Says Higa,” Honolulu Advertiser, 22 September 1960, A-5.

⁷⁴ “Army Spokesperson Has No Comment,” Honolulu Advertiser, 27 August 1960, A-4.

⁷⁵ Yukiko Kimura, “Locality Clubs as Basic Units of the Social Organization of the Okinawans in Hawaii,” Phylon 29 (December 1968): 337.

⁷⁶ Mitsugu Sakihara, “Okinawans in Hawaii: An Overview of the Past 80 Years,” in Uchinanchu: A History of Okinawans in Hawaii, ed. Ethnic Studies Oral History Project (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1981), 118. Although descendants of Okinawan immigrants to Hawaii share unity in the local “Uchinanchu” identity perpetuated by the HUOA, this consolidation of the multitude of Okinawan identities overlooks the plurality of dialects, cultural histories, religious beliefs and practices, and geographical context of distinct communities across the Okinawan Islands. The azasonjinkai were more representative of the diversity of indigenous groups of Okinawan people but were assimilated into a consolidated representative body after 1972. Alternative Report to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)(Jul. 2018), Association of the Indigenous Peoples in the Ryukyus (AIPR).

⁷⁷ Anthropologist William P. Lebra describes the 1950s to 1970s as a period of Okinawan “cultural florescence” while scholar Noriko Shimada states that the development of Uchinanchu cultural realization began a few years earlier. John F. McDermott, Wen-Shing Tseng, and Thomas W. Maretzki. People and Cultures of Hawaii: a Psychocultural Profile (Honolulu: John A. Burns School of Medicine: University Press of Hawai'i, 1980), 124; Shimada, 131. See generally The Okinawan Festival, Hawai'i United Okinawa Association.

⁷⁸ High profile protests against development and militarism occurred in places such as Kaho'olawe, Kalama Valley, and Waiāhole/Waikāne. Noelani Goodyear-Ka'ōpua, Ikaika Hussey, and Erin Kahunawaika'ala Wright. A Nation Rising: Hawaiian Movements for Life, Land, and Sovereignty (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014).

⁷⁹ Timothy P. Fong, The Contemporary Asian American Experience: Beyond the Model Minority (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2008), 299-300.

⁸⁰ Jonathan Okamura and Candace Fujikane, eds., Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawaii (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2008).

⁸¹ Steve Louie, and Glenn Omatsu, Asian Americans: The Movement and the Moment (Los Angeles: UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press, 2006), 9; Jennifer Darrah-Okike, “Theorizing Race in Hawai'i: Centering Place, Indigeneity, and Settler Colonialism” Sociology Compass 14: 7 (2020), 5.

⁸² Historians Caroline Elkins and Susan Pederson note that “Settler colonialism in the twentieth century is thus marked by ongoing negotiation and struggle among four key groups: an imperial metropole where sovereignty formally resides, a local administration charged with maintaining order and authority, an indigenous population significant enough in size and tenacity to make its presence felt, and an often demanding and well-connected settler community.” Thus, settler colonialism is never a uniform experience, identity, or understanding as there have always been a dynamic relationship between federal, state, military, native, and settler interests. Caroline Elkins and Susan Pederson, eds., Settler Colonialism in the Twentieth Century: Projects, Practices, Legacies (New York: Routledge, 2005), 4; Saranillio, 74.

⁸³ American democratic principles were well-established in other western nations when Japan adopted its postwar Constitution under the U.S. occupation in 1947, replacing the Meiji Constitution of 1889. Japan's postwar constitution reflects a liberal democracy with legal traditions of the United States, guaranteeing certain fundamental rights of its citizens. The overhaul of the previous Meiji Constitution was primarily intended to totally transform Japan into a democratic, demilitarized, and capitalist state that respected individual rights of its citizens. Whereas the Emperor was previously regarded as the official head of state, the postwar Constitution limited the Emperor's powers to primarily serve a symbolic role. Notably, Japanese citizens gained substantive rights through Chapter 3 pertaining to the Rights and Duties of the People (Articles 10-40). Whereas Japanese citizens were previously referred to as subjects of the Emperor under the Meiji Constitution, the postwar Constitution added a spectrum of individual rights in alignment with Western democratic norms and fundamental human rights. It is important to note that the postwar Constitution was not in force in Okinawa a U.S.-military colony that was separated from Japan until the 1972 reversion.

⁸⁴ Nihonkoku kenpō [Constitution], art. 21 (Japan) (“Article 21. Freedom of assembly and association as well as speech, press and all other forms of expression are guaranteed. No censorship shall be maintained, nor shall the secrecy of any means of communication be violated”).

⁸⁵ Former Okinawa Prefecture Governor Masahide Ota refused to sign leases on behalf of landowners, under Japan's Land Acquisition Law, who were unwilling to renew leases for exclusive use by U.S. military bases. The Japanese central government attempted to intimidate Governor Ota into signing the leases. The Prime Minister of Japan sued Ota under the Local Autonomy Law seeking “a court order for the governor to execute the duties delegated to him [to sign the leases].” The Fukuoka High Court, Naha Branch ruled in favor of the Prime Minister. Ota appealed to the Supreme Court of Japan and lost in a verdict announced on August 28, 1996. See Masahide Ota, Governor Ota at the Supreme Court of Japan, in Chalmers A. Johnson, Okinawa: Cold War Island. Edited by Chalmers Johnson. (Cardiff, CA: Japan Policy Research Institute, 1999), 205; Gavan McCormack and Satoko Oka Norimatsu. Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States (Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012); Chalmers Johnson, “ESSAY—The Okinawan Rape Incident and the End of the Cold War in East Asia,” California Western International Law Journal 27: 2, Article 6 (1997): 389-397; Sheila A. Smith, “The Constancy of Contest with Okinawa,” Forbes Asia (Jan. 27, 2014).

⁸⁶ Takazato Suzuyo, “Okinawan Women Demand U.S. Forces Out After Another Rape and Murder: Suspect an ex-Marine and U.S. Military Employee,” Asia-Pacific Journal 14:11:4 (2016); Chalmers Johnson, Okinawa: Cold War Island (Cardiff, CA: Japan Policy Research Institute, 1999).

⁸⁷ Agreement Regarding the Status of United States Armed Forces in Japan, Agreement Under Article VI of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security Between Japan and the United States of America, Regarding Facilities and Areas and the Status of United States Armed Forces in Japan, Japan-U.S., Jan. 19, 1960, 11 U.S.T. 1652.

⁸⁸ Saranillio explains that “U.S. ambitions for global hegemony during the Cold War found discursive alliance with portrayals of Hawai'i as a racially harmonious U.S. state and selected narrations of Japanese American loyal service, setting state-led antiracist narratives to public memory through global circulation, entertainment, and publicity, while colonial narratives of Hawaii's occupation by the United States were designed for historical deletion” (Saranillio, 14).

⁸⁹ Franklin Odo, ed., Finding a Path Forward: Asian American Pacific Islander National Historic Landmarks Theme Study (Washington D.C.: National Historic Landmarks Program, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, n.d.), 229.

⁹⁰ Laura Hein and Mark Selden note that “What it means to be Okinawan is being contested, redefined, and inscribed in the consciousness and praxis of Okinawans today” highlighting the difficulty of defining a very fluid identity. Laura Hein and Mark Selden, eds., Islands of Discontent: Okinawan Responses to Japanese and American Power (USA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2003), 1.

⁹¹ The authors acknowledge the conflicting viewpoints among Okinawans in Japan regarding defining Okinawans as an indigenous people. Okinawans are recognized as indigenous peoples by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), legitimized as unique indigenous peoples in Japan who have endured a history of colonialism and imperialism. However, the Japanese government does not formally recognize Okinawans as an indigenous people and there is reluctance among Okinawan citizens and government officials in being referred to as indigenous peoples. Patrick Heinrich and Fija Bairon, “Wanne Uchinanchu–I am Okinawan. Japan, the U.S. and Okinawa's Endangered Languages,” The Asia-Pacific Journal 5:11 (2007): 1–19. See generally Brandon Marc Higa, “Okinawa and Human Rights Scholarship in the Law and Japan Field: A Bibliographic Compilation,” Asia-Pacific Law and Policy Journal 22:1 (2021).

⁹² Scholar Judy Roher applies Patrick Wolfe's five elements of settler colonialism to Hawaii and notes that it is 1.) Structure, Not an Event; 2.) The Central Focus Is Land; 3.) Logic of Elimination; 4.) Reliance on Imported Labor; 5.) Nonnatives Replace Natives. Judy Roher, Staking Claim: Settler Colonialism and Racialization in Hawaii (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2016), 55-64. With increasing intermarriage to Japanese Americans and other groups, joint membership and leadership in various community organizations, as well as a growing trend of assimilating Okinawan American into the broader identity of Japanese Americans, Okinawan American identity in Hawai'i is often posited as distinct from Japanese culture. However, how this distinction is internalized or understood by individuals varies.