The United States military occupation of Okinawa: Politicizing and contesting Okinawan identity, 1945--1955

On the eve of the Battle of Okinawa on April 1, 1945, there was little question of identity as Okinawans perceived themselves as Japanese, a product of seventy years of forced Japanese assimilation. Japan, however, treated Okinawans as second-class subjects, thus many Okinawans saw the battle as a means to prove their worthiness as Japanese. The battle, however, not only destroyed Okinawa physically, it also altered the trajectory of identity. This dissertation historicizes and problematizes Okinawan identity by positing the period from the Battle of Okinawa to the mid 1950s as a pivotal time when Okinawa as an "imagined community" experienced a profound identity crisis. First, the dissertation examines how the Battle of Okinawa and the American occupation challenged prewar notions of being "Japanese" among Okinawans and second, analyzes why identity became a central focus of Okinawan resistance to the occupation. In planning for the invasion of Okinawa, US civil affairs officers "discovered" that Okinawans were not Japanese. This discovery shaped future occupation policy as the US, in an attempt to create an identity gap between Okinawan and Japanese, attempted to invent a popular consciousness of a Ryukyuan nation-state by convincing Okinawans that they were Ryukyuan, not Japanese. Yet, the military nature of the occupation consistently undermined these nation-building efforts as the "military mind" clashed with Okinawan demands for autonomy and democratization. By 1949, the military occupation had degenerated to the point where desperate Okinawans rebelled against the unjust handling of the occupation. Okinawans, who originally perceived the US as liberators, now compared the US occupation to the dark days of Japanese militarism and consequently, called for reversion to in 1951. Because this movement threatened the security of US military bases in Okinawa, US authorities initiated a two-pronged strategy of democratizing political reforms and a reinvigorated campaign of soft culture diplomacy designed to nurture an Okinawan ethno nationalism to counter Japanese nationalism. The result, I argue, produced a complex and often contradictory legacy of political, social, and cultural currents that together explain Okinawans' acute ambivalence towards "Japan" and the emergence of an Okinawan national identity.