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Author: Hiroko Saito
“For local Okinawans, questioning what America is has been part of the process of Okinawa’s search for self-identity, particularly in its colonial encounters with America and Americanness”
—Ikue Kina,“Subaltern Knowledge and Transnational American Studies: Postwar Japan and Okinawa under US Rule”
This article introduces the scholarly dialogue on Okinawa in American studies by focusing on an academic journal American Quarterly. Why Okinawa in American studies? Since the early 1990s, American studies as well as other fields in humanities has pivoted from a nation-centered discipline to a transnational one, which enabled Americanists to explore the political, economic, cultural, and militaristic role of the US empire in the modern global context. “Pacific Rim” and “transpacific” became major keywords in that current, and gradually Okinawa became highlighted as a locus where American imperialism and Japanese colonialism intersect.
The editorial office of American Quarterly relocates every decade, and it was in the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa from 2014 to 2024 under the editorship of Dr. Mari Yoshihara, a professor in the department of American Studies at UHM. In her first editor’s note published in the March 2015 issue, Dr. Yoshihara emphasized incorporating “Indigenous, transnational, and comparative perspectives” into the journal aiming to “realize transnational scholarly dialogues and practice” during her tenure.
Since 2014, American Quarterly has published five articles that mainly focus on Okinawa-related issues. The trajectory of scholarly discussions on Okinawa in American Quarterly elucidates the significance of Okinawa in American studies and, at the same time, the development of American studies in Okinawa.
Kina’s article is a book review of three Japanese books. This was American Quarterly’s first book review that discusses non-English literature. By examining three Japanese books about Okinawa, Kina argues that the perspective and the knowledge of local Okinawans contribute to decentering the US.
Ginoza’s article proposes a concept of “dual empire”: the situation of Okinawa in which Japanese colonialism and US militarism “constitute a raced, gendered, and sexualized narrative of postcolonial Okinawans’ lives and social landscape.”[1] Published as a part of a special issue titled “Tours of Duty and Tours of Leisure,” this article examines how tourism and militarism condition today’s sexual politics in Okinawa by focusing on racialized and heteronormative narratives around the US military bases.
Inoue’s article also looks at contemporary Okinawa’s issues through gender lens. He claims that there has been a homosocial regime among American, Japanese, and Okinawan nationalist elites, which complicates the US military issue in Okinawa.
The more recent two articles develop the concept of “dual empire” by fleshing out how the power of an empire works beyond the conventional understanding.
Saito (Nakaganeku) coined the term “ossuopower” to uncover a neglected aspect of imperial power, that is, the control over remains. The US military has excavated the soil from the southern part of Okinawa, where the remains of thousands of victims of the Battle of Okinawa still lie, for the reclamation of Henoko Bay to build a replacement facility for the Futenma Airbase. Comparing this issue to the US settler colonialism in the North America and Hawaii as well as analyzing Shima Tsuyoshi’s short story “Hone” (“Bone”), Saito argues that control over the human remains and desecration of land are the essential strategies of US imperialism.
Shima Tsuyoshi's "Hone" is included in Okinawa Bungaku Zensyū vol. 8.
Ikehara turns to air, including noise pollution and wind, as a site of imperial violence as well as the resistance of the indigenous residents. On the one hand, the article analyzes the legal testimonies to seek the “solidarity toward a demilitarized Pacific,” and on the other hand, it reads poetry by the Okinawan writer Nakazato Yūgō to elucidate how the air, especially wind, realizes the intergenerational relationship and memory.
As these articles indicate, Okinawa is still a “keystone of the Pacific” for US imperialism and militarism. A scholarly approach from American studies will help you to grasp the entangled reality of Okinawa and find the possibility of the trans-Pacific solidarity and decolonization.
To access American Quarterly, go to the UHM library website and click on “DATABASES & MORE” to find Project MUSE. On Project MUSE, you can access all the articles from American Quarterly and other major academic journals in the field of arts and humanities.
Citations:
Ginoza, Ayano. “R&R at the Intersection of US and Japanese Dual Empire: Okinawan Women and Decolonizing Militarized Heterosexuality.” American Quarterly 68, no. 3 (September 2016): 583-91.
Ikehara, Sam. “The Feel of Peace: Noise Pollution and the Sovereignty of Wind.” American Quarterly 76, no. 3 (September 2024): 417-40.
Inoue, Mayumo. “The Inter-State “Frames of War”: On “Japan–US Friendship” and Okinawa in the Transpacific.” American Quarterly 69, no. 3 (September 2017): 491-99.
Kina, Ikue. “Subaltern Knowledge and Transnational American Studies: Postwar Japan and Okinawa under US Rule.” American Quarterly 68, no. 2 (June 2016): 443-55.
Saito (Nakaganeku), Nozomi. “Bone and Coral: Ossuopower and the Control of (Future) Remains in Occupied Okinawa.” American Quarterly 74, no. 3 (September 2022): 567-89.
Yoshihara, Mari. “Editor’s Note.” American Quarterly 67, no. 1 (March 2015): v-vii.
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