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Thesis title C.y..-\-Ps\-JMery.o�: 5-huj�\es b� � l:1qQs; jV\ Po�+ ·C1:1icl War- 0 �V\Cl\P""-
Date 5/ :t?,/11
Library Us� ·, 1{ A��ptedBy: . Date: £�¢=3. , l"ev.March20l0 CONTESTED MEMORY: STRUGGLES OF THE 1990S IN POST-COLD WAR OKINAWA
by
SARA KANG
Professor Eiko Maruko Siniawer, Advisor
A thesis submitted in partial Julfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors In History
WILLIAMS COLLEGE
Williamstown, Massachusetts
April 21, 2014 Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... , ...... , ...... I
CHRONOLOGY OF OKINAWA-JAPAN ...... ; ...... II
INTRODUCTION ...... 1
HISTORY OF OKINAWA VIS-A-VIS MAINLAND ...... 6
SECTIONS OF THESIS ...... 10
THE CORNERSTONE OF PEACE ...... 14
1: INTRODUCTION ...... : ...... 14
2. THE CORNERSTONE OF PEACE AND THE POLITICS OF COMMEMORATION ...... 18
3. THE G-8 SUMMIT AND "YASUKUNIFJCATION" ...... 27
4. CONTROVERSIES OVER MEMORY AND HISTORY IN OKINAWA IN THE 2000S ...... 38
CONCLUSION ...... 41 5......
M_;\IDENS OF HIMEYURI: ...... 44
1.lNTRODUCTION ...... 44 ......
2. SITUATING "HIMEYURI" IN JAPANESE NATIONAL MEMORY ON THE MAINLAND DURING THE
MID-1990S ...... 47 ......
3. CONTESTED MEMORIES IN OKINAWA AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE HIMEYURI PEACE
l\1USEUM ...... 52
4. HIMEYURI DOCUMENTARY (2007) AND HIGA TOMIKO (1991) ...... 60
5. CONCLUSION ...... 68
THE COMFORT ISLAND: ...... 70
1. INTRODUCTION ...... 70
2. MEDORUMA'S "DROPLETS" (1997) .. 74 ......
3. "MIRACLE WATER" AND "GHOSTS" IN TOKUSHO' S PRIVATE MEMORY ...... 79
5. THE "MIRACLE WATER": MERCHANDISING OKINAWA ...... 93
6. CONCLUSION: "FIND OUT ABOUT OKINAWA IN FIVE MINUTES." ...... 97
CONCLUSION ...... 101
INDEX OF PHOTOS...... 108
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 114 Acknowledgements
I would not have succeeded in finishing this project without the support of my fr iends, family members and fantastic professors. Your words of encouragement always reminded me to stay optimistic every day this past year.
No words can express my appreciation and gratitude for my thesis and academic advisor, Professor Eiko Maruko Siniawer. Your kindness and patience with me over the past fo ur years at Williams College made a tremendous impression on my life and the ways in which I envision my future. I was always able to turn to you in my many moments of doubt and uncertainty, and your advice on both my research as well as on my career choices were invaluable fo r which I am extremely grateful. And I am so glad to have taken two tutorials with you (one freshman year, and one senior year)-they were perfect bookends to my Williams academic career.
Furthermore, I would also like to acknowledge Professor Thomas Kohut and Professor Apama Kapadia for their constant support throughout the year, for useful comments and remarks regarding our work, and for engaging us through the joys of historical research.
I would also like to thank the Wilmers family and the spirit of Robert G. Wilmers Jr., whose generous funding for my summer research travel to Japan has allowed me to personally engage with my topic and partake in ceremonies commemorating the anniversary of the war. Thank you so much for financially supporting my research.
Lastly, I am most grateful for my two wonderful friends, Alexandra and Leo. Our frequent late night rendezvous in our Sawyer carrels a..nd tireless bantering will always have a special place in my heart. I would not have been able to finish this project without you guys. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories ii
Chronology of Okinawa-Japan
h Early 15r Century -- Ryukyu Kingdom (Okinawa) established by King Sho Hashi
1609 -- Japanese invasion ofRylikyu Kingdom; islands become province of Japan
1879 -- Annexation of Ryukyu by Japan and renamed "Okinawa"
1945 -- Japan Surrenders; American Occupation in Japan begins
1952 -- American Occupation ends on mainland; Okinawa remains under American possesswn
1960 -- Renewal of Japan-US Security Treaty, continuing US military presence in Okinawa
1972-- Okinawa's reversion to Japanese control, and end of Occupation in Okinawa
1975 -- Okinawa Prefecture Peace Memorial Park opens
1990 --OtaMasahide elected as governor of Okinawa Prefecture fo r three terms
1995-- Cornerstone of Peace unveiled at the Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Park
1998-- Keichi Inamine becomes governor
2000 -- G-8 Summit in Naha, Okinawa Introduction
"Identity politics is implicitly one of resistance-in this [Okinawa's] case against the Japanese state and the powerful myth of Japanese cultural homogeneity, and against u.s. military power."
-Linda Angst, in Culture, Power and Identityin Contemporary Okinawa.
'Fhe act of remembering can be empowering to those in marginalized social
positions. Over the years at Williams College, I learned this to be true in the case of
ethnic minorities in Japan through Norma Field's In the Realm of a Dying Emperor-a
book that focuses on three "resisters" of Japanese historical amnesia in the years after
Emperor Hirohito's death in 1989. One of the "resistors" was an Okinawan man, Chibana
Shoichi, who gained notoriety when he burned the Rising Sun flag in protest against
Japan's marginalization of Okinawans after the war. His act of resistance drew me to the
history of the ethnic group of Okinawans in Japan, whose war experiences were far
different fr om other Japanese citizens during the Asia-Pacific War.1 In fact, Okinawan
war experiences seemed closer to that of ethnic Koreans residing in Japan, many of
whom had moved to Japan as forced laborers during the war. Through Chibana's story, I
became very interested in studying the ways in which marginalized histories challenged the tired misconception of Japan as a homogenous nation. I decided that I would dedicate
my thesis project to learning the post-Cold War history of Okinawans with three different
sites of vernacularmemory and war narratives being the central focus.
For many Okinawans, memory was a useful tool for resisting government policies
and advocating social and political change during the 1990s in Japan. War memory
1 While there are many ways to name the Pacific theater of World War II, I refer to the term "Asia-Pacific War" that encompasses the Asian phase of the war, which began in 1931 to 1941; and the Pacificphase of World War II from 1942 to Japan's surrender afterthe end ofthe Battle of Okinawa in 1945. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 2
si�nificantly shaped Okinawan identity since the end of the war, and its conception became one of resistance against the Japanese state and its powerful myth of Japanese cultural homogeneity. As sociologist Ishihara Masaie suggested, "It can be argued that memories of the war have become an integral part of Okinawan thought and culture in a way unknown to the mainland:"2 Collectively, I will be studying three icons of vernacular me�ory in post-Cold War Okinawa: public monuments in Okinawa as controversial sites
of memory, such as the Cornerstone of Peace; the historical legacy of the Himeyuri Girls in shaping gendered memory on the mainland and in Okinawa during the mid-1990s; and the prized work of Okinawan literature by an important contemporary Okinawan writer,
Medoruma Shun. Specifically, I seek to examine these different terrains of contested
memory in order to understand how they sought to challenge the national narrative of the
Japanese state during the post-Cold War era. I claim that Okinawan memories were
"contested" on account of the continuing competing dialogues regarding the past between
mainland Japan and Okinawa; Okinawans' inability to properly cope with and heal their
traumatic memories of the war; and the continued U.S military presence in Okinawa as a
daily reminder of their questionable freedom from mainland hegemony. I hope to
understand how both Okinawans' collective and individual reactions to the nationalist
premises of official memory during the post-Cold War era have revealed elements of
Okinawa that are unique, diverse and significant to their memories of the war.
2 Gerald Figal, "Waging Peace on Okinawa," in Islands of Discontent: Okinawan Responses to Japanese and American Power, ed. Laura Elizabeth Hein and Mark Selden (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 69. 2014 Contested Memories 3
My thesis focuses on the time period between the late 1980s to the present as it marked a critical time of renewal fo r the nation of Japan. Carol Gluck, a professor of
Japanese history, described Japan's war memory since the American Occupation to· the late 1980s as "frozen' ' due to the relentless efforts by the political regime to maintain a heroic version of Japanese history in public memory.3 Starting in the late 1980s, however, there was ageopolitical shiftafter the end of the Cold War with the collapse ofthe Soviet
Union; the defeat of the powerful conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) rule4; and the passing of the Showa era with the death of Emperor Hirohito in 1989; all of which set in motion new interpretations of Japan's wartime past in East Asia. The death of Emperor
Hirohito especially raised many questions about Japan's war guilt and the role of the emperor in political and military affairs during the war. Many historians criticized the decision that exonerated the emperor, which essentially impeded historical clarification of the decision-making process that lead to war and surrender.5 With this, debates regarding Japan's war memory and responsibility became the core of public discourse in the late 1980s. The government's obsessive desire to project a new and proud Japanese identity, supported by past-denying state officialsand nationalistic right-wing revisionists,
3 Carol Gluck, "Operations of Memory: 'Comfort Women' and the World;" In Ruptured Histories: War, Me moryand the Post-Cold War in Asia, ed. Sheila Miyoshi Jager and Mitter (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2007), 64. 4 From 1955 to 1993, Japanese politics was controlled by one-party dominance: the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). 3 8 years of unbroken rule by this conservative party was briefly halted in July 1993 by a rival coalition; many argue that the demise of the LDP rule offered "a boost to those who asserted that Japan was genuinely democratic." See more in: Duncan McCargo, "Media and Politics in Pacific Asia" (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), 50. th 5 Herbert P. Bix, "Emperor Hirohito in 20 Century History: The Debate Rekindles," JPRI Working Paper 92, (June 2003). 2014 Williams College Contested Memories
was r�ddled with increasing pressure for historical inspection and remembrance by wartime vi.ctims such as South Korean comfort women, hibakusha (or atomic bomb victims) and particularly, Okinawan war survivors.
Okinawa's varied methods of remembering are unique, as they. had been long made complicated by a dual Okinawan-Japanese identity since the islands' annexation by the Japanese government in 1872. Despite such challenges, many Okinawans such as . peace activists, prominent intellectuals, and living war survivors have been able to
maintain an incredible .sense of personal integrity, and cultural and historical
distinctiveness through decades of self-reflection, trial and error, and resistance. From
their unique memories, one can determine the potency of their resistance that shaped the
way in which the history of a minority group was represented and communicated by the
larger public sphere. My research parses the actual effects of hegemonic mainland
influence on Okinawa since the end of the war and how Okinawans perceived them in the
late 1980s. How have their stories and political struggles shaped vernacular memory vis
a-vis official memory in the 1990s? How do certain sites of memory, whether it is written
literature, mass media, or war monuments, illuminate the dynamics of how Okinawans
have both embraced and resisted identification with mainland Japan? How were bygone
eras being remembered, and what are the lessons to be learned from the memories of a
marginalized group in Japan? In this, I aim to address what is the most compelling
question of all: how can these stories and the marginalized voices that tell them, be retold
so that they can take their place in what we call history? 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 5
The modest body of historical literature that focuses on Okinawan war memory tends to narrate a story that is predetermined from the start: one of tragedy, disappointment and trial. Moreover, the question of "Why Okinawa?" has become common entry points fo r historical literature on Okinawa, and their narratives are rarely examined without being conflated with their economic weakness and image of social inferiority. Rather than simply posing Okinawans as a collective group of subjugated people, I will offe r a more balanced, cohesive interpretation of history that highlights
Okinawa's inner diversity through their differing visions of their collective past and sites of war memory. Major internal tensions exist beneath the mask of Okinawan cultural homogeneity as will be evidenced in .my analysis of their various. methods of war remembrance. Through this, I seek to push against the mainstream acceptance of
Okinawans as a singular, body of people with specific cultural characteristics, but rather reinforce their unique qualities through their experiences from the war. Taking into consideration the works of various historians such as Linda Isako Angst, whose research combine ethnographic and historical analysis of Okinawan war narratives and gender politics, as well as Gerald Figal's archival research on Okinawan war memorialization, I will carefully analyze new articulations in Okinawan memory and the ways in which they confront various symbols of official memory fr om the late 1980s to the present.
Ultimately, I hope to present a distinctive and contextual narrative that casts Okinawa as an important symbol of contemporary national issues in post-Cold War Japan. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 6
History of Okinawa vis-a-vis Mainland , To understand the plight of Okinawans in the 1990s, one must also understand its
tempestuous and . convoluted history of marginalization vis-a-vis Japan since its t annexation iri 1609. Established by King Sho Hashi in the early 15 h century, the islands
· of Okinawa were once an independent nation called the Ryilkyil Kingdom with a unique
culture of its own. In 1609, the Tokugawa shogunate (1603-1867) ordered an invasion of
the Ryilkyil Kingdom, which was already beset with a weak military and inadequate
defense due to having fo ught no previous battles in its long. history of peace.6 As Japan
was established as a modern state, the Ryilkyilan Islands were renamed "Okinawa" and
incorporated into Japan as its southernmost prefecture.
Assimilation policies constituted the first fo rms ofmarginalization· in Okinawa.
During the Showa era (1926-1989), the Japanese government put pressure on Okinawans
to prove their "Japanese-ness" by implementing harsh assimilation policies. Promoters of
the Life Reform Movement, initiated by a mainland Japanese governor, targeted objects
of reform in Okinawan culture such as the Okinawan language, traditional clothing,
family surnames, dances and plays, female shamans called yuta, and other distinctively
Okinawan cultural traits.7 Japanese government officials deemed that Okinawan customs
were culturally and politically incompatible with the conception of Japan as a unified and
6 Stephen R. Turnbull, The Samurai Capture a King: Okinawa, 1609 (Oxford: Osprey, 2009), 6. 7 Amemiya, Kozy K., "Being 'Japanese' in Brazil and Okinawa," Japan Policy Research Institute Paper No. 13, last modified May 1998, http://www.jpri.org/publications/occasionalpapers/op 13.html. 2014 Contested Memories 7
modernized nation. 8 Especially as Okinawa formed the advance base fo r the defense of the. mainland, the central government's policy. of cultural assimilation in Okinawa b�came more stringent as a way of instilling visions of nationalism and the will to fight fo r the nation. This soon culminated in the infamous and horrific Battle of Okinawa, which wiped out more than one third of the civilian population of Okinawa in 1945.
The treatment of Okinawan citizens during the war revealed that despite their attempts to become "Japanese" citizens, their efforts were ultimately not rewarded.
Unlike the rest of Japan during the war, Okinawans were the only civilians to have experienced ground warfare; while many mainland people experienced war tragedies such as the Tokyo and Osaka bomb raiding and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima .and
Nagasaki, none experienced the civilian atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese military towards their own citizens on the battlefield. The Battle of Okinawa was a sacrificial operation to buy time and preserve the emperor system; Japanese soldiers pillaged homes for food, massacred families suspected as spies, conscripted young men as kamikaze pilots, and forced civilians to commit collective suicides. 9 It is even said amongst
Okinawans that their war experiences in this sense "may be closer to that of neighboring
Asian countries."10 Arasaki Moriteru, a well-known Okinawan intellectual and activist,
8 Steven Rabson, "Okinawan Perspectives on Japan's Imperial Institution," The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, last modified2009. 9 Matthew Allen, "Wolves at the Back Door: Remembering the Kumejima Massacres," in Islands of Discontent: Okinawan Responses to Japanese and American Power, ed. Laura Elizabeth. Hein and Mark Selden (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,2003), 46-53. 10 Arasaki Moriteru, "The Struggle Against Military Bases in Okinawa-its History and Current Situation," Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Vol. 2, Number 1, (2001): 101. 2014 8 ...... Will. iams College Contested Memories . .
exposed a classified wartime document of the Japanese Army that read: "Okinawans are . 11 the people. who lack loyalty to the Emperor." The deeply ingrained belief that
OJ.<.inawans were not purely "Yamato" (ethnic Japanese) sustained discrimination against . . '
and suspicion of Okinawan civilians both before and during the war; many. Japanese ' . I • '
soldiers perceived them as "unreliable, gullible, and capable of betraying the Japanese
state."12 Shiba Ry6tar6, a nationally renowned novelist, visited Okinawa in the late 1970s
to write a series of weekly magazine essays on the nature of the Japanese military during
the Battle of Okinawa-"the military [did] not protect actual people, but protect[ ed] the
abstract nation-state and themselves."13
The gap between Okinawans and the Japanese mainland widened in the postwar
years after Japan became a sovereign nation in 1952, while Okinawans continued to be
held under American rule. In the peace settlement ending World War II in 1945, the
United States acquired possession of the islands (which were then renamed "the
Ryukyus") for twenty-seven years until the islands' reversion to Japan in 1972.14 Despite
Okinawa's push to shed their culture and embrace their "Japanese-ness," they were
eventually severed fr om Japan and placed under American occupation fo r twenty years
longer than the mainland. Under American control, Okinawans had neither politicai
11 Arasaki, 102. 12 Allen, "Wolves at the Back Door: Remembering the Kumejima Massacres," 47. 13 Ibid. 14 The American presence in Okinawa was maintained to fu lfillthe obligations under the 1960 Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security: to preserve the "security of Japan and the maintenance of international peace and security in the Far East." See more: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, "1960 Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security.'' 11ttp:f/\_V\\f\\l.,r!1ot�,gqjp/rcgiot1!11.:�I11�fi���usjg_8i,�.r9JZL.h!t1!1. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 9
authority nor legal protection for the crimes committed against them on their own land.
J?specially with the onset of the Korean War and later, the Vietnam War, an influx of thousands of American G.I. soldiers found theirway onto the islands, adding only more to the Okinawan civilians' list of grievances towards the American and Japanese government. The U.S. military implemented the USCAR (US Administration of RyUkyU
Islands), which created legal systems to arbitrarily and forcibly confiscate land from the residents of the islands. 15 This forced the economic system of Okinawa to become totally dependent on the bases-an issue that continues to affect Okinawa as the poorest prefecture in Japan today. Moreover, bearing a disproportionate percentage of the burden,
Okinawa, a small group of islands comprising 0.6% of the entire Japanese land, came to hold up to 75% of all US military bases in Japan. 16 Thus, Okinawa's postwar era is said to be a "history of struggle against the US military rule and military bases."17 The apparent structural discrimination against Okinawa continues to be justifiedeven today as a reinforcement of the Japan-US military alliance.
After Okinawa was returned to Japan in 1972, a majority of Okinawans expected the end of structural discrimination, denial of civil, political and property rights, and dangers from U.S. military bases. Yet, Okinawans continued to bear the burden of U.S. military bases on their land, and adding to the list of long-standing and painful consequences of military presence, Okinawa war survivors were fo rced to relive their
15 Michael S. Molasky, The American Occupation of Japan and Okinawa: Literature and Memory (London: Routledge, 1999), 97. 1 6 Arasaki, I 02. 17 Ibid. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories
horrible memories of the war. The Battle of Okinawa undoubtedly lefta deep and painful
scar on the psyches of Okinawan survivors and the continuing presence of the military
bases were daily reminders of their unresolved war experiences. As Okinawans fo ught
against military bases, their desires for social and political autonomy fr om the mainland were advocated throughtheir divergent memories of war and motivations fo r peace.
Sections of Thesis
The three chapters of my thesis reflectthree significant sites of memory and three
methods of understanding the concept of contested war memory and continued acts of
marginalization in Okinawa. I use the terms "Yasukunification," "mythologization," and
"self-Okinawization" in my chapters respectively to parse the political and social effects
of Japanese homogenization and idealization on Okinawan memory at the various sites of
memory starting in late 1980s. These terms, as will be defined later, refer to the
nationalistic fr aming of Okinawan narratives in public memory on the mainland during
the Okinawa Boom (1990- 2000), and its influence on how Okinawan memories were
shaped by conservative groups with political power during the conservative Inamine
Administration of Okinawa (1998-2006). By fo cusing primarily on the relationships
between Okinawa and mainland Japan, and Okinawans amongst themselves and their
past, I seek to deconstruct these complex and entangled relationships to interpret broadly
the contradictions in Okinawan identity making.
My first chapter opens with the discussion of Okinawan war memorials and their
rhetoric of '"peace" in Okinawa. War memorials on Okinawa dedicated to the bloodiest 20I4 Williams College Contested Memories II
battle site in Japan during World War II started to proliferate after Okinawa's reversion to
Japan in 1973, not only to commemorate the spirits of the Okinawan soldiers and civilians who lost their lives during World War II,. but also to challenge the national narrative that Okinawans had willingly sacrificedtheir lives fo r Japan. The end of the U.S.
Occupation and Okinawa's reintegration into Japanese territory raised many questions about the inconsistency in Japanese national conceptualizations of war memory that assumed ethnic and cultural homogeneity. With an estimated wartime death toll of
150,000 Okinawan civilians, making up more than one-third of the Okinawan population during the Battle of Okinawa, most commemorative war memorials in Okinawa were understandably shaped by feelings of grief, betrayal and disappointment towards the
Japanese military and government. The commemoration of such highly contested memories in Okinawa stemmed from the vastly diffe rent wartime and postwar experiences of Okinawan civilians from those of mainland Japan. War memorials in
Okinawa thus sought to challenge the orthodox interpretations of war and the history of the conduct of the Japanese government against their own citizens during the war. In particular, the Cornerstone of Peace, or Heiwa no Ishiji, established in 1995 at the
Okinawa Peace Memorial Park was an important site of memory, where Okinawans established their historical understandings of the past by asserting Okinawan notions of peace and lessons of history, learnt through the horrors during the Battle of Okinawa. At the Cornerstone of Peace, the contested terrain of war memory, starting with the election 2014 12 Williams College Contested Mem.oriys .
of a conservative qkinawan governor in 1998, raised questions regarding Okinawan
memory and its relationship to Japanese national identity in the post-Cold War era.
Subsequently, the second chapter explores how Okinawans have challenged
. conventional "mythologized" narratives propagated by the Japanese national. government
fr om the end of the war into the post-Cold War era.18 In this chapter, "mythologized"
narratives refer to the Japanese nationalistic framing of the story of the Himeyuri Girls,
Okinawan schoolgirls who were killed during the war. "Mythologization" sought to
purge public memory of any inconsistencies such as the eschewed experiences . and
subjective memories of other civilian Okinawans. In both my first and second chapter, I
seek to understand the role of war memorials, particularly the Cornerstone of Peace and
the Himeyuri Monument, in shaping public and vernacularmemory in the post-Cold War
era of Okinawa. In my research, I incorporate various sources including government
papers, newspaper articles, famous speeches by government officials, and published
essays wTitten by well-known Okinawan peace activists and intellectual writers, as well
as my own experience and research findings in Okinawa fromthe summer of2013.
Finally, the third chapter looks at the ways in which second-generation war
memory, ·through the didactic short story of writer Medoruma Shun, has started to
substitute that of their ancestors in contemporary Okinawa; this site of memory provides
a deeper insight into the ways in which Okinawan public and private memories continue
18 While I generally refer to Okinawans and mainland Japanese entities as distinct groups, obviously not a!l Okinawans held favorable views ofHimeyuri as the mainland did, and not all Japanese were deluded by mass media portrayals of the girls. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 13
to shape the various discourses around Okinawan identity during the late 1990s. I will be exploring Medoruma's short story, Droplets (Suiteki), which was awarded the Akutagawa
Prize for literature (a prestigious Japanese literary award) in 1997. Medoruma's Droplets i� a unique work of historical fiction that does not lament the war experiences of
Okinawans, but discloses the ways in which memories should be dealt with in a sincere way. Instead of over-dramatizing the war accounts to gain pity fr om the audience,
Medoruma takes a clever and unique approach by incorporating imaginative and surrealist techniques in dealing with the Okinawan struggles with war memory. I will analyze Medoruma's Droplets as a site of memory to better understand the political and social ramifications of contemporary events affecting Okinawan memory, including but not limited to, social discrimination both within and outside of Okinawa, '.'self
Okinawization" (or the commodification of Okinawan memory), and Medoruma's disenchantment with Okinawans' self-serving memories of the war.
I set out to answer my many questions fr om a variety of disciplinary perspectives.
By looking at diffe rent facets of the kaleidoscope of Okinawan experiences, I hope to elucidate the complex ways in which Okinawan memories were contested both on the mainland and in their own regional community. Through the three sites of vernacular memory, the multifaceted nature of Okinawan experiences also illuminates much of how
Okinawans have remembered and recollected the heavy legacy of the war. The Cornerstone of Peace
Memory, Amnesia and Politics
"Memorials can name those who were killed; they can depict those who resisted and those who rescued. They can accord honor and confer heroic status; they can express shame, remorse, warning, shock. Devoting public.; spaces to memories of atrocities means devoting time and energy to decisions about what k�nds of memories, images, and messages to ·embrace, critique, and resist."
-Martha Minow, "Facing History," 1998
1. Introduction
An influential Okinawan peace activist and writer, Medoruma Shun published an
op-ed piece in Ryiikyii shimpo in June 22, 2000, listing his opinions on the harmful
effects of "Y asukunification" on Okinawan war memory at the memorial site of the
Cornerstone of Peace. In the article, he expressed his outrage at the joint prayers of
civilians and soldiers made at Cornerstone of Peace on the Day of Consoling the Spirits, a
special prefectural holiday that commemorated the end ofthe warin Okinawa.1
While half of the civilian population of Okinawa was wiped out by the army [during the war], no one questions the meaning of the massacre, and instead the image of civilians and U.S. marines praying together is being put fo rth; will the Y asukunification of Cornerstone of Peace advance in this way?
Medoruma' s strident criticism of ''Y asukunification" was not only directed to the
disrespect shown towards Okinawans souls resting at the Cornerstone of Peace, but the
lack of open discussion on "war responsibility" and "historical awareness" that ''Japan
would eventually pay the price fo r." 2 Medoruma criticized the supporters of the
"Liberalist view of history" (jiyiishugi shikan), whose favorable view of the role of Japan
1 Medorurna Shun, "Yasukunification of Irei no hi," Ryukyu Shimpo, June 22, 2000. Translated from the Japanese by author. 2 Ibid. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 15 ......
during the war was preventing reconciliation between East Asian countries. Moreover, he also called for Okinawans to question their own prerogatives-"The Lieutenant General of the Marine Corps has taken part in our memorial service this year; the government is strategic Is this how we, Okinawans, are going to enter the new millennium?"3 Medoruma's choice ofthe term "Yasukunification" (or Yasukuni-ka) in his article was an interesting one. "Yasukunification" referred to Yasukuni Shrine, the well-known Shinto shrine in Tokyo-Japan's "site of memory and a symbol of nation."4 During the war, Yasukuni Shrine was the centerpiece of Japan's patriotic enshrinement of war soldiers with the stamp of approval by the emperor.5 At Yasukuni Shrine, Japanese soldiers were recognized for their sacrifice and essentially glorified as deities in their enshrinement. This provoked widespread domestic and international debate on the issue of atoning, mourning and commemorating of the Class-A war criminals enshrined at Yasukuni Shrine.6 The heart of the matter was the kind of historical amnesia that the shrine encouraged-its unapologetic nationalist view of unresolved past injustices were 3 Medoruma, "Yasukunification oflrei no hi." Translated from the Japanese by author. .. 4 Franziska Seraphim, "Patronizing the War Dead," War Memoryand Social Politics in Japan, 1945-2005 (2006): 235. 5 Since the end of the war, Yasukuni gave context and significance to the suffering of war and fac·ilitated the process of mourning fo r fam ilies of fa llen soldiers. Mark Selden, a specialist on modern contemporary politics in East Asia, stated that the symbol of Yasukuni Shrine as a form of state-sponsored war nationalism was particularly problematic for those with different political orientations, religious conviction, or ill experiences of the war, both within and outside of Japan. See more: Mark Selden, Japan, the United States and Yasukuni Nationalism: War, Historical Memory and the Future of the Asia Pacific. N.p.: Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 2008. some of many complaints lodged by its neighboring governments in the post-Cold War era. These issues over unresolveq war memory at Yasukuni Shrine were not only problematic fo r neighboring countries, but complex· problems for Okinawans as well. Yasukuni obfuscated war responsibility by ignoring how Okinawans were affected by the ' ' militaristic policies of the Japanese government during the war. While the Cornerstone of Peace was built to "remember this historical event and its oppressive memory [which] must be passed down through posterity," many feared that it might be turning into a "Second Y asukuni"-a war memorial like Yasukuni that obviates war responsibility and encourages historical amnesia. 7 In this understanding, Medoruma referred to effects of "Yasukunification" at the Cornerstone of Peace in regards to growing mainland intervention in Okinawa memorialscape during the 1990s. I adopt Medoruma's term "Yasukunification" as my own in this chapter in order to explicate the statist use of the cherished Cornerstone of Peace by the mainland government to idealize Okinawa's historical past and to forge a shared identity amongst Okinawans and mainland Japanese in preparation for an important historical event, the G- 8 Summit in 1999. In light of those historical events, I define Y asukunification as the governmental method of narrating history as a political act in order to advance "national" conceptualizations of war memory. The conjunction of a historical event (the G-8 Summit) and Okinawa's new site of memory (the Cornerstone of Peace) further complicated the ensuing and contested nature of war memory and Okinawa's search for 7 Gerald Figal, "Historical Sense and Commemorative Sensibility at Okinawa's Cornerstone of Peace," Positions Asia Critique, Vol. 5, Number 3 (1997): 754. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 17 political� historical and economic autonomy. Mainland desire to manipulate Okinawan memory in particular ways to serve their political goals of maintaining US-Japan relations posed to be especially problematic. Moreover, these disputes were further complicated by controversies within the islands amongst Okinawans themselves, as Okinawan Governor Inamine (with growing pressure fr om mainland government officials) utilized the cherished memorial as a platform fo r the promotion of U.S.-Japan military agendas in Okinawa. Under the challenge of commemorating the complicated legacy of Okinawa's past, the Cornerstone of Peace became the focus of controversy after its construction in 1995 due to mainland and prefectural efforts to forge a common identity between Okinawans and mainland Japan; this goal required Okinawans to reconceptualize themselves in a way that purged their memories of the past in order to fit within the parameters of citizenship in Japan. This discourse illuminated how Okinawan war memorials should be represented in order to incorporate their unique historical experiences while also challenging the concepts of Japanese homogeneity. Compounding this controversy was the transition of Okinawan prefectural governinent power fr om the anti-base administration of Governor Masahide Ota (1990-1998) to the conservative pro-central government administration of Governor Inamine Keiichi (1998-2006). My chapter examines how growing tensions between anti-base Okinawans and the mainland government culminated in the major controversy at the Cornerstone of Peace in the mid- 1990s on the southern tip of mainland Okinawa, where hundreds of war memorials are Contested Memories 18 ..., dedicated to the memories of all Japanese prefectures withiri mainland Japan, as well as foreign victims ofthe war. · 2. The Cornerstone of Pea�e and the Politics of Commemoration When I visited the centerpie<;:eof the Cornerstoneof Peace, located on the hill that overlooks the large expanse of the dark blue ocean, I was deeply moved for the first time since my journey to Okinawa. 8 It was impossible not to be overwhelmed by the tranquility and beauty of a place that had once been ravaged by the hate of war. The silence of the place was only broken by the sound of the waves crashing on the seashore and the distance voices of children playing in the park. Of all the peace memorials I visited in Japan during my research travel, the Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Park (including the Cornerstone of Peace) was the most successful in eliciting a subjective human response that rejected the prej udiced thinking that often occurs in war memorialization. It instead extracted from me a sense of sorrow in the tragic Joss of lives that · were visually apparent by the sheer number of cenotaphs that encircled the centerpiece of the Peace Flame (Image 2). I found it hard to believe that a peaceful memorial that encourages such a heavy pursuit of remembrance and a universal philosophy of peace induced national controversy rather than consensus amongst opposing groups of the same nation. Japanese politicians have taken advantage of thi� memorial and its simple message-that in remembering the war dead, there is no need to 8 Sara Kang, Visit to Okinawa by Author, August 7- 19, 20 13. Contested Memories 19 distinguish friend from fo e-to promote an Okinawan image more conducive to mainland tastes and its national version of history. After Okinawa's reversion to Japanese administration on May 15, 1972, the Okinawa Battle Site National Park on Mabuni Hill became known as the Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Park. Reopened to the public in 1975, the renovated park consisted of almost 300 monuments; today, this Okinawan memorial park purportedly holds the largest number of war memorials per square kilometer in the world.9 The famous Cornerstone of Peace was built in 1995 within the memorial park and comprised of hundreds of black granite arched walls on which names of the deceased are engraved; all were dedicated to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war, the Battle of Okinawa and the lives of over 240,000 people, including Imperial Japanese and American soldiers (Images 4 and 5). The Cornerstone of Peace symbolized Okinawa's contribution to mark the fiftieth anniversary ofthe end of the World War II and sparked much debate on the issue of contested war memory between special interest groups, Okinawan civilians and both Japanese and U.S. government officials. The construction of this long anticipated memorial was · contentious and significant amongst Okinawans in many ways. First, the Cornerstone of Peace was unique in that no other peace monument in Japan honored both civilians and · enemies alike under a single, conjoined prayer. In this manner, the Okinawan memorial broke away from the Japanese convention of honoring the war dead within national boundaries. 9 Gerald Figal, Beachheads : War, Peace, and Tourism in Postwar Okinawa (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,20 12), 29. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 20 The Cornerstone of Peace included not only the names of soldiers and civilians of the Okinawan homeland, but also the names of all enemy soldiers, 14,009 of whtch were dedicated-to American soldiers. Moreover, the design of the Cornerstone of Peace was said to have trumped others in its spatial and harmonious layout that rhetorically fit in with its universal message of peace, as well as its disregard for patriotic modes of memorialization.10 For some visitors, Cornerstone of Peace's message was that "there are no winners or losers, only grief."11 Even local newspapers in the United States lauded the Cornerstone of Peace fo r being the only memorial in the world to name all the war dead fr om both sides of a battle. 12 However, not all Okinawans were equally enthusiastic about the Cornerstone· of Peace. For some, such a universal way of thinking was difficult to embrace. During the war in Okinawa, the Japanese government, through the slogan "Imperial soldiers and civilians live together and die together as one!" (Gunkanmin kyosei kyoshi no ittaika), ordered the Japanese Imperial army to use civilians as human shields on the battlefieldin order to prolong the war as long as possible. 13 As Aniya Masaaki, a professor of modern Japanese history at Okinawa International University, pointed out, "Would you put Adoph Hitler and Anne Frank together and treat them both as victims of World War 1° Figal, "Historical Sense and Commemorative Sensibility at Okinawa's Cornerstone of Peace," 750. 11 Ishihara Masaie, "Memories of War and Okinawa," trans. Douglas Dreistadt, in Perilous Me mories: The Asia-Pacific War(s) , ed. Takashi Fujitani, GeotTr ey M. White, and LisaYoneyama (Durham, NC: Duke UP, 200 1), 104. 12 Sam Jameson, "All Who Died at Okinawa to be Honored," Lakeland Ledger, 14A, June 23 1995. 1 3 Ishihara, "Memories of War and Okinawa," 99. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 21 �1?"14 Many felt bitterness at equal treatment of Okinawan civilians with soldiers at the war memorial, particularly towards the fallen U.S. marine, Albert Earnest Schwab, whose name was recently used to designate the new Futenma h((licopter facility base as "Camp Schwab area." The names of military personnel, who gave out orders to kill and pillage Okinawan civilians, were unrecognizable and lost amongst those who were thought to be innocent bystanders of the war. 15 Moreover, while the Cornerstone of Peace was a symbol of consolation and redemption for the souls of their loved ones, some criticized that the monument avoided the concept of war responsibility by including all names of the war dead in Japan. Japanese soldiers who committed atrocities against Okinawans during the battle were never questioned or investigated for their acts of violence. Moreover, all commanders either died in battle or committed suicide rather than surrendering; especially Lieutenant General Ushijima Mitsuru (the theater commander in Okinawa) and Lieutenant General Cho Isamu (the chief of staff)-their actions were never investigated or brought to justice.16 As a matter of fact, despite much objection, a memorial dedicated to Gen. Ushijima and Cho called "the Pillar of Dawn" (designated by the late Prime Minister 14 Takashima Nobuyoshi, "Okinawa's Cornerstone of Peace," Japan Quarter(v, v.47, no.2 (April 24, 2000), 27. 15 I use the term "innocent bystanders?' in this context to describe the many noncombatant population in Okinawa assassinated by the Japanese army. Okinawan fa milies, including many children, who were caught speaking in their own Okinawan dialect in the presence of Japanese soldiers, were deemed as spies for exchanging confidential information with the Americans, and publicly executed. Particularly on Kumejima island, known as "the Kumejima Massacres," Japanese illegitimate violence against Okinawans has been historically evidenced through oral accounts and personal recollections of the events. See more in Matthew Allen, "Wolves at the Back Door: Remembering the Kumejima Massacres." 16 Takashima, 27. 2014 22 Williams College Contested Memorie$ ...... J...... Yoshida Shigeru) was erected in the early 1950s along the hill ridge where the Cornerstone of Peace monument was later built. 17 When the Okinawa prefecturaj government revealed the decision to inscribe the names of all Japanese military officers at the Cornerstone· of Peace, many Okinawans argued that "they would never allow the names of any of the ranking officersto go on the peace monument, least of Ushij ima and Cho."18 For some, the historical implications of the memorial were incongruous with its aim to institute a peaceful, harmonious place fo r international understanding. Second, the memorial was significant as a site of memory in Okinawa because .it reflected the endless energy put fo rth by Governor Ota, the fo rmer governor of Okinawa as well as a survivor of the Iron and Blood Troop of Loyal Followers of the Emp�ror (Tekketsli Kinn6 Tai). As a 19-year old student, Ota was mobilized as part of a communication unit of the Iron and Blood Troops, where he saw his classmates "die the deaths not of humans, but of worms."19 Ota fortunately survived the last fe w months of the Battle of Okinawa, which understandably left deep-rooted scars that would become the foundations of his postwar endeavors fo r Okinawa. Decades after the end of the war, Ota graduated from Waseda University in Tokyo and Syracuse University, became a Professor of Social Science at the University of Ryiikyus, and went on to serve as Okinawa's governor fr om 1990 to 1998. During his administration, Ota set three main 17 Julie Yonetani, "Contested Memories-Struggles over War and Peace in Contemporary Okinawa," in Japan and Okinawa: Structure and Subjectivity, ed, Glen D. Hook (London: Routledge, 2003), 191. 1 8 Takashima, 27. 19 Ota Masahide, Interview with Satoko Norimatsu. "The World is beginning to know Okinawa." The Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus. N.p., 20 July 20 10. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 23 goals for Okinawa: the promotion of education and research for peace, the establishment of the Okinawa International Peace Research Institute, and the improvement of Okinawa P�ace Memorial Park and the Cornerstone of Peace. 20 Based on his horrific war experiences, his conviction was that hatred could only breed war, never peace; so he - founded the Cornerstone of Peace as Okinawa's peace message to the world.21 Governor Ota made an appeal to his people to "let bygones be bygones" in hopes that Okinawa would overcome hatred and age-old enmity.22 His devotion to building this memorial was greatly strengthened by the support and participation of many local residents of Okinawa. Moreover, Ota's tough stance on eradicating U.S. bases in Okinawa was widely supported by the public, as evidenced by a public opinion poll conducted in May 1997.23 After three years of conflict and negotiation with the mainland government, Ota unfortunately lost the election for his third term in office in November 1998 against Inamine Keiichi, a conservative candidate, whose campaign fo cused mainly on restoring Okinawa's economy and avoided association with the U.S. bases. 24 Nevertheless, Okinawans continue to remember him as the only Japanese politician in living memory 20 While two of his goals were reached, the third goal of his project, the establishment of an "Okianwa International Peace Research Institute" was suspended when he left the Governor's office in 1998. See more in Ota Masahide and Satoko Norimatsu, '"The World Is Beginning to Know Okinawa': Ota Masahide Reflects on His Life from the Battle of Okinawa to the Struggle for Okinawa." 21 Takashima, I. 22 Ibid. 23 Yonetani, "Future, "Assets" but at What Price? The Okinawa Initiative Debate," 245 24 Ibid. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 24 •u•l "who has _paid attention to what the people who elected wanted to do and who did not 2 betray them when faced with bureaucratic resistance." 5 Third, the Cornerstone of Peace was influential in bringing Okinawan memory from the periphery to the center of Japanese consciousness. On the Day of the Consoling Spirits, June 23, 1995, when Governor Ota's message of peace through the Cornerstone of Peace was unveiled, the city of Naha sought to utilize this opportunity to forge links with Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a "triad of peace sites," which essentially elevated Naha into the league of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.26 The Peace Flame, the centerpiece of the Cornerstone of Peace, joined the other "eternal flames" at the memorial ·sites in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to complete the formation of the "Peace Triangle."27 This link with Hiroshima and Nagasaki was tremendously influential in bringing Okinawan experiences into the fo refront of Japanese memory of the war. A month and a half after the first lighting of Okinawa's flame, Emperor Akihito sanctioned the unification of the three cities by touring each site, which became known as the "Memorial Tour." The fr ont . pages of major Okinawan newspapers featured photos of the Emperor Akihito and his wife at the Cornerstone of Peace with a caption of his remark that read: "You have done a good thing" (yoi koto sareta). 28 Essentially, only by joining the leagues of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were Okinawans and their accounts of war experiences accepted by mainland 25 Chalmers Johnson, Email, "Governor Ota Masahide of Okinawa," 9 November 1995. 26 Figal, "Waging Peace on Okinawa," 73. 27 To officially endorse this link, the mayors of the respective cities met at a summit to discuss . various activities and joint projects between the three cities to advance the concept of universal peace. 28 Ry ukyuushimpo, 3 Aug. 1995. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 25 Japan into its rhetorical space of war and peace culture. However, as much as the Cornerstone of Peace represented a sense of solidarity fo r peace between Okinawans and the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the memorial became a subject of particular controversy due to the complexity of Okinawan war memory and its incongruence with the conventional frameworkof national memory. In part, I argue that these controversies arose from the fact that the memories of the war and the fo llowing decades during the American Occupation were powerful and integral parts of Okinawan thought and culture and were considered too diffe rent to be understood by mainland Japan. I make this assertion because, unlike mainland Japanese, Okinawans experienced the terror of land combat against U.S. forces that ravaged their main island into a wasteland, as well as deaths at the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army, that essentially wiped out more than a quarter of the civilian population. From their unique and chilling experience, Okinawan attitudes towards war and peace dwell exclusively within their circle of victim consciousness and peace discourse; whereas Hiroshima and Nagasaki civilians were able to rebuild its city and restore peace with help fr om the national government through the Hiroshima Peace Memorial City Construction Law passed in 1949, Okinawans continued to bear the burden of U.S. military bases-a symbol of everything they have worked against in their plea fo r peace-essentially placed upon them by the Japanese government.2 9 Moreover, unlike the civilian population of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Okinawans endured more than twenty years of 29 Planning and General Affairs Bureau, "Article 219 of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial City Construction Law," August 6, 1949, http://www.pcf.eity.hiroshima.jp/Peace/E/pHiroshima2_ 4.html. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories American hegemony-or as Norma Field, the author of In the Realm of a Dy ing Emperor, described: "the subtle. shame that clung like an odor to those years of American presence in the form of military occupation ...the ubiquity and the seeming sempitemity of American bases made the shame more palpable than on the mainland."30 While local officials of the Okinawa prefectural government put.conscious effort into building Naha as a peace center amongst the .enshrined atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the rhetoric of commemoration at Cornerstone of Peace revealed that many Okinawans, such as former Govenor Ota and writer Medoruma Shun, sought to maintain the gap between "Yamato" (mainland) and Okinawan discourse on war memory. For example, Shimabukuro Tetsu's poem, published in Ryukyii shimpo in October 5, 1999, revealed how he perceived the period of aggression in Japanese history against the victimization of other people as well as their own: The 32nd Division was the 'sacrifice' offered by Imperial headquarters and the Emperor. It was just as in Saipan and lwojima. They were the 'sacrifices'placed into the hands of the US military as a means of biding time, in the face of imminent defeat. Soldiers who killed the defenseless in China now, in Okinawa, were themselves killed by overwhelming forces, Embroiling Okinawan civilians into the battle, even more defenseless. It was just as in the Philippines . ...... ······ ···· ...... · . .. The irresponsibility, recklessness, terrorism, stupidity, debauchery, amorality, and cruelty ofthe Imperial Army had no confines. Do not tell lies to those fallen. If you want to console the spirits, Speak to them of the true rationale fo r their deaths. 1991 ) 39. 30 Norma Field, In rhe Realm of a Dy ing Emperor (New York: Pantheon Books, , 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 27 While in fact Okinawan soldiers of the Imperial Army also participated in the colonization of Manchuria, Shimabukuro's poem revealed that Okinawans later perceived themselves, not as complicit perpetrators in invading Korea, China and Southeast Asia, but as d'istinct victims of the Battle of Okinawa. In the poem, Shimabukuro's denial of complicity in Japan's aggression is indicative of the gap that Okinawans like Shimabukuro desired to place between themselves and national memories of the war. The painful truth that the Japanese Army and the mainland government did not protect the lives of Okinawans during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945 only widened this rift. While mainland Japanese entities sought to romanticize the war memories of Okinawans as "sacrifices" for the emperor, Okinawans voiced their separate historical understanding by insisting that in order to "console the [Okinawan] spirits" one must admit the "true rationale for their deaths." The discourse on "truth" versus the "national narrative" pushed forth by Okinawan peace activists and resistors became quite evident in the rhetoric of commemoration surrounding the Cornerstone of Peace during the G-8 Summit. 3. The G�8 Summit and "Yasukunification" Soon after GovernorInamine 's victory in the gubernational elections in 1998, the Japanese government initiated plans to build a new U.S. Marine base in the northern city of Nago in Okinawa. Moreover, the government granted a supplementary economic stimulus package of ten billion yen to lure local support in Okinawa.3 1 Naturally, Prime 31 9.7 million U.S. dollars, using today's conversion rate I dollar to 102 yen. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 28 Minister Obuchi Keizo's announcement in April 29, 1999 that the city of Nag? in Okinawa was the winning site to l).ost the 26th G-8 Summit came to no one's surprise. The world summit, where the heads of eight major countries and the European Union gathered, was conceived as an :opportunity . for participating countries to discuss international issues as well as regional conflicts, such as the issue of U.S. military facilities in Okinawa. On July 21, 2000, proponents of the G-8 summit at Nago, also the site for the newly proposed American military base, initiated various development strategies in concert with the aims of the U.S.-Japan security relationship. The purpose of the summit was to discuss the role of Okinawa as the "Keystone of the Pacific" on a global stage, and more locally, the future of Okinawa's dependence on U.S. military bases. In preparation for the G-8 Summit, tropical t1owers were planted on the side of the main highway leading to Nago, and the government mobilized approximately twenty-two thousand police officers from the mainland for the event. Okinawa's major newspapers exploded with fe atured articles and op-eds by intellectuals and political activists on the issues of historical memory and the role of Okinawa on a global stage. 32 In this widely debated discourse, which became known as the "Okinawa Initiative Debate" (Okinawa inishiatibu ronso), the Cornerstone of Peace, where several speeches and ceremonies were held in order to recognize the summit, became caught in the crossfire between the 32 Yonetani, "Future "Assets," but at What Price? The Okinawa Initiative Debate," 243. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 29 factions of the pro-US-Japan security treaty movement and Okinawa's anti-base . movt;me,nt, supported by over 90 percent of the Okinawan community. 33 . For angry Okinawans, the G-8 Summit posed an opportunity to draw the world's attention. to their outrage over the ·recent accidents and crimes by the U.S. military on their land: the gang rape of an Okinawan schoolgirl by three U.S. servicemen in 1995 and a recent hit and run accident involving Okinawan citizens and U.S. military personnel in 2000. 34 In protest against the government plans to build a new base in Nago, approximately 27,000 Okinawans linked arms to fo rm a human chain around the 17- kilometer perimeter ofKadena U.S. Air Force Base on July 20, 2000-the first day of the G-8 summit.35 An American news reporter interviewed Takazato Suzuyo, the co-chair of Okinawa Women Against Military Violence and an elected representative to the Naha City Council of Okinawa, on why she was participating in the protest at Kadena. Her response was that while Okinawans want to "be freed from military violence," the Japanese and US governments had not kept their promise from five years ago to improve Okinawa and instead only "re-strengthen[ed] the presence of US military base[s]."36 Undoubtedly, most Okinawans attached greater significance to the international spotlight as a way of bringing attention to their protests, rather than to the summit itself. "Most Okinawans welcome the summit," read an editorial in the Ryukyu shimpo newspaper. 33 Asahi Newspaper and Okinawa Times, May 1997. 34 Okinawa Peace Network of Los Angeles, "The G-8 Summit in Okinawa," July 22, 2000. 35 Ibid. 36 Suzuyo Takazato, Interview with "G-8 Summit: From Okinawa to globalization," Democracy Now, Full transcript: "But there are concerns as well. We are concerned that the bases, which. cause s_uch dC}111age to �s, will be prai�ed by summit leaders."37 With bitterness towards U.s·. military bases reaching its boiling point, the tensions between competing historical memo�ies of the past-embodied by the various events held at the cherished Cornerstone of Peace-posed a dilemma fo r many Okinawans, including Governor Ota Masahide and peace activists, journalists and writers such as Medoruma Shun. The fo llowing controversies with mainland representatives and government officials further convoluted the existing debates regarding the contentious nature of Okinawa's past at the Cornerstone of Peace. Their speeches in preparation for the G-8 summit at the Cornerstone of Peace manifested the adverse signs of Yasukunification of war memory; the Japanese government, as well as US officials, sought to portray Okinawan compliance with Japanese and US security policies by idealizing Okinawan memories of the war and appropriating their identity under the objectives for purported "peace and prosperity." This form of appropriation was essentially summarized by the speech made by Shimada Haruo, a mainland Japanese with close ties to the Japanese national government and who also worked hard to diffuse anti-base movements in Okinawa. His leading role as the director of the Informal Council on Okinawa's Municipalities Hosting U.S. Bases allowed him to present the fo llowing introduction for the G-8 Summit in Nago: 37 Okinawa Peace Network of Los Angeles, "The G-8 Summit in Okinawa," July 22, 2000. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 31 Utilizing this Okinawa Summit as an opportunity, Okinawa is being asked to redefine its own potential, and, as an Okinawan initiative, to conceive . of and advance a plan as active players ... for the first time.ever, Okinawa ·· possesses in its hands the opportunity to pragmatically and rationafly improve the U.S. military base issue through its own judgment, and fu rthermore use this as a chance to autonomously develop the Okinawan economy.38 Shimada's· speech gave Okinawans a false sense of autonomy -by portraying Okinawans as able to determine their own standing in US-Japan security policies. Okinawa was being asked once again to prove their potential as appropriate Japanese citizens to "refine its own potential" and to "conceive of and advance a plan as active players"-which were reminiscent of the government mandates imposed on Okinawans during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. In the past, towards the end ofthe war, understanding that Japan's defeat was inevitable, the Japanese imperial government sought to prolong the war by sacrificing Okinawa "as a stone to discard for the sake of the defense of the mainland."39 It was generally understood amongst most Okinawans that the Imperial Japanese soldiers were not sent to Okinawa to protect its people, but to preserve the emperor system on the mainland. Many were asked to "prove" their loyalty to the Emperor as a way of reasserting their citizenship in Japan. More than fifty years later, the government's demand for Okinawans to support 75% of all U.S. military bases in Japan on their tiny islands seemed evocative of the same burden of sacrifice Okinawans were asked to carry during the Battle of Okinawa in the defense ofthe mainland. 38 Yonetani, "Future "Assets," but at What Price? The Okinawa Initiative Debate," 248. 39 Aniya Masaaki, "Compulsory Mass Suicide and the Battle of Okinawa," (translation by Kyoko Selden) Gunshuku mandai shiryo (D isarmament Review), Dec. 2007. 2014 Williams College Contested Mernories 32 In addition to . Shimada's introduction of the G-8 Summit, many others also espoused similar. rhetoric in preparation for the summit. At the_ Cornerstone of Peace <;m the prefectural holiday, the Day for Consoling the Spirits on June 23, 2000, Governor · Inamine and Prime Minister Mori stood in front of a large Rising Sun (Hinomaru) flag flowermotif to pay their respect to the dead. For one, the use of the highly contested Himomaru flag at the Cornerstone of Peace signaled Okinawans' sense of incongruity with mainland motivations for commemoration. 40 Moreover, the ceremonial speech issued by Governor Inamine, "Declaration of Peace for the Twenty-first Century," reaffirmed this rift. He declared that the G-8 summit would be of "profound historical . . ' significance" in Okinawa; that the summit would provide an opportunity to · convey "Okinawa's spirit" to the world; and that it would achieve Okinawa's commitment "step by step ...everla.sting world peace."41 Emulating the deceptive rhetoric of Shimada, Governor Inamine framed the purpose of the G-8 summit as an opportunity for Okinawans, while in actuality, he and many others held divergent motivations. A day before the G-8 Summit, President Bill Clinton, the first U.S. president to visit Okinawa in forty years, gave a historic speech in front of the Cornerstone of Peace 40 Because the Rising Flag was normally never used to commemorate the Day for Consoling the Spirits, many Okinawans found the use of the Rising Sun Flag flower motif by Governor lnamine and Prime Minister Mori to be highly problematic. The use of the flag, a symbol of Imperial Japan, was widely regarded as a historically heavy symbol in Okinawa; not only did Okinawans fight fo r a fu tile battle against Americans under the Rising Sun flag, but also in the continued years afterthe war in their efforts to oust the U.S. military-it became a symbol of Japan's betrayal of Okinawans in "war and in peace." See more: Kelly Dietz, "Demilitarizing Sovereignty: Self Determination and Anti-Military.Base Activism in Okinawa, Japan," in Contesting Development: Critical Struggles fo r Social Change, ed. Phillip McMichael (New York: Routledge, 2010), 183. 41 "Fusen no inori, chikaiarata" Okinawa Times, Evening Edition, June 23, 1999. 2014 Williams College. Contested Memories 33 to mollify the . anti-base sentiment of Okinawans. However, his speech not only reaffirmed the necessity of the military bases as had been done by Governor Inamine, but wa,s also widely seen as a "bold attempt to appropriate the tenets .of Okinawa's peace movement" 42 President Clinton touched upon almost every sensitive topic for Okinawans-from the poem by Sho Tai, the last King of the Ryiikyii Kingdom, the painful memories of the Battle of Okinawa, to the peace movements in contemporary Okinawa-in order to promote a "friendship" between Okinawa and the world that would "bring the benefits of peace and prosperity to Japan." In my interpretation, his transparent references to "peace and prosperity" in his speech idealized the tragic memories of the past in order to justifycon tinued American military presence: This week our partners from the G-8 will come here to speak many words about the future. I wanted to come first to this place that speaks so powerfully in silence about the past, to remember those who lost their lives here, to honor what must have been their last wish, that no future generation ever be forced to share their experience or repeat their sacrifice... the heaviest tragedy by far fe ll on the people of Okinawa themselves: One third of the civilian population lost; 90 percent of those who survived left homeless. Every life lost was a life like yours and mine, a life with family and friends,with love and hope and dreams, a life that in a better world would have run its full course. Clinton acknowledged that Okinawans had experienced a different history from that of other Japanese by emphasizing that the "heaviest tragedy" fe ll on the civilians. He sought to sympathize with Okinawans by appealing to their memory of the war and relating to the losses of lives that were "like yours and mine." His emphasis on the equal status 42 Yonetani, "On the Battlefield of Mabuni: Struggles Over Peace and the Past in Contemporary Okinawa," 167. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 34 between Okinawa and the U.S. only highlighted the contradicting facnhat Okinawa was burdened with military bases between the two entities. lrt his speech, he continued tci praise the Cornerstone of Peace for its universal message of humanity and recognized its symbol and message of hope that such tragedy would never occur again: The Battle of Okinawa was warfare at its most tragic ...And while most monuments remember only those who have fallen from one side, this memorial recognizes those from all sides and those who took no side: Therefore, it is more than a war memorial. It is a monument to the tragedy of all war, reminding us of our common responsibility to prevent such destruction from happening again. Again, Clinton emphasized a presumed equal status between Okinawans and the stronger powers, the Japanese and U.S. government, by speaking of a "common responsibility" to bring peace to Japan. This "common responsibility" also referred. to his. central proposition-that Japan, and the rest of Asia, was only at peace because of the U.S.- Japan alliance, which "ha[d] given people throughout the region confidence that peace will be defended and preserved." Moreover, while advocating the ')oys and possibilities that should be everyone's birthright," Clinton called for Okinawans to support the projects at the G-8 summit-to construct even more destructive and environmentally harmful U.S. bases in Nago. Ultimately, the political language ofhis speech, full largely of euphemisms and ambiguity, revealed their audacious attempts to appropriate Okinawa's peace monument as well as Okinawa's sacred motto, "bankoku shinryo": [T]here is more that we can do together to bring the benefits of peace and prosperity to this part of Japan. I want the world to see Okinawa not just as a battle in the past but as bankoku shinryo, a bridge between nations [ ...] The message of hope and reconciliation embodied in this beautiful 2014 Contested Memories 35 memorial and the remarkable fr iendship forged by the United States and Japan give us hope that we can build bridges over all the troubled waters of the new century that still keep too many people from the joys and · possibilities that should be everyone's birthright. As Okinawan dual identity became questioned and reconstructed after the war, the Okinawan Prefectural Government began promoting the image of Okinawans as "a people bridging the world" (bankoku shinryo) based on the inscriptions on a bell hanging at Shuri Castle, a landmark symbol of the unique history and culture of Okinawa.43 They reflected the words from the last Ryukyu King Sho Tai ( 1415-1469) who claimed Okinawa to be "the bridge between nations," which described Okinawa's fo rmer prominence in maritime trade with states of East Asia in the sixteenth century.44 In the postwar era, Okinawa as "the bridge to all nations" came to embrace their universal ideals of rejecting war, promoting peace, and cherishing culture, which in tum shaped the goals of the Cornerstone of Peace. However, Clinton's comment on Okinawa as "the bridge between nations" referred to his hope that Okinawa's role in supporting U.S. bases would bring "benefits of peace and prosperity" to Japan. Essentially, the U.S. government, with the support of the mainland Japanese government, politicized Okinawan war memories at the Cornerstone of Peace as an attempt to reaffirm U.S. military presence. Moreover, Clinton ended his speech by reciting the famous poem of the last Ryukyuan 43 Shuri Castle, the glorious architectural pride of Okinawa that was originally a place of worship as the Okinawa Shrine until 1925, was considered to be one of the several important sites of memory in contemporary Okinawa. Shiiri Castle was damaged during the Battle of Okinawa and its reconstruction in 1992 came to represent the values of Okinawans in their scramble to recover the traces of an "original" Okinawa and preserve what had remained from the war. The slogan during the l970s-"Okinawa 's postwar will not be over until Shiiri Castle is rebuilt"---casted Shuri Castle's reconstruction as the recovery of an important Ryiikyiian cultural heritage that had been lost by their sacrifices during the war. 44 Ronald Y. Nakasone, Okinawan Diaspora (Honolulu: University of Hawai'I Press, 2002), 131. 2014 Williams Coll�ge Contested Memories 36 •. c...... king, Sh6 Tai: "The time for wars is ending. The time for peace is .not far away. Do not despair. Life itself is treasure. " Clinton concluded, "May Sho Tai's words guide our . .. . '•,'· . friendship and our work in the months and years to come."45 He may have hit close to home for Okinawans by referring to King Sho Tai, whose poem ironically referred to ' . . . . '• , · ; . Japan abolishing his kingdom and colonializing his people in 1609. Y asukunification of the Cornerstone of Peace, as revealed by the speeches of mainland representative Shimada Haruo, Governor Inamine and Prime Minister Mori Y oshir6, and President Bill Clinton, revealed the many inconsistencies within mainland Japan's orthodox interpretations of the war; the lingering memories of the war; the U.S. Occupation that lasted twenty years longer in Okinawa; and the unfair burdens of the military bases in the postwar era-which all affirmed Okinawa's historical uniqueness. Rather than confronting the historical uniqueness, the Japanese government sought to replace Okinawa's narrative with their own in order to advance their ovvn agenda. The dispute between the central government and Okinawans over the competing dialogues at the Cornerstone of Peace during this time revealed that they were separated by very different motivations of war remembrance. Many found problematic the ways in which government leaders took advantage of Okinawa's annual commemoration at the Cornerstone of Peace to advance their own political agendas.46 Moreover, what was more problematic were the ways in which their speeches given at the Cornerstone of Peace-· 45 Bill Clinton, "Remarks at National Peace Memorial Park in Okinawa Japan," July 21, 2000. 46 Yonetani, "On the Battlefieldof Mabuni: Struggles Over Peace and the Past in Contemporary Okinawa," 167. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 37 the Okinawan symbol of anti-war and peace sentiments-were crafted to appeal to Okinawan culture and history, while explicitly promoting the proliferation of American military bases. There were a myriad of responses from the side of Okinawans, especially in light of the commemorative ceremony when Governor Inamine invited the Commander of U.S. Forces and several American military men to join their prefectural holiday at the Cornerstone of Peace. The presence of the U.S. military men in their uniforms at the memorial service for the first time was seen as, according to former Governor Ota, a "desecration of the dead and contrary to the sprit of the monument." In the Japan Times, the former governor denounced Prime Minister Mori and Governor Inamine's intentions in inviting American military men to their sacred commemorative site; he restated the purpose of building the Cornerstone of Peace in Okinawa: The Cornerstone of Peace was built so that we could admonish ourselves, be sure to lend an ear to the voices of the dead and look squarely at the stark fact that war leaves bereaved family and friends with irreparable scars and unfathomable sorrow for as long as they live, no matter whether they are victor or loser.47 Following, peace activist and Okinawan writer Medoruma Shun also explicitly condemned the actions of the governor and the Prime Minister as a "degradation of the meaning of the day for Irei no Hi (Day for Consoling the Spriits)" in the Okinawan newspaper, Ryukyushim po, alongside his terminology, "Yasukunification."48 Ultimately, the G-8 summit issues concerning the U.S. military bases was an expression of a much 47 Masahide Ota, "My thoughts on Okinawa as host," Japan Times, 20 July 2000, p. B6. 48Medoruma Shun, "Yasukunification of Irei no hi," Translation from the Japanese by Author 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 38 larger problem: the continued discrimination and acts of marginalization against a very . different Okinawa that was �onsidered to be an affront to Japan's state-centered . ' nationalism. For the mainland, this required not only a reconstitution of Okinawa' � ' politicat attitudes but also Okinawa's memory, history ·and identity. ·· 4. Controversies over memory and history in Okinawa in the 2000s In the end, the G-8 summit in Nago intensified Okinawa's internal dispute over how Okinawan war memories and its turbulent history of war should be represented. The controversies surrounding the G-8 summit only complicated how Okinawans conceived their own historical memories against their own prefectural government (lnamine' s conservative administration). For example, a series of museum controversies erupted in Okinawa at the end of April 2000, which elicited the response of various Okinawan peace activists and scholars. After the announcement of the G-8 Summit in Okinawa, local newspapers fo und evidence that the Inamine administration had altered the displays at the new Peace Memorial Museum. Ryukyu shimpo released an article that the Culture and International Office of Okinawa had composed an "alteration guide" that listed the changes to be made to the exhibits in the new Museum.49 Under the exhibition, "The Battle of Okinawa and Civilians," a cave diorama that originally was to depict "a Japanese soldier ordering a mother at gunpoint to cover her [crying] child's mouth," was altered to have the gun removed. Another cave diorama section, labeled "Nursing Japanese Soldiers and Coercing Suicide," was changed so that the Japanese soldier, 49 Ryilkyilshim po, August 11, 1999. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 39 original�y handing a cyanide-laced concoction to a wounded soldier, would be removed fr om the exhibit completely. Moreover, various exhibitions that depicted civilian massacres by Japanese soldiers were edited to weaken the message that Okinawans civilians had been pressured to commit suicide. The captions of exhibits, for example, were reworded to infer a more positive connotation of its meanings; massacre (gyakusatsu) was changed to sacrifice (gisei), and "sacrificed stone strategy," describing the government's strategy to bide time for mainland Japan by sacrificing Japan (sute-ishi 50 sakusen) to war of attrition (jikyusen). These alterations suggested that the pro-central governmental policies of the Inamine administration deemed anything that was "anti-Japanese" to be inappropriate for the high public profile of Okinawa's new museum. Okinawa's war memories, manifested through the exhibitions at the Peace Museum, which portrayed the Japanese Imperial Army as an antagonistic and invading force, was incongruous with the Y asukuni rhetoric that glorified the war dead. Through the various alterations at the new Okinawa Peace Memorial Museum, the Inamine administration sought to promote a form of collective historical amnesia by extracting conflicting Okinawan war memories from the exhibits and supplementing it with their own. An LDP representative, Aj itomi Osamu, supported the policies of Governor Inamine by insisting that, "it is natural that alterations and 5° Figal, "Waging Peace on Okinawa," 92. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 40 ...... compromises should be made given the fact that many people will visit the exhibition, including people from mainland Japan."5 1 Moreover, in the next fe w months, two other controversial events compounded the dilemma over memory and protest in Okinawa. The plans to construe� the International Peace Research Institute in Okinawa, which had been formerly initiated by Governor Ota during his administration, were delayed due to a "lack of funds"; the International Peace Research Institute was to be a location to conduct historical research on "war and history in the Asia-Pacific, with an emphasis on the Battle of Okinawa."52 Moreover, in June 1999, another museum controversy regarding altered exhibitions erupted at the new Yaeyama Peace Memorial Museum, a place of commemoration for the victims of war malaria, particularly the affected local inhabitants in southern Y aeyama islands. Opened in May 28 1999, the new museum found that the prefectural government altered 11 captions of 27 photos without the consent of the supervisor.53 An overwhelming number of Okinawans spoke out against these alterations by the Inamine administration to demonstrate their intolerance for any form of historical oppression. Solidarity and combined efforts against government involvement in Okinawan memory production called fo r seemingly disparate groups in Okinawa to join the "peace movement" of Okinawa.54 Journalists, intellectuals, war survivors, anti-base 5 1 Okinawa Times, October 5 1999. 52 Glenn D. Hook and Richard Siddle.. Japan and Okinawa: Structure and Subjectivity (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), 196. 53 Ibid. 54 Yonetani, "Peace Wars: The Politics of Presenting the Past in Contemporary Okinawa," 200. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 41 peace groups, and museum committee members. worked together to protest against the prefectural government as their struggles over claims to history, memory and the war - became intertwined.55 0n September 18, 1999, almost 200 Okinawans gathered in a small room to initiate a symposium entitled, "How Should the Realities of the Battle of Okinawa be Portrayed: Urgent Symposium on the New Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum Issue," in protest against the alternation process. 56 Questions on how to faithfully represent their memories of the Battle of Okinawa, and who should be responsible for constructing those memories, were widely debated. The initiatives taken by many Okinawans reminded the central government that memory making-through memorial epitaphs, school textbooks, museum displays, tourist pamphlets or the media- involved a discussion between the past and the present to prepare for the future. For these protesting Okinawans, it was of utmost importance .to stay loyal to their war memories to remind and warn future generations ofthe horrors ofwar. 5. Conclusion In his conception of "Yasukunification," Medoruma's critical stance on the politicization of the Cornerstone of Peace reveals the importance of this new site of memory in Japanese national discourse. Through its.unconventional means of exhibiting Okinawa's. philosophy of peace, the Cornerstone of Peace introduced a highly contested form of Okinawan memory that was inserted in the arena of war memorials in Japan. 55 Yonetani, "Peace Wars: The Politics of Presenting the Past in Contemporary Okinawa," 147. 56 Ibid., 166. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 42 Okinawan memory not only represented the narratives of an ethnically separate co�unity, but also challenged the national conventional narrative of Y asukuni Shrine on the mainland by commemorating civilians and soldiers in the same arena. From the onset of its conception, commemoration at the Cornerstone of Peace strived to remember . . . ' the victims of war ·and their traumatic memories, as well as their perpetrators without necessarily endorsing their past actions. In doing so, Governor Ota hoped that the Okinawan philosophy of peace would inspire the world to understand their deep regard for human life and rejection of war. As Okinawans started making more concessions to the Japanese government fo r political and social freedom from the U.S. bases, Y asukunitication at the Cornerstone of Peace through the G-8 Summit in 1999 posed a threat to their goals. However, while Yasukunification posed to be a threat, I argue that it also offered Okinawans a chance to make history. As indicated at the end his op-ed piece, Medoruma hinted the need for Okinawans to do more than advocate for peace-that is, to first deal with the contentious nature of unresolved war memory within Okinawa. ·The question then becomes, how does one commemorate the war memories of a massacre that was so painful and cruel as the Battle of Okinawa? For any nation, it is a difficult task to construct a war memorial without honoring the deeds of fallen soldiers. Most war memorials around the world glorify the sacrifices of soldiers as a way of articulating and promoting national narratives. Official commemoration, or politically sanctioned methods of remembering, is perceived to be vital in the creation of a strong nation. Therefore, when the intended message of a war memorial deviates from the 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 43 conventional narrative, controversy unavoidably occurs. In the next chapter, I will explore the ways in which various fe male war survivors and the Himeyuri Girls, a group of fe male students who were killed during the Battle of Okinawa, sought to come to terms with their painful memories of the past. The ways in which they commemorated their memories of the war against the mainland narrative is indicative of their attempts to reclaim ownership of their memories and deal with their unresolved nature. Maidens of Himeyuri: Mythicized War Memories in Okinawa "[T]he very conception of the nation and the discourse of nationalism is · itself an inherently gendvred discourse. Because of their symbolic association with land, women are, in a sense, the ground over which national identity is played out." ..carol Delaney, Naturali�ingPower! J995 1. Introduction With the impending battle against the U.S. Forces in Okinawa, the Japanese government gave orders fo r young Okinawan female students fr om the age of 15 and 19 to be mobilized as student nurse corps. A total of 219 fe male students from the Okinawa Women's Normal School and the First Prefectural Girls' High School joined the medical units of the Haebaru Army Field Hospital in March 1945. Without any fo rmal nurse training, fe male students from the two schools were sent out to the battlefields to attend to the wounded, to transport soldiers in and out of caves, and to carry medical and fo od supplies to the field. Most of the young girls joined the corps believing that the Japanese Army would defeat the Allied forces in a matter of few days, and some even brought along their books and school supplies to study and return to their classrooms afterthe war. The girls were also. led to believe by government authorities that they would be working in safe conditions, but in reality, they were thrown out into the battlefield full of oncoming bombs and bullets to fe nd fo r themselves. On June 18, 1945, the deactivation order by the Army Field Hospital instructed the girls that they were to disband and survive on their own; approximately 100 girls died in the fe w days after the order, whereas 19 deaths occurred in the 90 days between mobilization in March and their 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 45 discharge in June. By the end of the war, approximately 219 girls lost their lives to the horrific battle. This became known in history as the story of the Himeyuri Girls. 1 After the war, sites of memory dedicated to the Himeyuri Girls began to emerge in the small city of Itoman, where the final battles between the Japanese and Allied Forces met in June 1945. The famous cave shelter of the Third Surgery Unit of the Army Field Hospital, where some of the girls had hid before it was burnt down, became known as the "Cave ofthe Virgins." Next to the cave, the remains of the schoolgirls were gathered and entombed together at the Himeyuri Monument (Himeyuri no To) in 1946 (Image 8). As the story of the Himeyuri Girls garnered much attention on the mainland, "Himeyuri" soon became a highly romanticized and canonical symbol of postwar Okinawan identity. These sites of memory at the Himeyuri Peace Park, comprising both the cave and the Himeyuri Monument, grew to be especially popular during the mid-1970s, when mainland tourists and sightseeing tours reached its peak in Okinawa.2 Contestation of war memory vis-a-vis the mainland at the Himeyuri Peace Park did not occur until almost two decades later, when the Himeyuri Alumnae Association, a group of Himeyuri war survivors, built the Himeyuri Peace Museum next to the monument in 1989. Through the new museum, they hoped to retell their tragic stories and to pay tribute to the memories of their fe llow Himeyuri classmates. Moreover, they sought to present their own memories of the war to the world and to push back against 1 Linda Angst, "Gendered Nationalism: The Himeyuri Story and Okinawan Identity In Postwar Japan," PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 20.1 (1997): 101. 2 Figal, Beachheads : War,. Peace, and Tourism in Postwar Okinawa, 64. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories the hegemonic and mythicized narrative of the mainland. The construction of the museum also inspired the will of many other fe male war survivors, such as Higa Tomiko, . . . \ . also known as the Girl with the White Flag (Shi!ahata no shojo ), to challer1ge the wh itewashing ofOkinawan war memory. The contestation between Japanese mainland's portrayal of Himeyuri and the Himeyuri Alumnae Assocation's recollection of the past was not as heatedly debated on a global stage as the controversies surrounding the Cornerstone of Peace. Regardless, during my visit to the battle sites in Okinawa, I found the Himeyuri Peace Park to be one of the most popular sites amongst tourists. Himeyuri was advertised on almost ev�ry brochure and map that I managed to pick up at convenience stores. Moreover, scholars such as Linda Angst considered Himeyuri to be "a powerful symbolic significance within local and national discourses of postwar Japanese and Okinawan identity."3 This chapter seeks to answer the question: why were the Himeyuri girls, embodying innocence, chauvinistic desire and purity, considered the most worthy of commemoration and enshrinement in national and regional memory? This chapter examines the trajectory of the legend of the Himeyuri Girls and its dimensions of commemorating, remembering, and healing war memory in Okinawa vis- a-vis mainland Japan that culminated in the 1990s. I use the term "mythologization"--or the idealization of war memory-to explicate the influence of mainland Japan on Okinawan conceptualizations of Himeyuri war memory since the end of the war. Using 3 Angst, "Gendered Nationalism: The Himeyuri Story and Okinawan Identity In Postwar Japan," 100. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 47 this term, I will examine how the romanticized Himeyuri myth on the mainland (aided by the Himeyuti Girls being enshrined as "sacrificial daughters" at Yasukuni Shrine) _ subsequently shaped re�ional discourses on gendereq Okinawan memories; moreover, I seek to understand the ways in which their Himeyuri war memories were framed within the dominant nationalistic version of history. 4 The 1990s marked a significant decade in mainland Japan and Okinawa when the Himeyuri narrative was revived in Japanese consciousness fo r several reasons: the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war was an important time to reflect on Japan's buried war memories, and it also coincided with retirement and life-reflection for many aged Okinawan survivors. I will look at the construction of the new Himeyuri Peace Museum, the release of an independent documentary film by the request of living Himeyuri survivors, and several war testimonies written by non-Himeyuri war survivors, all of which simultaneously emerged starting in the 1989 in the new age of contestation. 2. Situating "Himeyuri" in Japanese national memory on the mainland during the mid-1.990s In 1994, the Okinawan newspaper Ryukyu shimpo conducted a survey of 630 Japanese people in cosmopolitan areas on the mainland; of which, 90 percent answered "Himeyuri" when asked what came to mind when the term "Okimiwa" was mentioned to them.5 Based on the number of Himeyuri-related movies and advertisements released by 4 Jemima Repo, "A Feminist Reading of Gender and National Memory at the Yasukuni Shrine," Japan Forum 20.2 (2008): 220. 5 Ry ilkyil shimpo, July 28, 1995. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 48 •· "" • ""'' ''' '' '""''""'"' '"""';. .,.,,..,.,v,j, .. , the mass media, that most Japanese people in cosmopolitan are:as during �he mid- 1'900s . ' • • . . ' f ' ' • would associate . Okinawa with the iconography of Himeyuri was not surprising. Since the ' . . . end of the war, Okinawan war trauma was always associated with the tragic story of the Himeyuri Girls, popularly depicted through popular songs, comic books, novels, films, and television shows on the mainland. The Japanese public's infatuation with the Himeyuri narrative developed starting in 1950, when Ishino Keichir6, a man who did not directly experience the war, wrote and 6 published the novel, Himeyuri Lily A1onument (Himeyuri no to). Due to popular demand, his book was reprinted numerous times and also inspired the makings of many fe ature films on the mainland. As a matter of fact, six films in total have been made about the Himeyuri Girls on the mainland since the first legendary film, Himeyuri Li�v Monument (Himeyuri no to), directed by Imai Tadashi in 1953. 7The mass circulation of the Himeyuri historical narrative through films alone was a testament to the long-standing and widespread acknowledgement of the Himeyuri legend and its symbolic role in portraying Okinawa on the Japanese mainland. More importantly, its lasting significance within Japanese public memory was indicative of how the "Himeyuri Girls" had become essentially a product of the mainland and not that of Okinawa. Up until the 1990s, Himeyuri was essentially the national symbol of victimized adolescents and civilian tragic suffering during the war. The sixth Himeyuri filmreleased 6 Ky le Ikeda, Okinawan War _Memory: Transgenerational Trauma and the War Fiction of Medoruma Shun (New York: Routledge, 2014), 17. 7 Morio Watanabe, "Imagery and War in Japan: 1995," in Perilous Memories: Th e Asia�Pacific War(s), ed. Takashi Fujitani, Geoffrey M. White, and Lisa Yoneyama (Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2001), 143. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 49 m 1995 by director Kamiyama Seijiro was critical in signaling this revival of the Himeym,i "national" memory for an important occasion in Japan: the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Asia-Pacific War. In 1995, Japan's two most successful cinema studios simultaneously released anti-war remake movies to commemorate the anniversary Himeyuri Monument (Himeyuri no to) and Listen to the Vo ices of Wadatsami (Kike wadatsumi no koe ). 8 Produced and released on the mainland, Himeyuri Monument by director Kamiyama reinforced the popular notion that the Okinawan schoolgirls were foremost Japanese victims of the war. Moreover, that Himeyuri Monument was released alongside Listen to the Vo ices of Wadatsami, a film based off an anthology of notes .and letters by young Japanese soldiers who died during the war, revealed much about how Okinawan war memory was once again idealized and reinforced as part of the mainland victim war narrative during the mid-1990s. There were many reasons for its overwhelming popularity on the mainland since the end of the war. The concept of civilian suffering, depicted through the tragic plight of the innocent and pure Himeyuri Girls, reinforced the view that Japanese civilians had been primarily victims of the war. Many Japanese viewers identified with .. the protagonists of the Himeyuri narrative, all of whom had been mobilized with no choice of their own by the militaristic Japanese government to fight bravely and hopelessly fo r their nation. Bolstered by the casting of famous and attractive Japanese actresses such as Goto Tomiko and Kagawa Kyoko, the portrayal of the Himeyuri Girls' purity and !! Watanabe, 143. Contested Memories so innocence touched the hearts of their audience, allowing the Okinawan tragedy of 1?45 to re.sonat� amongst many of its viewers. 9 Director Kamiyama spoke of his intentions fo r the 1995 Himeyuri movie as . . ' rooted in the .. desire "to be truthful to the historical facts."10 ·while scholars such as Watanabe Morio suggest that the "film itself is part of a reality-constructing process," I . argue otherwise-that while mainland Himeyuri films attempted to represet?-t !he traumatic memories of Okinawans, public representations of Okinawan war memory neutralized the trauma itself, achieved the portrayals of not horrors but ideals of victimization, and essentially hindered the healing of unresolved war memories m Okinawa. The mainland Himeyuri rhetoric was hegemonic as it continued to define Okinawa through the iconography of patriotic female war victims-passive, obedient and idealistic "good subjects." Through methods of "mythologization," a term coined by Kali Tal in her study of historical trauma in Wo rlds of Hurt, the Himeyuri traumatic experiences of the war have become reduced to a "set of standardized narratives ...turn ing it into ...a contained and predictable narrative." 11 The mythologized quality of the Himeyuri narrative-"standardized" and "predictable"-rendered it easier fo r public consumption on the mainland. The nation was fixated on the "innocence" and "purity" of the Himeyuri Girls, which further encouraged the mythologization of the victim narrative. 9 Watanabe, 144. 10 Ibid. 11 Kali Tal, Worlds of Hurt: Reading the Literatures of Trauma (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996), 13. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 51 Essentially, the idealized de_aths of the Himeyuri Girls represented a "beautiful 1 - martyrdom for the nation." 2 qender and sexuality were obvious and distinctive characteristics of the Himeyuri myth that attracted the nation's attention. Jemima Repo, in her research on the role of _ gender at Yasukuni Shrine on the mainland, argued that the construction of the Himeyuri Girls as "heroic" and "sacrificial daughters" at Y asukuni Shrine profoundly shaped mainland discourse on the Himeyuri Girls. This narrative also conveniently omitted the 13 responsibility of the Japanese Imperial Army from its account of history. In retrospect, the duly obedient and fe minine Himeyuri students, often portrayed as chaste virgins, were idealistic candidates to represent the masculine protection that the nation called fo r during 1 the war. 4 Thus in national historical memory of the Himeyuri Girls, fe w tend to remember the Japanese government as the oppressor, but rather as the fatherly defender 15 of the virginal girls. Despite the fact that the Blood and Iron Student Corps (Tekketsu Kinnoutai), a group of 400 male students who were summoned as student soldiers in Okinawa, had died in considerably larger numbers than that of the nurse corps, the Himeyuri Girls took the spotlight on the mainland. That the fe male student corps, not their male counterparts in Okinawa, were considered to be the archetype of Okinawan identity is particularly 12 Sono Ayako, Aru shinwa no haikei: Okinawa Tokashikijima no shiidanjiketsu (The story behind the myth: Group suicides n Okinawa and Tokashiki Islands), Tokyo: Bungei Shunju, 1992. 13 Repo, 234. 14 Ibid., 233. 15 Ibid., 234 .. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 52 ...... ··· ········ ······ ··· ································ ...... ···· ·· ··• ...... indicative of the ways in which _ mainland Japan p�tceived the gendered and disempowered role of Okinawa within postwar Japanese discourse on war suffering. Just as Okinawans were inducted into the prewar nationalist ideology of Japanese military commanders before the w�r, the mainland Himeyuri narrative, whicP... reinfo rc;ed Okinawa's colonial relationship to Japan during its earlier y�ars, inescapably shaped Okinawan identity during the 1990s. Even into the mid-1990s, mainland Japan sought to reinforce Okinawa's "feminized, disempowered past" as a way of asserting Japan's "sign ofprogress."16 In this way, Himeyuri sustained the historical power relationshipbetween the mainland and Okinawa; the characterization of Himeyuri as passive, primitive, and politically dependent in Japanese national memory unquestionably influencedthe ways in which mainland people perceived postwar Okinawan identity in the 1990s. 3. Contested memo.-ies in Okinawa and the construction of the Himeyuri Peace Museum These effects of mythologization on Himeyuri memory were visibly obvious when I arrived at the Himeyuri Monument Park last summer in 2013. Several colorful and pushy vendors-with signs that read "Mensore!" (Hello in Okinawan language) and "Okinawan Souvenirs"-greeted me at the entrance ofthe monument� The sacred ground of the Himeyuri Monument was overrun by tourist-friendly accommodations with insistent flower vendors, garish souvenir and refreshment stands guarding the entrance. To be greeted in this manner before stepping irito the memorial grounds was indeed 16 Angst, "Gtndered Nationalism: The Himeyuri Story and Okinawan Identity In Postwar Japan," 101. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 53 troubling. Inamine Kunasiburo, a local observer who wrote an article called "Impressions of Sight-seeing Tours" (Kanko meguri no kanso), criticized the flower vendors at Himeyuri: "the several unsightly girls with flowers in their hands dart over shouting and putting �m the hard s�ll .. .it is, you'd agree, a despicable sight."17 While, to some extent,. these pushy vendors' behavior may be indicative of the desperate economic situation in Okinawa, the commodification of the sacred ground of the Himeyuri monument reflects how the Himeyuri narrative itself had become commodifiedin Okinawa. As described above, the impact of burgeoning tourism, visible by the number of tourist businesses organized in front of the Himeyuri Monument Park, was one of many manifestations of the "mythologization" of Himeyuri. Since 1950, the Himeyuri Monument has been one of Okinawa's most visited sites, and it grew to accommodate the increasing mainland appeal of local Okinawan memorial sites by implementing souvenir stands that sold fo reign goods (perfume, liquor, jewelry, golf clubs, etc) at discounted prices due to lower import tariffs in Okinawa. 1 8 Additionally, the bus tours around various battle sites in southern Okinawa were guided by young, attractive uniformed bus guides, who performed dramatic narrations of the wartime ordeals of a Himeyuri nurse: "The Himeyuri 'tour guides' told their stories . as . part of a special commemorative ceremony, dressed in warm, comfortable clothing and fo otwear, as they retraced their arduous nocturnal wanderings on the Kyan Peninsula, constantly under allied military 17 Figal, Beachheads: War, Peace, and Tourism in Postwar Okinawa, 54. 18 Ibid., 55. Williams College Contested Memories 54 ...... ,,,,,.. ,, ...., ...... ,.. , attack from air and sea, some fifty years latter."19 Especially in the immediate years after the end of the war, bus tour guides of the Himeyuri monument reinforced mainland J�panese rhetoric by hiring young, ,unmarried women to "enhance the sense of pathos" ' ' through heavily romanticized and dramatic tour narrations?0 Okinawans who .supported . . ' ...... -� . '·. ; . . . �· . these bus tours invested in advertising the monument on a larger scale. in order to attract more mainland tourists and gather more proceeds through their visits. By treating the memories of Himeyuri as profitable commodity, not only were Okinawans legitimizing the .mainland conception of the narrative to tourists, but they were also assisting the homogenization of their memories vis-a-vis the mainland narrative. Moreover, that the Blood and Iron Student Corps (Tekketsu Kinnoutai), male students summoned as student soldiers during the battle, are not as prominent figures in Okinawan war memory, suggests the power of the dominant memory of the mainland. Near the Himeyuri Monument stands the less fr equently visited Kenji Monument (Kenji no To), dedicated to the young boy student soldiers who fo ught side by side with trained soldiers during the war; unlike the high-profile Himeyuri Monument, the Kenji Monument is located in a remote and neglected ledge that overlooks the sea.21 In fact, during. my tour of the battle sites in Okinawa, I had absolutely no idea that there existed such a monument dedicated to male student soldiers. Many prominent figures in Okinawa, including fo rmer governor Ota Matsuhide and the father of public writer Medoruma Shun, 1 9 Linda Angst, In a Dark Time Memory, Community, and Gendered Nationalism in Postwar Okinawa (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2008), 158. 2° Figal, Beachheads: War, Peace, and To urism in Postwar Okinawa, 43. 2 1 Angst, "Gendered Nationalism: The Himeyuri Story and Okinawan Identity In Postwar Japan," l 03. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 55 were recruited as part ofthe Blood and Iron Student Corps, and despite their high profile and frequent public recounts of their war experiences, the mainland-endorsed Himeyuri n,arrative remained most popular in Okinawan war memory. J-lbwever, �tarting in . 1989, on the same commodified grounds emerged a competing version of the Himeyuri mythology: the Himeyuri Peace Museum, built more than 40 years after the monument, which sought to educate the younger generation of the living survivors' personal memories of war. The contents of the museum were presented through the efforts of aged survivors who employed their memories of the war in order to spread anti-war messages as part of the peace discourse. The two competing images of the Himeyuri identity continue to be represented on the grounds of the Himeyuri Peace Park, rendering it essentially a microcosm of Okinawa, in unity and in division in terms of competing war memories. The sacrificed virginal girls-the beautiful martyrdom for the nation-are encapsulated within the large monument as fa llen war heroes, and the elderly war survivors now spend their last years giving lectures and speeches on the importance of peace within and outside of the museum; these two identities represent the split terrain of war memory in Okinawa. The mainland iconography of virginal and innocent Himeyuri girls validated Okinawan victimhood and was extensively commodified for public consumption, while on the other hand, the survivors themselves continued to be beset by the mythologized interpretations of their personal experiences of the war, all the while striving to assert their own. Despite the hegemonic norm that fitted the Himeyuri Girls; identities as fe minine, tireless and unselfish, the survivors' push to 20 14 ,Williams Colleg:e Contested Memories 56 �ssert a much more nuanced and flawed account of t4eir war experiences shed �ight o� .the ways in which they had· suffered as a consequence of Japanes.e military shortsight�dness. In 1989, the !-Ji�ey�ri Alumnae Associati()n established the . Himeyuri Peace Museum in' order to "appeal fo r world pea�e and pray for the repose of the souls of those who . perished." They believed that the passage of time since the en<;l of t�e war endangered their lingering memories of the battle, as evidenced by their statement of purpose, which was displayed on a wall at the entrance of the museum: ''We are determined all the more to do our best to continu� to tell our stories of war, and by so exposing the brutality and insanity of war, to never allow it happen again in the future." For the Himeyuri Alumnae, it was of great importance to construct a safe haven for female survivors to recount their war experiences as a way of reminding fu ture generations of the need to remember the terrible consequences of war. Due to the overwhelming wave of Himeyuri depictions through the media during the 1990s, the Himeyuri survivors most likely felt an urgent need to permanently establish their own portrayal of the past-memories that highlighted the mistakes made by the militaristic government and its policies during the war. More than that, the contents of the Himeyuri Peace Museum also reflected their attempts to construct a personal sanctuary for the deaths of the individual girls. This was achieved in many ways. First, the museum itselfwas built on top of the cave where some of the female students had died. That the museum was constructed at ' the home of the 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 57 l!npleasant experiences of the Himeyuri survivors rendered it a particular sacred site of n}emoiy, one .that was different from. media portrayals on the mainland .. Inside the musem;n; Display Chamber IV, entitled the "Requiem," presents the portraits of all the Bimeyur:i victim� · with individual panels underneath to describe the circumstances of their death. There are three walls with two rows of 206 portraits of the girls and large books filled with 90 testimonies assembled in the middle of the chamber. The darkened room in the chamber of the Himeyuri portraits highlights the tragedy of the loss the girls. Around their portraits, their personal effects are scattered about, ranging fr om pencil cases, lunch boxes, hair combs and accessories. The fo cus on their ephemeral lives are also bolstered by the didactic exhibits leading to the portraits, which inform the visitors of the Emperor-oriented militaristic education program that deluded the students in joining the nurse corps. When I visited the museum, I could not help but see a striking resemblance between the portrait-filled room of the Himeyuri ·Peace Museum and a similar room containing portraits of fallen soldiers at the Yushukan Museum at Yasukuni Shrine (mainland); yet, whereas the portraits of the individual soldiers at the Yushukan.Museum glorified their deaths as ones of "self-sacrifice," the portraits of the Himeyuri Girls carried a much heavier and somber tone with their anger directed towards the injustice of the cause of their deaths. In essence, unlike the Yushukan, the Himeyuri Museum extensively challenged the theme of glorified self-sacrifice and fended off any efforts to embalm the Himeyuii Girls as legendary and venerated figures of the nation. 2014 ...... :...... , .. :.,, .. .' . ss Williams College Contested Memor�ies . . . . i Interestingly, although most of the Himeyu,ri g rls died during the war, thf;!. · . ' l , . : , . ' . ' .· museum's referred to the Himeyuri girls as "suryivors" rather -than "sacrificed victims''. in . . ·, all of their exhibitions;, this was central in their efforts •to localize .their living memories of ' • ' ! • the war. Unlike most forms of commeJ,lloration of the war in Japan and Okinawa, the . Himeyuri Peace -Museum fo cused rnuch on the living memories of those who survived ' , • 1 I , , . the war. Often in the discou' rse of war and peace, what continues to be often lacking is an.. ' . ' open space for . survivors to fu lly express themselves and . testify to their w:ar experiences.22 Survivors are shamed into silence, afflicted both with "survivor's guilt" and the fear of threatening the status quo. Kali, in her book, Wo rlds of Hurt, analyzed that "if the survivor community is a marginal one, their voices will be drowned out by those with the influence andresources to silence them, and to trumpet a revised version of their trauma."23 At the Himeyuri Museum, curators worked hard to incorporate exhibitions and activities that involved living survivors and their accounts of the war, such as the recent HIMEYURl (2007) documentary exhibition, to be explained in more detail later. In Repo' s feminist reading of national memory at Y asukuni Shrine, she attributed much agency to the effo rts of the Himeyuri Museum to create an autonomous realm of fe minine war memory as a way of challenging the nationalistic rhetoric of Yasukuni: "the [Himeyuri] museum can therefore be considered as a localized commemorative context, in which the agency of survivors is emphasized as a result of their own initiatives in 22 I argue that the case of the survivors of Hiroshima is an exception to my argument because it is arguable that the narrative of the bombing of Hiroshima has fa llen to the same effects of mythologization as is the case with Okinawa. 23 Tal, 7. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 59 2 memory. production." 4 She attributed the role of the Himeyuri survivors m the construc�ion of *e museum as a "gradual effort ...t � gain legitimacy on the mainlaJ?.dfo r t,heir claims to and of history. "25 . Wst "cooperated" with· m�inland Japan by "removing themselves fr om specific _political debates."26 For example, she argued that in the exhibits of the Himeyuri Museum, blame for Japanese war atrocities "is deferred to abstract concepts (world peace) or policies and institutions (the prewar education system) rather than targeting specific agents or events.'m Moreover, Angst mentioned her personal interaction with a Himeyuri survivor to suggest that some are unable to talk fr eely and reluctant to criticize the Japanese state publicly; through this occasion, she concluded that Himeyuri survivors continue to be "at the mercy of the provocative image which the centers, and now themselves, employ."28 Taking into consideration the two schools of thought, I argue that due to the lasting strength of the dominant Himeyuri narrative in Okinawa, the authority of the mainland discourse inevitably swayed the ways in which the museum curators and Himeyuri survivors portrayed certain tragedies. Despite such fervent energy to create a discursive space for counter-nationalist war narratives, the mainland hegemonic influence and its enduring Himeyuri myth, which had been shaped and preserved fo r almost fo rty 24 Repo, 23 7. 25 Ibid., 238. 6 2 Angst, '�Gendered Nationalism: The Himeyuri Storyand Okinawan Identity In Postwar Japan," 107. 27 . Ibid. 28 Ibid. , .. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 60 years smce the end of t�e war, were too powerful a!ld inevitably continue to affect .Okinawan interpretation of "Himeyuri" as the symbol of alt Okinawan war experiences. :·· ' . . ' However, in no way does this belittle the amount of influence and inspiration that the Himeyuri Mu�eum ·achieved in initiating the . process of resistance and contestation . · against the hegemonic narrati�e. ·,Before the 1990s, those who valued the celt�brated cultural representations of Okinawan trauma through the Hirrieyuri narrative drained out the voices of female survivors. In order to assert a separate, aut�nomous identity from the mainland, I �gu� that individual and private t�stimonies in Okinawa like. the compilation of Himeyuri testimonies in the 2007 Himeyuri Documentary and Higa's autobiography, to be examined next, as a source Qf resistance need to be valued and merited over the mainland dominant narrative-a mission that the Himeyuri Peace MtJ.seum inaugurated a.11d gradually continues to endorse in the present.29 4. HIMEYURI Documentary (2007) and Higa Tomiko (1991 ) Despite "mythologization" and mainland influence on the Himeyuri narrative, personal memories of the Himeyuri survivors, who ardently spoke fr om experience, formed the fo undations for the building of the Himeyuri Peace . Museum in 1989, and as their living voices started to fade with time, they sought fo r something to take their place 29 Since the. mid-1 990s, the Himeyuri Peace Museum continues to promote the preservation of their precious War memories through methods · of publishing picture books and animation short movies fo r children, implementing new exhibitions at the museum, leading school lectures and talks, and funding the screening of the Himeyuri documentary (directed by Shibata Shohei) abroad in countries such as Germany and other European countries. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 61 as a permanent exhibit at the museum in order to preserve their sacred memories: their own production of a documentary film, Himeyuri. ·In July 1995, a Himeyuri ·survivor appro�ched Director Shibata Shohei with a request _ to document their personal experiences · on film. The confused director, who ' '! •. "didn't . understand what more [he] could do since there were so many films on 'Himeyuri' ," realized that the Himeyuri survivors had actually almost never spoken about their own experiences.30 Despite the number of films on the Himeyuri narrative, .the survivors themselves, such as Miyagi Kikuko, found it too painful until the construction ofthe museum in the 1990s to recount their experiences: Afterthe war, I refused to go to the ceremonies of memorial. I tried to forget as much as possible. Because it was horrible and it was sad, or fo r whatever reason, I just didn't want to remember. It is only very recently I . have been able to speak about it. I decided to get involved to constructing the memorial museum because I fe lt if I didn't talk, nobody would support it.3 1 The decision to construct the Himeyuri Museum encouraged a community of survivors such as Miyagi to convey their war experiences to the world-a courageous act, understanding the traumatic memories that they had long desired to repress. Since the survivors' request in ·1995, ·Director Shibata set out to record and to collect the testimonials of the 22 Himeyuri survivors for the span of 13 years. The documentary film, started in 1995 and released in 2007, constituted one of many attempts to revive their sacred memories that had faded due to mainland mythologization. . . 30 Shibata Shohei, "Documentary Film "HIMEYURI," ASIA Documentary Productions, Jan. 2009. Web. 24 Mar. 2014. " Haruko T. Cook and Theodore F. Cook, Japan at War: An Oral History (New York: New, 1992), 363 . . !. .. . 2014 Williams College Conte!;ited Memories 62 ' ' Regarding his motivations for the qocumentary, Shibata insisted that it was important to . ' . � . , . ' . . · ' . ' capture all of. the stories of these vyomen-"stories that otherwise would have been ' forgotten. "32 . One of his most important ia:sks in producing the documentary required him . . • l to "persuad[e] the survivors to go back one more time to the place they didn't want to gol ' ' •.• "! • . l .. '. • the place they wanted to fo rget."33 In 2007, his documentary was finally released and . ' ' . ' . . ' • '. screened as a pe_rmanent exhibit �t the Himeyuri Peace Museum, , where. I had the opportunity of'vvatching.during my visit to Itoman City in Okinawa in 2013. Director Shibata considered that "earlier works based on second-hand accounts 4 have thus tended to stereotype the [Himeyuri] tragedy. "3 His observation was on point. Mainland remake filmsand novels of the Himeyuri Girls threatened to reshape Okina\van understanding of the memories of Himeyuri and its survivors, who essentially only existed as part of the landscape of war-"not subjects, but rather, the objects of discourse.'"5 Especially up until the 1990s, the effects of mythologization on the Himeyuri narrative suggested that Okinawan war memories were highly malleable and easily influenced by its social and economical relationship to mainland Japanese sensibilities. More importantly, this virulent iconography clouded over individual war memories in Okinawa. The iconography of Himeyuri, as a "national" symbol of wartime suffering in Japan, essentially spoke for all Okinawans in their vocalization of war experiences. The mythologized archetype of "sacrificed women" diffused the individual :;2 Shibata, "Documentary Film "HIMEYURI" . 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. 35 Angst, "Gendered Nationalism: The Himeyuri Story and Okinawan Identity In Posnvar Japan," 104. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 63 memories of other fe male survivors of the war, which disconnected the private fr om th� public sphere· of war memory. The private sphere of memory,.controlled by survivors and victims of war, was subsumed ·into the larger, public domain of war myths. Thus, ·, . rept:esentations of Okinawan war memories, both on the mainland .and in Okinawa, became essentially shaped into one of national myths-according to Director Shibata, "Himeyuri [had] become a legend, almost like a mythological tale."36 For non-Himeyuri survivors of the war, to cast "Himeyuri'' as a national symbol was problematic in that their own war memories fe ll prey to the effects of "mythologization." Individual stories of war survivors not only became lost inthe larger theme of Okinawans as "innocent victims" of war, but also were weaved into the common mainland narrative of women and children who the nation was essentially unable to "protect." Initially, Himeyuri memories, recounted by only. a few select Himeyuri survivors, as well as testimonies written by male students corps, the Blood and Iron Corps, allowed Okinawans to assert their own separate identity as "victim" civilians, who unlike that of the mainland, were betrayed by the Japanese government both during and after the war with the American occupation.· Moreover, these memoirs, recollections and other documents of Okinawan war survivors, which began appearing in the 1950s, ,. . formed the first important attempts and foundations of Okinawan recorded memory. However, as Okinawan war historian Oshiro Masayusu analyzed, these works emphasized the experiences of student corps, and the war memories of average civilians 36 Shibata1 "Documentary Film "1-!IMEYURI." 2014 Williams College Contested Memories ...... "...... : ...... �...... . slowly faded away in the following decades.37 In time, with "Himeyuri" as the. dominant • .: j . • • ' • • ' • • • '· icon of Okina�an women's wartime experience, non-Himeyuri female war survivors and . . . ' '.'. . .., ' ·. their indi:vidual memories lost agency in their heartfelt decisions to talk about their own. . ' ' , ' ' I ' , hist�rical experiences. The war ·myth of the Himeyuri Girls came into direct conflict'with the private .· ' . . . • ·, ! ' . l , \ ' • . ' memories of other fe male. individuals in Okinawa; From its conception, the mainland . . . ' . . . . . , . Himeyuri iconography disregarded the stre11gth and courage of female survivors who came out to speak about their experier�ces; essentially, the "Himeyuri" narrative. spoke fo r them. De:spite personal testimonies, it was di�ficult fo r survivors to contest the dominant narrative sh�ped by the mainland. The mainland conception of "Himeyuri" glorified the lives of the young Okinawa girls without truly examining their deaths itself; the girls were fo rever embalmed as sacrificed victims, and the living survivors were denied their voices. Their potential value as symbolic victims of the war was prioritized over their stories; this process, also sustaili.ed in ·part by Okinawans themselves, created a conventional frameworkof war memory through which personal narratives and memories of the war became standardized, which also effectuated the loss of individual subjectivity. There are important moments in Higa Tomiko's autobiography, The Girl with the Wh ite Flag (Shirahata no sh6j6, 1991 ), which are significant markers of the importance of non-Himeyuri war survivors' decisions to discuss personal memories and to leave permanent marks on the lives of. others. Higa Tomiko, a survivor of the Battle of 37 Ikeda, 17. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 65 Okinawa �nd most well known as the Girl with the White Flag, was thirty-nine when she came across a photograph ofherselfas a seven-year-old child during the war, The famous picture, taken by an American army photographer, JohnHendrinkson, depicts a barefoot, young Okinawan girl, holding a white flag to surrender to the Allied Forces; this very picture allowed her. painful memories of the past to resurface and sw£!.yed her decisiori to write her autobiography. As she was writing her book, the Himeyuri Alumnae opened the Himeyuri Peace Museum in 1989, and Higa was able to "figuratively add the photograph of herself on the walls at the Himeyuri Museum'� and to tell the world of her suffering and the decade-long process to finallymake her story public.38 When Higa came across the photo of herself in a foreign bookshop, she claimed that she ran out of the shop, ended up "lying on [her] back on the tatami floor, [her] heart thumping," and she "tearfully began to relive those last moments in the cave." She fe ared telling anyone of her identity, including her husband, due to the fa ct that her identity would lead to a search for the location of the cave, where she had left "Grandma" and "Grandpa" alone. This search would . in turn "cause their remains to be collected and cremated for burial in a mass grave fo r those with no family." Moreover, she believed that her memories of the war as a seven-year-old child . would be of no use to anybody. Higa was reluctant in revisiting her memories of the terrible battle for they would only rekindle feelings of guilt and panic. However, widespread rumors began to surface around the picture of the girl with the white flag-rumors that the ·American 38 Virginia Schaefer Horvath, "Reconstructing War, Reconstructing the Self: Uses of Autobiography in Tomiko Higa's Girl with the White Flag," Women's Studies32.l (2003): 57. 20 !4. \Villiams College Contested Memories 66 . photogr.apher had staged the photo and forced the girl· to hold the flag. Higa:'s husband, suspecting her . ideiuity·, urged her ;,I think you ought to describe your experiences in the ' ' 39 war. Tell it the way it happened. Rec6rd 1t for posterity. Y o�'re the only one who can." . . ,, �iga's autobiog'raphy not only revea'led. her oWn personal memories of the war .. . . . but it also divulged the existence of the old couple, "Grandma" arid ·�oranctpa," who h.act . morally supported Higa amidst the ongoing battle which essentially saved her life. 'rhe famous whit� flag that she had been holding was actually made frorri the old man; ,3 undergarments, . and the it loving kindness and Words of encouragement while tiiding in the·cave essentially allowed Higa to exit the cave and seek help: Grandpa and Grandma, you gave me the courage to go on. Your cave was such a peaceful haven for me. I haven't told anybody about you. Not even my sisters. So please stay alive in your peaceful cave as long as you can. I promise that I will never tell anyone where your cave is as long as I live. Higa, influenced by the decisions of the Hirneyuri survivors to talk about their war experience, believed that her method of imparting her personal memories restored an identity of hers, as well as those of the old couple, which would have had been otherwis� unknown to the society at large. Virginia Schaefer Horvath, a scholar of British Literature, analyzed that Higa "had to have some exposure to a culture in which women's stories were shared and valued. "40 I agree with Horvath in that the 1990s posed an important time fo r fe male war survivors like Higa, who were inspired to push against the hegemonic narrative alongside the efforts of the Himeyuri Alumane Association and its 39 Higa Tomiko, Th e Gitl with White Flag: An Inspiring Tale ofLove and Courage in War:Time (Tokyo: · Kodansha International, 1991), 121. 40 Borvath, 57" 2014 WilliamsCollege Contested Memories 67 museum. Other Okinawan fe male survivors, whose oral histories were made public through �· compilati.on published by Ruth Ann Keyso during the mid-1 990s, inade a collaborative effort to commemorate thei� memories of the war and to actually represent . their tral,Jmain a. genuine manner, untainted by the politics of remembrance .. . . . . ' ' I . F_or Higa to be able to write her story, she would have had to _extricate herself from the limitations of the dominant nationalistic versions of history that silenced her. Popular methods of remembering the war, influenced by the victimization narrative of the Himeyuri Girls, dictated how women's war stories should be read and understood. Instead of generating conversations regarding what was distinctive about the work of Higa, an Okinawan woman struggling to find strength in reconstructing her pain of war, or understanding her work as an opportunity to capture an identity only· she could tell, gendered stories like Higa's The Girl with the White Flag become unfortunately only understood through the lens of the "innocent victim of war" narrative. Inspired much by the Himeyuri society, who continues to send out survivors as lecturers for students on school trips, the act of speaking and retelling their wartime experiences has empowered many Okinawan women in the post-Cold War era to advance the new discourse on the topic of gendered and politicized Okinawa. Also argued by historian Linda Angst, "[In Okinawa], women are enabled through their acts of speaking to fa shion as well new positions for themselves within their own communities." 41 Women's identities in 41 Angst, "Gendered Nationalism: nie Himeyuri Story and Okinawan Identity In Postwar Japan," I 07. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 68 . Okinawa . are part of an ongomg . process and are slowly changing the rhetoric of . ' Okinawan identity in the process. 5. Conclu�i.on In short, the .nationalistic Himeyuri narrative blurred the thin line between the ' • • • 1 ' � ! ' promotion of the victimization narrative and the preservation of private and individual ' ·:· . war memories in Okinawa. The mythologization of the Himeyuri girls' stories and . .. · , ,, ' Okinawa's adoption of the mainland _ narrative of victimization da!lgerm;sly , oversimplifiedthe girls'. "noble suicides," which essentially rendered it more difficult for ...... independent women to make marks of their own and to hold their testimonies of their war experiences up for others to see. During the 1990s, the survivors who made up the Himeyuri Alumane Assocation were not the only actors involved in the struggle over remembering Japan's wartime past.. Many individuals and political groups shared a similar critical view of Japan's wartime past, such as comfort women groups in South Korea, Women's Active Museum on War and Peace (WAM) on the mainland, and 42 Center of Research and Documentation on Japan's Wartime Responsibility (JWRC). From the early 1900s into the 2000s, these groups have also been actively involved in memory contestation and the struggle over how to commemorate Japan's wartime legacy. As discussed within this . chapter, Himeyuri su�vivors and other Okinawan fe male war 42 Kamila Szczepanska, "The Politics of W�r Memory in Japan 1990-20 10: Progressive Civil Society Groups and Contestation of Memory of the Asia-PacificWar (1931-1945)," GEMC Journal (March 2012): 211. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 69 survivors succeeded in seizing the opportunity to counter a mythology of the past and an institutional memory that was so powerfully supported within Japan. In the following chapter, I discuss the larger implications of the mythologization of .Qkinawan war memories through the fictional work of Medoruma Shun: His use of "magical realisin''· to discuss Okinawan war memory offers a way to circl.unvent the limitations of historical research that requires substantiated evidence and to go beyond the conventions of realistic narratives. . . � The Comfort Island: Med9ruma's •'Droplets" as a Site ()fMemory The Yamatunchu (Japanese) have their favorite images of U�hinanchjl (Okinawans). There's the simple but good-hearted middle-aged man, his · skin- dark from the . sun, an Orion beer in his hand; the sturdy, hard working, cheerful old woman who suddenly grows sad when talking about the Battle of Okina�a, but then laughs away her suffering; the young man, who at first looks a little .scary but turns out to be just a shy, simple islander; the · young woman, always bright and cheerful. When told that , theS.e are the only kind of people in Okinawa, even those who normally rea<;! the newspaper and ·grt�;mble about the Ya nayamatu (rotten.�apane�e), end up fe eling as if they must live up ·to ·the expectatio� and suddenly' transform themselves into a :''good Uchiri.anchu." ... the guest will,say, "In Okinawa, you can't end a party without dancing the kachaashi, right?" so th�y oblige and stumble their way thrqugh the unfamiliar m,oveme9-ts. -Medoruma Shun� �'hukan asahi, October 2000 .. 1. Introduction Since becoming colonized by Japan in 1872, Okinawa was widely perceived by mainland Japan as "diffe rent" in a negative, discriminating way. Especially after the end of the war, mainland Japan's economically and socially advanced status encouraged an inferior and underdeveloped image of Okinawa. However, Okinawa's fo reignness and ethnic heterogeneity, which were considered potential threats to Japan's construction of a national narrative, came to be perceived more "positively" by the mainiand starting in the 1990s. Whether the new appreciation of Okinawan difference vis-a-vis mainland Japan was entirely positive for Okinawa is debatable. I argue that the widely circulated image of Okinawa during the so-called Okinawa Boom was essentially purged of the negative aspects of contemporary issues (i.e., the burden of military bases, poverty, lingering war memories); such representations of Okinawa were solely functionalized for Japan's interests in fueling a tourism industry and in safeguarding the security interests of the US military in the Pacitl.c. In response, political activist and author, Medoruma Shun, 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 71 highlighted fr agmented war memories and cultural differences in Okinawa in order to challenge the prevalent idea of a singular Okinawan identity. I will examine how Medoruma Shun, through his Akutagawa Prize winning short story "Droplets" (1997), introduced a more complex and realistic Okinawa in order to counter ma:inland Japanese constructions of the "comfort island" and the cultural stereotypes that circumscribed Okinawa within mainland Japanese interests. The 1990s marked a profound period of change fo r Okinawa; according to Ina Hein, a professor of Japanese studies, the self-perception of Japan as an "ethnically and culturally homogenous state gradually start[ed] to dissolve" during this decade, as new interpretations of Japan's wartime past in East Asia triggered increased awareness of social diversity within Japanese society. 1 Starting in the mid-1990s and into the new millennium, what became known as the Okinawan boom (Okinawa buumu)-a composite of Okinawan cultural and regional images-flooded Japanese mass media and popular culture. Interestingly enough, Okinawan fo lklore, fe stive music and cuisine became symbols of nostalgia (natsukashisa) fo r people on mainland Japan; · the juxtaposition of metropolitan Tokyo, symbolizing modernity, anxiety and mechanization, against peaceful and paradisiacal Okinawa encouraged the idea that Okinawa had preserved traditions and "communal structures of villages or families" which had been 1 Ina Hein, "Constructing Difference in Japan: Literary Counter-images of the Okinawa Boom," ContemporaryJap an 22 (20 1 0), 180. ·72 Contested Memor'"' ies. , ,; . . , . . ' ...... : ...... ' -- - ...... ' � . . ·...... � ,., . · .. . . . 2 • lost on the As Stuart Hall, a specialist' in cultural studies, explained. , Okinawa rnainland.', . . • t . . •. . • • : • • •• in the late 1,990s represented' an "·externally fe stive place'. from which the people of ' ' · . . . ' . � . . mainland Japan . [sought] comfort and onto. w;hich they project[ed] their nostalgia for a -: . (iyashi bumu) utopian vision of Japan's premodernity.'?3 Moreover, the "healing bQom" . . : . ' • . . . : . • t. ' . . - . ' y • • , • • • ' ' • • • • ' • � during the Lost Decade of 1990s in Japan (which marked. the abrupt end' to Japan's strong . . economic growth fr om the 1970s) publicized Okinawa as the "comfort island," where mainland people could �scape. their fatigued and urban life _to relax.4 Thus, stereotypical images ·of tropical islands, azure blue skies, and idyllic beaches, soon saturated the mainland's '_perception of Okinawa. These popularized "Okinawa-isms" during the multimedia Okinawa Boom not only distorted the reality of a historically oppressed Okinawa, but also encouraged the notion of "self-exoticization'' amongst Okinawans, concurrently prompted by the spur and economic reward ofthe tourism industry. Some academics like Oliver E. Kiihne have labeled mainland Japan' s political use of Okinawan mass tourism and media as prut of a power framework of "nco-imperial" , oppression. 5 Moreover, Davinder Bhowmilk, a professor of Okinawan literature, �efined the Okinawa Boom as "the latest type of colonization. "6 While many academics like Ktihne and Bhowmilk are highly critical of mainland Japan as an agent of neo-:imperial 2 Oliver E. Kuhne, "Research Report: Historical Amnesia and the "Neo-imperial gaze" in the Okinawa Boom," ContemporaryJap an 24 (20 12), 216. 3 Mika Ko, "Japanese Cinema and Otherness," Na tionalism, Multiculturalism and the Problem o.f Japanese ness (London & New York: Routledge, 2006), 157. 4 Kuhne, 217. 5 ibid .. 213, 6 Davinder Bhowmilk Writing Okinawa: Narrative Acts of Identity and Resistance (New York: Routlege, 2008), 3.· 2014 Williams College Contested Memories · 73 ...... oppression "that only wishes to settle upon desired illusions [of Okina.wa]," Medoruma reminds �s that the crux of the · issue also ex:ists within Okinawan society. 7 In Medor�ma's other fictional work, his tone is explicitly sardonic and critical of U.S. bases . . . and the Japanese government; however, "Droplets" offers his first form of literature that does. ies� to directly criticize outside force� than to present his critical stance on Okinawans' decisions to opt for a superficial, painless type of war memory. Through his didactic fiction-writing, Medoruma addresses some of these key issues pushed forth by academics KUhne and Bhowmilk, but by looking inwards into Okinawan society and finding fault with the cultural stereotypes sustained by Okinawans themselves. I argue that the concepts of "self-Okinawanization" or "self-exoticization" were complex issues within Okinawa that forcibly tied Okinawan identity to mainland expectations. More importantly, these public representations of Okinawa threatened to wash over and replace Okinawa' s fading memories of the war. Historical literature like "Droplets" are forms of vernacular memory that provides us with Invaluable tools to investigate the past and recover certain memories that have either become forgotten or ignored especially under the large shadow of the Okinawa boom. In this chapter, I will explore Medoruma Shun's short·story "Droplets" (1997) as a site of �e�ory that sought to redefine contemporary Okinawan attitudes towards war memory vis-a-vis the "Okinawa Boom" on the mainland. Medoruma achieved this by addressing complex Issues such as fr actured memories in Okinawa, the diversity of 7 Ki.ihne, 226. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 74 ,. Okinawan war . experiences, and the ways in which . untold and repressed Okinawari stones can. challe�ge Japanese ethn'bcemrism: · 2. Medoruma's "Droplets" (1997) . I chose "Droplets" as a · site of mem�ry for .several reasons; ti rst, unlike most Okinawan ·regional literature, which has been often limited to an Okinawan audience, s ''Droplets" has gained. nationwide attention on the mainland. In 1997, Medoruma' . ' ' . "Droplets" won the 1l7'h Akutagawa Prize, Japan's most pre�tigious award fo r� fiction, gamering the. praises of scholars on mainland Japan and Okinawa, many who .claimed it to be "the first post-..::olonial work of Okinawan literature."8 That a war-themed short story like "Droplets" garnered the attention of a national readership lends to a host of ihterpretations: perhaps the readers of mainland Japan, as well as many Okinawans themselves, recognized the ways in which Okinawan myths (of tropical paradises and comfort islands) could be contrary to understanding Okinawa's historical past. Or simply, it is possible that an unanticipated work of Okinawan fictionwith a distinct literary style took mainland judges by surprise. Regardless, Medoruma started to attract a wider audience outside of Okinawa on the mainland through his works of fictional literature, predominantly concerned with war memory.9 Themes of Medoruma's post-reversion writing and literature encompassed a vast range of commonly neglected topics on the 8 Medoruma Shun, "An Okinawan Short Story," JPRJ Critique Vol. VI No. 12, (December 1999). 9 Medoruma was not the only Okinawan writer to win the Akutagawa Prize in the 1990s. Matayoshi Eiki also won the Akutagawa Prize in 1995 for his novel Th e Pig 's Retribution (Buta no mukui). Most of tvl atayashi's literature deals with the US military bases and American soldiers in Okinawa, who are often depicted as strong, dangerous and violent. . ·� I 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 75 mainland such as .the Battle of Okinawa, the U.S. Occupation in Okinawa, and the - - ' presence of U.S. military bases in Okinawa. In his collection of war fiction, " J?roplets" stood at the fr ont of the counter-discourse ·against popularized images of paradise ?kinawa during the . Okinawa Boom .. Second, I chose to analyze "Droplets" on account of its refreshing deviation from conventional Okinawan war narratives that tend to portray Okinawan civilians solely as heroic victims. In "Droplets," Medoruma introduces a much more nuanced version of history by casting a cowardly war survivor who chose to conceal his war experiences out of shame as his protagonist. Moreover, Medoruma simultaneously addresses how second- generation war survivors shaped their own interpretations of the past based on their parents' experiences. Born fifteen years after the end of the war, Medoruma never directly experienced the Battle of Okinawa; however, his perspective on the residuals of war and the burden of survivor guilt in "Droplets" enlightened the ways in which war memories continued to affe ct Okinawans in the post-Cold War era. Of course, the theme of war in "Droplets" was hardly new to Okinawan literature. As a matter of fact, "Turtleback Tombs" written by Oshiro Tatsuhiro 1n 1966 had been considered to be the benchmark to which war narratives were most often compared in Okinawa.10 Yet, unlike the solerrm and realist fiction style of Oshiro in "Turtleback Tombs," Medoruma opted to implement a literary technique of "magic realism" to compellingly convey the burden of Okinawan war memory, passed from the survivors of the Battle of Okinawa to the lives 10 Bhowmik, 141. 2014 76 11 of their descendants in the post-Cold War era. In "Droplets," Medoruma introduces his .· . . , · . -. .· 70-yeare old Okiriawart protagonist, Tokush6, who i� fo rced to unburden himself of' repressed war memories and survivor guilt, in a magically rendered world of Okinawa, ' . . . ) . -.; . . �here strange occurrences are perceived to be a natural part ofa.realistic environment. ' • : ! • � ' ; " " r * * * * * · * * "Droplets" is set in a northern Okinawan village, fifty years after the end of the war, where the male protagonist, Tokush6, a 70-vear old Okinawan man, is unexpectedly ...... confronted with a bizarre illness that affects his left leg. Grotesquely swollen like the I . , • • ' shape of a "gourd," his left leg bursts with a clear liquid through his toe that fills several buckets to the brim. Unable to move or talk, Tokusho falls unconscious fr om the pain of . ' . . his . bursting toe and is ultimately rendered speechless and paralyzed from his illness. (However, he is able to perceive his environment and the actions of people in his vicinity very clearly.) He watches his distressed "countrf bumpkin" wife. Ushi, as she desperately attempts to find a cure fo r his leg; she tries using various traditional healing methods by visiting a shamanistic yuta, and as a ·last resort, requests a visit fr om a doctor fr om the mainland; but nothing seems to avail Tokusho's illness. Unknown to Ushi, the ghosts of wounded soldiers fr om Tokusho's wartime past start lining up at his bedside every night to drink the dripping water fr om his toe. By dawn, the replenished ghost soldiers disappear fr om his bedside, only to return thirsty again the fo llowing night: Tokush6 is particularly affected by the visit of his dead friend, 1' Ikeda, 56. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 77 lshimine., who he had leftto die in a cave during the Battle of Okinawa. Tokusho slowly recalls his repressed war memories including how he had abandoned Ishimine in the cave ' . ... � - . . . . ' and how he had ignored requests for water from his dying fellow comrades. Meanwhile, the buc�et slowly fillswith the liquid erupting from Tokusho's toe that is noted to have a "salty lime" taste. While Tokusho is incapacitated in ·his bed, hi,s visiting cousin, Seiyu, "whose scrawny body and impoverished fe atures had earned him the nickname 'Rat,'" 2 realizes that the liquid contains miracle powers when imbibed.1 The water proved even more effective than Seiyu had imagined. Within a mere five minutes, fine hairs began growing on the freckled head of a man who had been bald fo r the past fifty years. [ ... ] When applied to a person's fa ce, the rough epidermis would crack and peel off, replaced by a smooth and lustrous layer of new skin. When imbibed, a certain part of the anatomy that had dangled limply for years would now raise its head and reach for the abdomen. 13 The "miracle water" becomes the talk of the town; fo r the living, it invigorates their aging bodies, while for Tokusho, it temporarily resurrects the_ souls of the dead. Every day, Seiyu returns to Tokusho's bedroom to secretly steal the accumulated water fr om Tokusho's bedside and proceeds to sell it to the townspeople fo r his own profit. In only a couple of days, Seiyu's bank account is bursting with money and he imagines all the massage parlors he would visit on the mainland with the proceeds. Eventually Tokusho reconciles with the ghosts of his wartime past, water stops . . . dripping fr om his leg, and his leg resides to its normal shape. Before Seiyu flees to the 1 2 Medoruma Shun, "Droplets," translated by Michael Molasky, in Michael Molasky and Steve Rabson (eds) Southern Exposure: Mode�n Japanese Literature fr om Okinawa (University of Hawai'i Press, 2000), 266. 13 Ibid., 274. f . · I 2014 73 • Williams College Contested Mer:nories ...... ' ...... ' ...... ,.. .. ., '''-· ····'· . ,,, ,,,,,,, ,,,,,, mainlarid �.. ith his money, an angry and rowdy crowd confronts him, demanding an explanation fo r. the sham water, which had mysteriously lost all of its effectiveness a:nd . . ' ' . ·. . . had reversed its anti-aging effects. on the customers. "You son of a bitch! Take a look at what the rotten water did to me !" The man removed his hat and mask, then took off his sunglasses. · His head contained only a sparse covering of a repulsive baby fluff that resembled. moss, and his fa ce was covered with splotches and wrinkles. [ ...] One after another, those in the crowd removed their hats, masks, and sunglasses. Both men and women lost their hair, and with their splotche·s and moss-covered faces they all looked like eighty-year-olds. While Sciyfi deals. with the angry. crowd, Tokush6 is complete. ly cured of his illness and . ' . . .•· l' visits the cave of his memories with his wife to pay respects to Ishimine fo r the first time since the end of the war. He also resolves to st * * * * * * * As is evident by the summary, "Droplets" is not a very conventional, light-hearted tale, nor does it take a mawkish and' sentimental approach to war memory. Medoruma's elaborate use of humor, symbolism and magic realism offers constructive social criticism . . on the ways in which war memory is being handled amongst Okinawans. Medorum� imph,;ments "magic realism," purportedly inspired by Gabriel Garcia Marquez's On� Hundred Ye ars of Solitude, to convey the strange illness that confines Tokush6 to his 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 79 guilty conscierice.14 Magic realism in "Droplets" enables Tokusho to alternate between the .two world�-m(lgical, past, death · vs. realistic, present, life-. which essentially eaptures ·the twofold. representation of Okinawan war memories as understood in its complexity in the post-Cold War era. Through Tokusho's dilemma, Medoruma addresses ' .. ' the compiex relationship between the nature of private and public memory in Okinawa and the ways in which individuals play a significant role in articulating memories shared by others in Okinawa. The commodification of Okinawan war memory, symbolized by Seiyu's interaction with the "miracle water," is portrayed as the worst manifestation .of public memory. Moreover, themes of water, unique Okinawan vegetation (gourds), and haunting ghosts are recurring motifs in "Droplets," all of which speak to the complicated nature of war memory and its historical significance in post-Cold War Okinawa. Once deconstructed, the three motifs-· water, gourds, ghosts-reveal a lot about how war memories, both private .and public, are being dealt with in Okinawa. 3. "Miracle water" and "Ghosts" in Tokusho's Private Memory In its entirety, "Droplets" raises the question of whether Tokusho's illness, which left no lasting health repercussions or scars, was necessarily harmful, or in fact, beneficial? What did Tokusho achieve with his sense of guilt of abandoning Ishimine? What ex�ctly constitutes atonement and forgiveness? These are earnest questions that we readers are leftwith at the end of "Droplets." His interaction with the motifs of water, the 14 Michael S. Molasky, "Medoruma Shun: The Writer as Public Intellectual in Okinawa Today," in Is lands of Discontent: Okinawan Responses to Japanese and American Power, ed. Laura Elizabeth Hein and Mark Selden (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 178. 2;)14 80 Wiiliams College . Contested...... Mem. :...... : orie...... : .. ; .:� ....s .. gourd, and the. . ghosts of his wartime past are allusive references to the facile and self- • '. . ' i � serving ways that O�inawans tended to deal with war memory in the 1990s. . . ' ; . ' ·' . . ' . . ' Water, evident by the . titl,e of the s�ort story, is the prominent symbol m "Droplets." Each character in ''Dro·plets'' interacts with the element of water in diffe rent ... • ' ' ' ' • • • • • "'1 . • • • ways: for Tokusho, the water represents his moral obligation� to his dead comrades; for Seiyu, the "miracle water" is a source of revenue� fo r the villagers, the water is a ·commodity and anti-aging cure. Medoruma's fo cus on water is significant because it allows for a greater inspection of each character and their moral qualities in,relationship to how they deem the water's value. By inspecting these relationships closely, I deciphered many ofMedoruma's deep engagements with Okinawan war memo�y. In the case of Tokush6, his ailment is the price he must pay fo r abandoning his comrades in the caves and for his irresponsibility both during and after the war. The water from Tokusho's int1ated leg becomes the sole connection between the soldiers and Tokusho-his past and his present As long as the water flows, the ghosts of Tokusho's past will continue to visit him to drink fr om his toe every night. The soldiers seemed completely oblivious to Tokusho. They continued to salute him before and after drinking [ ...] "What did I do to deserve this?" Tokusho lamented dozens of times each day, yet he never sought the answer. He was afraid that once he started to think about it, all the things he had kept buried deep within him over the past fifty years would burst out like floodwaters.15 Tokush6, \Vho had refused to confront the memories of his past in his "real" world, is fo rced to do so when water erupts fr om the big toe of his left leg, unleashing the hitherto . ' •- Medoruma Shun, "Droplets," 270. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 81 repressed memories ofhis past. In this int�rpretation, water also represents an opportunity '.•. ' fo r Tokusho to rectify his past mistakes. �s soon as the ghost soldiers are satiated with their fill of water, Tokusho is "healed"-but whether that means that he is forever free . fr om his guilt Of the past, or that his illness is only temporary, is ambiguous. . . . . � In the case -qf Seiyu and his consumers, they are completely. dependent on Tokusho's mystery illness, the only source of the "miracle water." Without Tokusho's wartime experiences and his postwar guilt, the "miracle water" would not exist to supply Seiyu's profit and his customers' indulgence. The allure of the "miracle water" is thatit allows customers to revisit youth. and restore health-perhaps speaking to the role of the US military bases and its effects of stimulation on Okinawa's service economy after the war. This principle of causation between the "miracle water" fr om Tokusho's leg and its supply of merchandise suggests that Okinawans are taking advantage of their historical past in an artificial and insincere manner. For example, while Okinawans have been able to witness some economic growth and change in Okinawa's economy by hosting military bases, Okinawans are essen�ially fa iling to remember the negative aspects of war and dishonoring the memories of the dead by participating in the very activities that support war, such as providing labor and supplies in Okinawa fo r ongoing wars �broad.16 Towards the end of "Droplets," once Tokusho's illness is cured, the "miracle water" 16 During the Vietnam War, Okinawa was a crucial forward supply base, providing new equipment and fa cilities in response to every demand, but with the rise of the People's Republic of China and North Korea, the circumstances in Okinawa .changed to strengthen the bases as an anti-Communist stronghold against nuclear weapons, ground-to-air missiles, new communication systems and the addition of fire plane squadrons. (read more: http://www.jca.apc.org/wsf_support/2004doc/WSFJapUSBaseRepoFina!AII.html) s2 2014 Memori�s . reverses it� effectiveness, incites mayhem �d prompts Seiyu's downfall. Thro?gh this allegory, Medoruma makes an interesting point that once Okinawan society is able to " r , , ''·, ' , . . . • genuinely .deal with its unresolved war memories without neglecting the historical past, . ' - . ' . - perhaps Okinawa'� o�session with "miracle water," or the fa 9ade �f economic and social promise with the military bases, will also vanish, and. instead reveal the ugliness of such indulgencethat lies underneath. Ultimately, the symbol of water in "Droplets" carries a dual meaning: whiie it . . . . ;: . '' . ., . ' . ' remedies those who grieve and atone :forthe past, it is harmful to those who seek to use it to benefit one's own welfare and interests. In "Droplets," Medoruma seems to impart the . ..· . message that if war memory is used to grieve and sincerely reflect on the past, it offers remedial effects. On the other hand,. he reprimands those who use war memory to further their own wellbeing at the expense of others, such as Seiyu and his customers. In this sense, the power of the "miracle water" constitutes the rigid dichotomy between private and public war memory in Okinawa-when used by Tokusho as he deals with his private memories, and by Seiyu when he wrongly profits offthe public. The private memories that Tokusho had "kept buried deep within him over the past fifty years" constitute the kind that Medoruma considers to be valuable and genuine: Prior to receiving Ishimine's fot'giveness, Tokusho revisits his hitherto repressed memories of the war, which are markedly emotional arid deep-rooted; he remembers his fr iend, Setsu Miyagi, who was part of the Himeyuri Nurse Corps and had committed suicide at the cliffs of Mabuni Hill: · 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 83 Setsu' s face appeared before him. It was she who had given him the . �anteen and dried .bread, she who had placed her hand on his shoulder. Sadness and then rage welled up inside him, and . he was suddenly overcome by a desire to kill those who drove Setsu to her death. A� the same time, he was forced to acknowledge a sense of relief that no one was left who knew the truth about Ishimine. Toksuh6 wanted to sob, yet no tears would come. It was then that he began drinking heavily. Since that time he thought he had succeed in forcing the memories of Ishimine and . Setsu from his mind. The memories of his two fr iends are so visceral and meaningful to Tokush6 that he fe els the need to conceal them even from his wife, Ushi. In fact, concealing his private memories of the war constitutes a "sense of relief' for Tokusho; his guilt and shame for abandoning Ishimine prevail over his sense of duty to remember. In the end, having learnt his lessons through his strange ailment, Tokush6 confesses that he was wrong to believe that these memories of Setsu and ishimine were permanently repressed. If water represents the division between public and private memory in "Droplets," the ghosts of Tokusho' s past help revive the repressed memories of the past. The ghosts are important in that they remind Tokusho of his guilt and how he needs to deal with it properly. Moreover, the symbol of haunting ghosts also represents the burden of private war mer�·10ry that many Okinawan survivors like Tokusho carried throughout their lives. These dilemmas raise questions on the concepts of healing, guilt and atonement: When he realized that these were the same men he had left behind in the cave, Tokusho thought they might kill him. Yet it soon became apparent that he had nothing to fe ar, and he decided that relieving the soldiers' thirst was the only way to atone fo:J;"his sins. 20 14 Williams �?.ll.ege . Contested Memories &.4 ...... ,...... • ...... i. By allowing the ghosts to drink fr om his toe, Tokush6 admits that he is making amends •' • ; ,,• • I , .I , fo r his. past mistakes. His greatest difficulty lies in recognizing his ghost friend, I::;himine, in fear of opening the gateway to many other suppressed memories. Inevitably, as eac.h soldier lines up at his bedside, Tokush6 remembers that he had abandoned most of them . . . . . ' . � ...... ' . at the cave, while promising them that he would bring them water. As he watches his fe llow soldiers drink to their heart's content, Tokush6 thinks, "Perhaps now I have j . • • 17 fu lfilled my promise." However, night after night, the soldiers continue to visit, despite . • • · • • ' • , • : • • • •• J • having their fill of water. As he is restricted to his bed, conflicted with the flooding ' .. ' .· I ' memories from his past, Tokush6 realizes that his promises to his dead comrades will remain unfulfilled as long as he does not fully recognize his past wrongdoings. The most important moment in Tokusho's story is when he recalls falsifying his testimonies of the war. During the years after the end of the war, Tokush6 .embellished narratives of his wartime experiences in speeches at local schools and basked in all the glory and attention of "newspaper reporters and university · research teams'' and the "intent faces of children," who would leave him flowers and origami cranes to symbolize 18 restored health. Tokush6 remembers his wife Ushi, angered by his lies, warning him: ''You start fibbin' and makin' up sorry tales to profit offthe war· and you'll get your fair 19 punishment in the end:" Tokusho 's sanctioned self�serving narratives areexamples of :7 Medoruma, '·Droplets," 273. IS Ibid., 271-272. 19 Ib;d. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 85 questionable public testimonies that were often told to match the social relations and conditions in Okinawa. Ushi's warning-that "fibbin' and makin' up sorry tales to profit off the war" would warrant some form of comeuppance-. is one that Medoruma might offer to ;, Okinawans: one must be aware of one's motivations when publicly narrating war narratives. Wartime experiences and memories should not be tailored to fit the expectations of the audience. While Tokusho is a victim of war, he is also overcome by the desire for attention, which only amounts to a. type of superficial public memory. Tokusho's case is representative of many Okinawans, who refused to honestly deal with their war memories in fe ar of guilt and shame in the years after the war. As described by Michael Molasky, a scholar of Okinawan history, most Okinawans resorted to a type of 2 "painless" memory that "permits cathartic tears without recurring nightmares." 0 When Tokush6 exaggerates his war experiences to schoolchildren as a way of receiving undeserved glory and attention, Molasky argues that he is eliciting "painless" public memory. Only when bedridden in seclusion with his illness and forced to relive his nightmares is Tokusho genuine in his attitude towards his past. While Molasky raises an interesting point that perhaps one cannot genuinely reflect on their war memories without some manifestation of pain, war memory does not necessarily have to be painfu l to be genuine. Beyond its immediate denotation, "painless" \Var memory carries a connotative meaning in "Droplets." Medoruma associates 20 Molasky, "Medoruma Shun: The Writer as Public Intellectual in Okinawa Today," 184. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 8.6 ...... ,), Tokusho's private memory with the pain of having to unload some of his repressed . . .. . · . ' ' . ' . . fe elings, as a way of clearly demarcating the division between private and public memory. . .. In my understanding, "painless" war memory refers to the act of adapting one's war . . ' l . experiences to the "standard" of Okinawan war experiences for the purpose of temporarily finding relief and escaping one's repressed war memory . Medoruma reminds his readers to be w�ry . of such motivations �s a way of preventing the formation of a homogenous public war memory in Okinawa. • . t ' • E8pecially in light of the ways in which Okina�ans have constructed their own public memory against the hegemony of Japan's national war narrative, as mentioned in my previous chapters on the effects of Yasukunification and mythologization, Medoruma' s warning reminds us of the need to be wary of narrated memory and the social and political conditions of the time they were uttered. As exemplified ·by Tokusho's public narration of "painless" memory after the war, oral histories and war testimonies are not wholly reliable sources; in postwar Okinawa, most Okinawans were often eager to exaggerate their accounts to accommodate the expectations. of news reporters, university researchers or school children. Tokusho fe ared the social repercussions of divulging the truth of abandoning Ishimine to his village community as it would go against the types of memory commonly narrated in public. 4. Tokusho and Public Memory In "Droplets," l\1edoruma's frequent references to public "painless'' war memory indict those who attempt to benefit from the suffering of others: the "bus tour of the 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 87 island's war memorials"21; interviews with the "television stations"; and "school groups yisiting Okinawa from· the Japanese mainland."22 Medoruma would argue, as he railed in many of his published essays on the media portrayal of Okinawa, that these types · of 2 memories only "caters to the expectations of the mainland Japan mass media ..." 3 By . . accommodating these "painless" memories, Okinawans are essentially losing touch with their personal and private memories of the war. The issue with a standard "painless" public memory is that it becomes easily susceptible to hegemonic advances from outside fo rces (i.e., Japanese nation, mainland government, U.S.-Japan Security Alliance objectives, etc.). In particular, the effects of Yasukunification fr om the conservative parties on mainland Japan threatened to rewrite over the Okinawan war memories encapsulated within the Cornerstone of Peace war memorial. On the other hand, "real" war memories are valuable in Okinawa because they prevent the formation of a homogeneous public memory that often becomes retold and regurgitated by the community. Private memories such as that of Tokusho's hidden past are vital in the practice of publicly narrating war memories because they break the conventional framework of "victimized Okinawans." They stimulate individuals · of the community to fe el Tokusho's "rage" and in a more severe manner, his "desire to kill," not in its literal · meaning, but as a way of inspiring great change in a historically, economically and socially burdened Okinawa. 21 Medoruma, "Droplets," 259. 22 Ibid., 271 . 23 Medoruma Shun, "Okinawa no bunka jokyo no genzai nit suite" (Concerning the Present Condition of Okinawan Culture), Keshi kajl 13 (1996): 28-29. Williams College Contested Memories For example, taken from his 2000 article in a popular Japanese journal, Shukan . . ' . . � ' ! . kil7yi5bi, Medoruma evaluated Okinawan political attitudes towards the U.S. military �ase issue by criticizing individuals, like Tokusho, who did not take responsibility for his war • • • '· • ·- # memorie�i arid instead opted for an ea�ier way out: However many thousands or tens of thousands gather to call fo r peace or a removal of the U.S. bases, · as iong as their protests are conducted pea,;;efully and in a nonvi�1lent spirit, the U.S. and Japanese gover:nments just seem to look down their noses at them and brush them aside.· Could it be that the bases will never be removed from Okinawa unless the American military is physically threatened or unless the situation escalates to the point where people get killed? . In his article, Medoruma is not calling fo r violence as much as he is appealit;tg to the younger generation to remember specific experiences of the war and to effectuatt! change in Okinawa's economically difficult living conditions. With Okinawa's economy being strictly tied to mainland implications of tourism and the security politics of the U.S. military bases, Okinawans are unable to realistically call fo r change. Only by being independent of its service economy can Okinawa call fo r the removal of the U.S. bases and advocate for the social fr eedoms that fo llow.Z4 However, these liberties stem fi rst from their ability to divulge "real" autonomous war memories. Without genuinely 24 in this case, I define social freedom as the liberties for individuals and groups with divergent political ' and so.::iat views to agree on what they believe are best for their own people. During the Occupation, the U.S. military implemented the USCAR (US Administration of Ryuuku Islands), which created legal systems to arbitrarily and forcibly confiscate land from the residents of the islands. This allowed the economic system of Okinawa to become totally' dependent on the bases, which is a pr.ob!em that continues t.o exist today. Furthermore, Okinawans continue to be exposed to the dangers of military exercise on the bases, such as unexploded bombs and nuclear fall-out, rape and assault by American servicemen, noise and water pollution, and other numerous prob'!ems. Although the pattern of crimes by American servicemen declined since the reversion of Okinawa to Japan in 1972, the military presence naturally continued to be an issue, as proven by the infamous rape case in 1992. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 89 confronting their painful memories of the past, Okinawans cannot truly "call fo r peace" in a "nonviolent ·spirit." Instead, like Tokusho, who "in the hectic years that fo llowed the war, [ . . . ] tried to erase .his memori<;s of lshimine," Okinawans are settling for the easy w.ay out-a painless type of memory, one that would limit the course of their actions to 2 repre�ent Okinawa's fr actured identity on a wider scale against mainstream influence. 5 .. Medoruma imparts to his readers that in order fo r younger Okinawans to .confront the future, as the generation of war survivors fades in Okinawa, memories of the past must not be repressed and substituted with platonic memories. In "Droplets," Medoruma does not direct his criticism at Okinawan society as a whole, but towards individuals to take responsibility fo r the ways in which they are handling war memory. in . Okinawa. Essentially, Tokusho failed to take responsibility for his actions both on the battlefield and in the comfort of his home. Medoruma encourages the new generation of O.kinawans like himself, who was born a decade after the end of the war, to take responsibility and to preserve the war memories of their ancestors in order to counter mainland advances and fo rm a stronger fo undation for Okinawa's autonomous and self-sustainable future. Towards the end of "Droplets," the climax occurs when Tokusho's sense of guilt imd shame escalates as he slowly comes to terms with various fractured memories of his . . past, including that of Setsu and Ishimine. He finally takes responsibility for his actions by reconciling with ghost friend Ishimine; this . act of atonement fo r his past mistakes essentially cures his illness-"Ishimine, fo rgive me!" In response, Ishimine replies, 25 Medoruma, "Droplets," 279. 2Q14 Williams College Contested Memories 90 ,;., ' ...... ' ..... � . " .... " ...... ,., ...... ·'...... : ...... ····· "Thank you. At last the thirst is gone."26 After Tokush5 is fo rgiven, however, h� fails to ' ' ' ' . ' � truly free himselffrom the past, and instead, falls back into his old habits: "Tokush5 was ' . ' ' . afraid that he'd start putting th:ings off and allow his memories to fade-that �e would again try to forget about Ishimine. He even began drinking again despite his repeated . ' . ·, . ' . .. ' 27 vows never to touch another drop." Tokusho's return to his alcoholic tendencies, which ' I ' \ had signified his willful act to forget and numb his memories of Ishimine in the past, hints at the possibility that he did not truly learn his lesson. From the ending of . ''Droplets," it is unclear whether Tokusho is completely cured, or whether hi.s illness would return as he relapses into his fo rmer hab{cs. The inconclusive ending can be construed as Medoruma suggesting the need fo r Okina\vans to be ever vigilant of the past in the present. For example, the symbolic image of the Okinawan gourd at the end of "Droplets" speaks to the co-existence of the past and present in Okinawa. When Tokusho is cured, and his gourd-like leg that had previously "swelled to the size of an average gourd melon and turned pale green" subsides into its normal shape, the symbol of the gourd comes up again in the ending of "Droplets" when 28 T okusho is tending to his garden. Taking a stick, he started beating around the roots. Then he hit something fim1 and the stick rebounded. Siftingthrough the grass, beneath a hedge of Chinese hibiscus, lay an enormous gourd melon too big fo r even Tokush6 to· carry. Fine hairs glistened on the deep green skin. Tokusho gasped in surprise, then gave it a kick,'but it wouldn't budge. A long vine, thick as a 281. 26 Medoruma, ''Droplets," . 27 Ibid., 285. 2& Ibid., 255. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 91 thumb, grew from the gourd to the hibiscus. At the end of the vine, a . 29 . yellow flower swayed against the blue sky .. The significance of the gourd in the ending of "Droplets" may have gone unobserved by those who do not understand its historical .implication in Okinawa. Gourd, or subui in U�hinaguchi_ (O.kinawan language), refers to a local vegetable that unexpected!)' increased in size and proliferated in Okinawa's immediate postwar period, "presumably nourished by the countless corpses absorbed into the soil. "30 The corpses of the dead stimulated the burgeoning of gourds in Okinawa, and therefore, Tokusho's leg takes the form of a gourd, a trace of the wartime past. The gourd symbolizes the direct connection between Okinawa's wartime past and its present in the postwar period. Even though Tokusho is seemingly cured from his illness, he is haunted by the symbol of the large ' gourd in his garden; this lends to the interpretation that war memories will always exist to be an integral element of Okinawan soil, which nurtures the growth and development of present day Okinawa. More importantly, memories of the war also nurture the fe ar of forgetting in Okinawa. As suggested by the symbols of the ghosts, water, and gourds, the past interacts with and directly influences the present in· .Okinawa. The US military bases, memori 29 Medoruma, "Droplets," 285. 30 Bhowmik, 144. 2ql4 Wiliiams College Contest�d M�_tl}?Lits th� surface of the Okinawan landscape ...Memor ies, wTenching and traumatic, can tear the fabric of the everyday, plungirg those who experience_ them into despair and even ' ...... ;31 �adness.' Medoruma depicts the real terror of war memory that exists below the thin _ surface of Tokush�'s conscience .. Decades after the end of the war, memories of the war .. in Okinawa continue to be contest�d and. unresolved; Medorum� reminds us again of the danger in fa lsely believing that Tokush6 is cured of his "illness." Instead, the inconclusive ending of "Droplets" suggests that being "cured" of the illness may be more harmful for Tokushc, who insinuates that he will return to his old habits and repress his memories of Ishimine once again. It would be more beneficial fo r Okinawa•1s to bt stricken with war memories than to lose grips with its past and become drowned out by the overwheiming power of the Okinawan Boom and "mythologization." What I fo und most interesting .about the end of "Droplets" is that Medoruma leaves his readers with the image of a bright yellow flower gleaming against the blue sky-"so bright it made Tokusho's eyes brim with tears." In this closing line, Medoruma implies that Okinawa's haunting past and war memories are masked and disguised by the saccharine symbol of Okinawa's bright hibiscus flower-a symbol that many mainland people usually associate with tropical Okinawa. 31 Nelson, Christopher. "In the Middle of the Road I Stand Transfixed" in Over Th ere: Living with the US Military Empire Force World War If to the Present, ed. Maria Hohn and SeungSook Moon (Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2010), 280. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 93 �'ivliracle Water": Merchandising Okinawa 5. The. ' . Medoruma's critique of Tokusho's imibility to deal with war memory also goe� hand in hand with his opinion on how it affects the performance of public memory. In the course of events leading up to Seiyu's failure with the "miracle water," Medoruma shifts. from addressing private memory to public/social memory. While Tokusho's · moral dilemma with water represents his obligation to his dead comrades, the "miracle water" for Seiyu symbolizes the public's weakness fo r a tantalizing cure that essentially cannot be commodified. Seiyu's ingenuous plan is to market the "miracle water" as an anti-aging cure fo r particularly older men and women, who are unsatisfied with their appearances. The product is packaged in special brown bottles with red labels that read "Miracle ..Water" in gold ink, resembling a "Chinese herbal medicine."32 Even though Seiyu set a limit of one bottle per customer, there were never enough to go around. Frustrated customers would shout at him and refuse to leave, but he finally managed to assuage them by passing out "reserved" tickets for his next sale. [ . . . ] A fe w customers claimed to have the contents analyzed and found that it was nothing more than water. Though they accused him of fr aud, the product's effectiveness was undeniable. One group of old men even began to worship Seiyu as if he were a god. The crowd's obsession · with the "miracle water" prompts us to examine the commoditication of public memory in Okinawa. His description of the obsessed customers, who all bought into the effectiveness of the "miracle water,'' represents the persuasive ways in which a standard public memory can be fo rmed. In my interpretation, the "miracle water" undoubtedly represents two conceptions regarding the role of public Jl Medoruma, "Droplets," 274. , I 2G l4 .. Williams College memory in Okinawa: the commodification of Okinawan social memory. such as the myth • 1 • ' ' • • ' ' ' • : • ' I • � ofthe Himeyuri Girls and the effects· of the Okinawa Boom. In the reversion period, war discourse in Okinawa had the tendency of becoming . . , . ' . 33 "simplified" to fit within the fr amework of Okinawans solely as victims of war. An " ...... example of this. tendency is the well-circulated icon of the Himeyuri Girls, who were fe male student recruits sent to the battlefield during the Battle of Okinawa.. On th� mainland, as well as in Okinawa, the Himeyuri Girls became the quintessential. icon of . . ' Okinawan war sutTering, especially through the first Himeyuri movie in 1953; their story si�ce has become regarded as "the classic vehicle for carrying out well-intend�d ant!war messages" through "its seductivene.;;s to the Japanese public."34 The sacrifice of the "pure" and "innocent" maidens of Himeyuri, as well as Medoruma's allusions to facades of memory ("bus tour of the island's war memorials," ''television stations" and "schooi groups visiting . Okinawa from the Japanese mainland"), are many examples that constitute his social criticism of the commodificationof war memory in Okinawa .. The "miracle water" also alludes to the marketed image of Okinawa as the "comfort island" and the place of healing (iyashi) in Japan starting in the 1990s; the hungry and greedy customers of the village represent those who yielded to the tourism industry and sustain certain Okinawan stereotypes themselves. For example, in the angry mob of customers who attack Seiyu, "martial arts weapons, high heels, and fists as bony as bird's fe et" are mentioned as weapons used by the crowd. Medoruma pokes fun by 33 Bhowmik, 142. :;4 Watanabe, 140. . �. 2014 Williams College · Contested Memories 95 employi�g such fantastic and hyped tropes of Okinawa. His disdain fo r them is also evident in his published essay on the portrayal of Okinawa in Japanese media: _ ; Wher.e's th� "mainland �riticism' .· in circulating images of Okimiwa pmduced by prejudice-. samisen and kachashf, karate and · Ryukyuan dance? Words like tege and chirudai are praised to the skies, and catchy . h p rases such as "Okinawa's culture of gentleness" are thrown about.. [ ... ] 35 I'm completely Je d up. Clearly, Medoruma urges his readers to understand that valuable memories of the war, such as those suppressed by Tokusho, are slipping through their fingers as a sea of media representations and the tourism industry seeks to diminish the reality of war experiences. Especially after the 9-1 1 attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, Okinawa was heavily marketed as a "safe" island in order to reverse its negative impact on tourism in Okinawa. Ever since the introduction of U.S. military bases in Okinawa in 1945, Okinawans fear that they have become potential targets of attack for enemies of America, rendering. it highly possible that Okinawa be thrown into an American conflict in the future. The 9-11 attack heightened this fe ar on the mainland and in Okinawa, which significantly reduced the number of tourists. During this time, the government campaign distributed stickers and pamphlets, to compensate fo r the ruined image of Okinawa, which read: "Come to Okinawa and everything is OK!" or "Let's visit Naha �hich is now safe and sound!''36 Rather than· addressing the true conditions surrounding the tightened security of US . military bases in Okinawa arid the ways in �hich they affected civilians' lives, the media 35 Medoruma, "Okinawa no bunka j6ky6 no genzai. nit suite" (Conceming the Present Condition of Okinawan Culture), 28-29. . .. 36 Tanaka · Yasuhiro, "The · Media Representation of 'Oki.nawa' and US Japan Hegemony," Jnter�Asia Cultural Studies 4.3 (2003): 419-423. 20 1.4 96 Williams College Contested Memories ... . ' . fo cused solely on an illusionary �mage of safe and peaceful Okinawa to me.et the expectatiohs of the tourist industry. '• The·."miracle water" st�cfs for all these magical qualities of recreated Okinawa as . .,•, , . ' . a. tropiCal resort in the 1990s, While · maoy academics, such as previously mentioned ' I ' ' 0 • • • ' • ' • � Kuhne and Bhowmilk, often cast blame on the central authorities, Medoruma raises . . / ' . ' . important questions on whether the local people of Okinawa themselves are also at fault fo r embracing media representations and commercializ<;ttion of Okinawan culture. As . younger and future generations of Okinawa become exposed to the commercialized "Oki�awa", they dangerously inherit these images for themselves as an "exotic" Japan. Cultural Okinawan symbols such as Uchina-pop music, eisa performances and fe stival traditional dances, which have been heavily advertised to mainland tourists and visitors, are then assumed to be old traditions passed down from their Okinawan ancestors. 37 Moreover, in the coming decades, the more Japanese media focuses on "exotic" Okinawan culture, the more people are likely to be distracted from the political and economical issues that surround present-day Okinawa. Okinawans essentially end up playing the role of fancy merchandise to cover up their tragic history of colonial rule, war devastation, American hegemonic occupation. and present-day military base pervasion. The Okinawan Boom had a significant impact on how Okinawans began to perceive themselves within their carefully designed "tropical" environment starting in the 1990s. As Tanaka Yasuhiro argues, "media is a carrier of social identity." It paints how 37 Tanaka, 420. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 97 o_utsiders view Okinawa, and ho� Okinawans, in tum, begin to play the assigned roles as "Okinawa:ns;" As Medorurna Shun. .warns in his short story, "Droplets,". unarticulated war' ' .. :. memories)ri Okinawa may constitute the sole lifeline through which Okinawans may be able to hold on to their -traditional identity and history .of their past, especially in the -� ... , . . '. . overwhelming stream of inediadis course and under the watchful eyes from the mainland.' 6. Conclusion: "Find out about Okinawa in Five Minutes." During my stay in Okinawa, starting with my arrival at Naha International Airport, I was overwhelmed by the widespread, popular representations of tropical Okinawa. Colorful brochures, posters, and flyers occupied almost every comer of the airport and train stations to advertise popular Okinawan destination spots, such as the Kerema and Ishigaki islands. The most common words I encountered were "blue ocean," "tropical Japan," "Ryukyu art," and "coral reefs." It was often difficultto find any information on the historical sites related to the Battle of Okinawa. From the onset of my journey, it was painfully obvious that many tourists wo11ld completely overlook the problems existing in Okinawa due to the enormous effo rts by the tourism industry to stage popular and chic resorts as the main attraction of Okinawa. Incidentally, I came across a pamphlet called "Okinawa, Japan's Tropical Side: Find out about Okinawa in Five Mimites."38 It cont�ined almost 40 pages of information on leisure activities, fe stivals and events, and maps; of which only a quarter of a single page was dedicated to Okinawari history, labeled, ''The Okinawa Millemiium": 18 Published by the Okinawa Convention & Visitors Bureau. .. ' \ '' 20 14 Wiiliams College Memories 98 In 1879; the 450-year history of 'the Kingdom was .ended by the ·Meiji · government and ()kinawa Prefecture was bom. At the ending period of the . s'econd World War, Okina�a was' lead into the only land engagement of · the. war in Japan. After the war, . Okinawa · was placed under American ' 27 ' military rule for years ..Jn recent year�, riding-� · the crest of an Okinawa· . boom, the number of tourists are contin' uously• rising. · · ' ' . . . ' ,. • - •. • . i • . ; ' . : ' ' • . . � ' . • . ' . ·; :- Following• this brief explanation ofOkinawan history with absolutel-y no mention of the o' ' ' r , . , ·, ' ' ' , , ! . . political or social conditions impacting .Present day Okinawa, the next bold heading read: ''Tr::t.ditional ev.ents, fe stival and sports events, Uchinanchu (Okinawans) love fe stivals!" . . . '· : . .. ' ' .· . While . it could be argued that visual�central representations and exaggerations occur in any tourist-heavy country, I was mostly taken aback by the power anc� strength • • • • • ' • •• • •• f ' .. . ' • • • • • • of the Okinawa Boom. to portray Okinawans as an i.deal community of islanders. lacking . ' . �f any problems ..Images of fe stivals, famous beaches and resort islands, local activities and cuisine conveyed the singular message that Okinawans are happy and content islanders, supposedly enjoying fe stivals all-year long. These assumptions obscure historical and soCial problems that plague Oki.nawans' lives on a daily basis, and also render. it more difficult for Okinawans to present a self-constructed, and autonomous identity that is not responsive to mainland expectations. Through sites of memory like Medoruma's "Droplets," readers will bt! able to understand . that memories of the war continue to plague Okinawa, however unrecognizable it may be on the actual island. Especially during the Okinawa Boom, the notion of Okinawa as . culturally and ethnically different ·painted mainland Japanese perceptions of Okinawa. However, the concept of Okinawa as a historically different 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 99 Japan was not as recognized by those who were distracted by media reiterations of Qkinawan paradise, Through his fiction apd political activist writing, Medoruma refuses . .· . . . . ' . . . . . :··.. . . . to let his readers forget that Okinawans .have exerted much effort into - putting on a ' • . , • .: • • i. ' cheerful , front to hide their. painful memories of the war. Through narration as· a way of sustaining certain memories of the victims, Medoruma offers his social criticism of Okinawans themselves, while also taking large steps to counteract Japanese mass media. In "Droplets," Medoruma highlights Okinawa's inner diversity and destabilizes the idea of a singular Okinawan identity by straying away from popular conceptions of Okinawans as happy and content victims; he instead introduces a multitude of characters who fall prey to the notion ofvictimhood and commodification. It is unclear whether many readers in Japan were able to see past Okinawa's merchandized image to recognize Medoruma' s rails against commodifiedwar memory in Okinawa. Hino Keiz6, an Akutagawa Prize judge, described the last image of the Okinawan flower hibiscus in the ending of "Droplets" as "Okinawa-teki " or "Okinawa- like."39 These types of comments raise doubts of whether "Droplets" merited nationwide respect and' attention due to its unconventional take on Okimiwan war memory, or because of its unusual portrayal of exotic and romantic Okinawa·. For those who ' I extensively understand the plight of Okinawans, Medoruma's heavy use of humor and sardonic symbols of cheery "Okinawa" are appreciated as serious and conten1plative methods to under�tand the psychological and emotional consequences of the tragedy of 39 Bhowmilk, 144. . i � . . .. • r ·. ·: ,' · --, 20 !4 Williams College Contested Memories too 1945. Survivors who were spared from war and their predece�sors in present-day · Okinawa. carr<;_ their darkest war .memories, which are hidden from the public at large: these ·war memories are ·. bei�g washed away as time passes and as new Okinawan identities are forged. "Droplets" off.:!rs no easy solution or conclusion to the complex and . . ' . . -. . ' ' sensitiv� issue with war memory. Hywever, one hopes that "Droplets" as an Akutagawa Prize winning short story was successful in breaking the silence and releasing the past memories in Okimrwa, like Tokusho-"al! the things he had kept buried deep within him overthe past fifty years wouid burst out like floodwaters."· Conclusion "By challenging Japanese nationalist premises, Okinawans are not adding .their voices to the national anthem, but are changing its song." -Laura Hein and Mark SeJden; Culture, Power and Identity in Contemporary Okinawa During the Jate i 980s to the 2000s, Okinawans crafted new . understandings ·or . . ' . . . � ' �h.eir historical past in order to : call for Okinawan sovereignty and claims to history-.• . particularly, this involved a rethinking of their historical roles as dual J�panese-Okinawan citizens in the years during Japanese imperium in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Through war remembrance, peace education and feminist movements, Okinawans crafted various sites of memory to help recall the past and to make their memories meaningful, especially during a time in Japan during the 1990s when heterogeneous experiences became more widely accepted and other complex war memories started to surface in public memory. 1 The primary ·goal of this research study was to unearth the various inconsistencies between the dominant public memory of war in Japan and the personal experiences and memories of Okinawans by examining the ways in which war memory was contested at Okinawan sites of memory during the 1990s-including, the Cornerstone of Peace, the Himeyuri narrative, and Medoruma's prized short story, "Droplets." In this process, I realized that there was not a clear-cut and easily separable division between collective Okinawan memory and Japanese mainland national rhetoric of war, as it initially seemed. Rather, I came to the understanding that Okinawan war memory was anything but monolithic-it was fr actured, contested, and silenced.' 1 Gluck, 64. ,. , . . 2014 1. • ·, . The Cornerstone of Peace on Yabuni Hill, for example, ,revealed elements of ''' 'I Okinaw::\1) collective war memory that were split amongst varipus groups of Okinawans. ' • '. ' ' , ' , �- . ' , ' . ' • : r ... • • • • ' , • • • ' . • ' ' ' ' • '' ' • · · At the Cornerstone of Peace, specif!l interest groups advanced discourses of universal • • ' ., • • • • ' ' • • j •• peace and methods of countering Yasukuni nationalist thinking. that blurred the. roles of . . ' . ' . . ' ' . . . ' . " . . ' . . � . ' . . ; · war responsibility in Japan. Other� were .not as supp tive of the n�w memorial's ?� , universalist m�;;ssage that co�verted. crucial issues such a� the. degree of par:ticipation of in the war and the emperor's responsibility in the p osecution of war into Okinawans· ' r ' • ' { ..._· . ' I' :• • '. ·.' ' · · ' • ·,, , ' . ' :. · ·, ''vague, . ' . ' universal messages of peace with no mention of specific details about who is ' . . . � . ' . ' . . . . . ' . : , . . . ; . ' ·. ' . . ' ' �· . . . ... 2 the G-8 umm 2000, another i y r responsible " Moreover, with . onset of the s it in a e of ' . . . . complication 'N as added to the regional controversy surrounding the Cornerstone of . . ,. ' . ' . . . . ' ' · Peace Through the methods of "Yasukunification," government officials took advantage of the memorial in order to embed nationalistic versions ,ofpublic memory in Okinawa. Moreover, at the Himeyuri Peace Park, many others wrestled with the issu� of expressing Okinawan autonomous identity in light of their war experiences while also conformirig to mainland Japanese expectations, or "inythologization." Especially during the 1970s in Okinawa, the mainland narrative of the war heavily shaped how Okinawans retold the patriotically redeemable story of loyal Okinawan schoolgirls, all ofwhom we�;e proiessedly willing to die fo r the fa therland. On one hand, we have Okinawans who were part of the Okinawan Tourist Association (OTA), who helped substantifl.te the mainland myth by perpetuating the Himeyuti narrative to their. audiences through dramatic tours. 2 Miyume Tanji, My th, Protest and Struggle in Okinawa {London: Routledge, 2006), 48. 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 103 On the other hand,.hi storians, peace. activists, living Jiimeyuri survivors and other fe male w.�r survivors.were determined to resist the whitewashing of civilian experience� and . to · . . br,eak out of the fr ame of the soci�l meani'ng that had been placed on them. Despite their resolve, · a case e�a�ple of � interview, with a �imeyuri . survivor by Linda . Angst revealed that sorrie Okinawans soughtto affirm their historical and ethnic distinctiveness while .also fulfilling the requirements fo r Japanese citizenship. In Angst's case; the survivors' hesitance revealed that the strong fo rce of "mythologization" in Okinawa still nurtured a fe ar of retribution in breaking the status quo of the mainland narrative. Lastly, Medoruma' s short story explores the ways in which war memories in Okinawa constituted something entirely different for every individual. Medoruma's stpry dispelled the common misconception of a singular ''Okinawan war experience" . and divulged that there existed a ·diversity of Okinawan war experiences that resulted from differences in social and economic class, and gender. In "Droplets," war survivors range from the poor like Tokusho, the main character, who wishes to suppress his memories of the war; his "cotintry-bumpkin" wife, Ushi, who seems entirely unaffected by her past; his Himeyuri Nurse Corp fr iend who had committed suicide; and Seiy4 and his customers. Moreover, in his social critique of "self-Okinawization," Medoruma imparts the message to be vigilant of the one's past .as a way of preventing the formation of a homogenous public war memory in Okinawa. ·'These three sites of memory illustrate the diverse, creative and differentiated groups 6f Okinawans. Hegemonic forms of po�er around the sites of memory revealed , .. Williams College Contested MemorJe!? -to4 ; ,'... : ..�.. . t . . major local and �ational tensions, both amongst Okinawans and against the conser_vatiw ·, . . mailj.land government The antagonistic fo rces in these cases are represented through ' . • � ' 0 ' I' ' • • • · , : •: ' ' • 1: ' , , ' • lhese terms: "Yasukunific<:ttion;" "mythologization," and. "seJf-Okinawization," all of · ' :.- :. ' ' '. : · ,· .·. i· :. • · ' .: ·). ·. 1 ' · ••• • .. • •• • ·_ . ·. . " . • • • • ' . which fundamentally resonate with the concept of "pubiic memory." .As Carol Glu,c k, a . , '1, • • • : • t , · , · ;, ::•, , professor Japa.nes� ·liistory, stated� "public memory is hegemonic, even if it is not .of • • . • • '·!, . . . ; ! • • ',· singular." The national narrative of mainland Ja an, "a past imagined .in the context of • ' • p • \ . • ' • • • . • • ; • � • ! l . • • � . • � • • • . . was . as national identity," so powerful in Okinawan. . conceptions. . "of memOf'. j that. even . . . . ,· · ' . . \A/ar . Qkinaw<:m. survivors and civilians sought to reconstitute the past in the postwar . . . ' ' . . ' period, the d(Jrtlinant model of the past �atQra.lly ov�rshadowed their own. The hegemonic fo rms uf nationalism (exempLified through the three "-ification" terms) ' ...... sought to cover up the various fissures, fractures and ditierences of Okinawa. as part of . • I . , ' ' : , . , .· the Japanese nation. However, despite the tensions between local and. national versions of war narratives, these struggles around th;;; Cornerstone of Peace, the Himeyuri museum, and individual conflicts with war memory during the late 1980s to the 2000s certainly set the foundations that shaped Okinawa into a stronger community, one able to celebrate and legitimize minority history. Today,' Okinawans are prepared to combat contemporary contestations of memory due to past dec'ides of being so productively engaged in debating the nature of a dual Okinawa-Japanese identity. a For• instance, recent contestation. over Okinawans' place in Japanese history ' . occurred on April 28, · 2013. Ten thousand Okinawans gathered at an amphitheater to protest once again against a mainland policy that was inconsiderate of the fe elings of . 2014 Williams College Contested MerriO'ries 1os Okinaw� citizens; This day marked the 6151 anniversary of the restoration of Japanese s�vereignty after the signing ofthe San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1952, and Okinawans remained under American hegemony fo� twenty more years. Centiists in the · Okinawa Prefecture Assembly held a rally to protest Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's decision to cast this day as. a national holiday, or �'Sovereignty Jestoration day." An overwhelming number · of participants held up slogans that read: "We will not tolerate the ceremony because it tramples on Okinawa people's fe elings and cuts the prefecture loose again."3 Almost 70 years after the end of the war, Okinawans continue to mobilize to be recognized as Japanese citizens and to reclaim their position in national)apanese memory of the war. As evidenced, many were infuriated with the central government's perpetuation of Okinawans' history of marginalization and the trivialization of their minority position. They rallied by singing the song "Return Okinawa to Okinawans,", a variation ofthe song "Return Okinawa," which was often sung in the 1970s during the Okinawa reversion movement. To express their solidarity, Okinawan war survivors, including Himeyuri survivor Nakamura Kiku and Okinawa women's rights groups, also attended the rally to shout the · slogan that Okinawans "will not put up with this.';4 Okinawans are gradually gaining momentum in their efforts to gain legitimacy from the mainland for their claims of history and their political, economical and social rights as· citizens. As postwar generation writers and peace activists, such as Medoruma 3 Ryukyu shimpo, "I 0,000 residents gather in protest rally against the anniversary of the restoration of Japanese sovereignty, "April 29, 2013. 4 Ibid. : , · . .. . :\ · 20 14 \Villiams College i,06 . Shun, c�)lnbat public· versions of war memory with their own personal experiences of the . . • ' l • • • ... j. • • ' • • • ' � • • • • • • • ' . . past, Okinawans are steadily seeking opportunities to change mainland attitudes as well. .. . .' . ' ·. ·. • . ' ' · . More : th�m befMe, Okinawans have engaged Japanese mainland's attention n , ' .· ! , • • . , , � . . '· ' • ' ' I, • . . ' . ��stor>'· and war me�ories, protest against discrimination of minorities, and the issue over military bases. Taking charge of their hyphenated identity, Okinawans continue. . to. move ., ·' •' from the periphery towards the center of Japanese consciousness in their demands as . . ' , . ... :· ; \ ._ . ' . . : ' . . ·; . : • . .. � \ • . . r. ' •· . ' . a��ept�d m·:mbers of �apanese society. • • . Okinawa's story of resistance and 8ocial mobility starting in the late 1980s is one ' . ' . . � . . . of value for not just Okinawans, but of other ethnic minorities and foreigners residing in . . . ' . ·, Japan. From afar, while Japan rna); seem like an etlmicaHy homogeneous nation, many . . ' � ' . . . �· . major ethnic minorities such as Chinese, So.uth Korean (or Zainichi), burakumin. Brazilian and Ainu residents live in Japan. H<..v.. vever, the rigid cultural and sociai requirements expected of Japanese citizel1S do not qn.lyhamper t.h.e growth of Japan as a developing co�mopolitan and multiracial country, but also prevents Japan from becoming a nation that recognizes its contradictions, . contested memories, historical · problems, violence and discrimination against cultural diversity that are consequences in the stmggles of peoples .to share their world. \Vhile the Okinawan Boom during the _1990s may have seemed to have a positive impact on t�e ways in which Okinawan . culture pervaded Japanese society, these popular constructions .of Okinawan lifestyies as a tropical escapt:! only worked to replace their underlying historical problems and 2014 · Williams College Contested Memories I07 contradictions, which were real issues that needed to be addressed. As contemporary Japanese society grows ip. terms of ethnic and social diversity, Okinawans are able to play a larger role in expanding ·the meaning of their Japanese-hyphenated . identities as their voices ctndtemark:able stdries become included in.the legacy ofthe war.:•. ·. In examining Okinawa and the act of historical remembranceat various sites of memory, this reSearch study focuses on the shiftin Okinawan expressions ofresistance through war memory in the post-Cold War era. The three sites of memory reviewed here tell us how some Okinawans have sought to break free from the cultural and historical stereotypes that restrained them within Japan's hegemonic power and control. Moreover, the controversies surrounding each. site of memory also revealed the complexity and diversity of Okinawan war memory, and.m ost importantly, the ways in which memories continue to evolve into ways of political and social expressions of resistance. What it means to be Okinawan continues to be contested and redefined in . Okinawan consciousness today. I for one, hope that this study of a turbulent decade of change and resistance in Okinawan war memory can be utilized 'to understand the social and political history of a marginalized etlulic minority in Japan; �d to open doors for other minority groups to help transform Japan into more socially accepting of all historica1 war expenences. 20 14 Willian1s College Contested Memories 10& . '"' .. "" ...... · ...... �· .... "''"' ... "'"'''" .. .. · . ' ) . . - .· . 5 Index, of Photos 5 Photographs taken by author, August 7-19, 20 13. . . 2014 Contested Me:mor.ies 109 ...;;i� ' 20 l4 WilJiams College Gont�\sted fvl e mories 110 2014 WilliamsCollege Contested Memories 111 ...... Im age 10, Paper crtm a next to the Himeyuri Monument 2014 Vv'illiams College Contested Memories 112 2014 Williams College Contested Memories 113 lmag'e 12: Officia.iBro clllu'e Okina·wa Convention & 'Visitors Bure au •se 13: Subw ay adv ertisement of Ok inaw a 20!4 Williams College Contested Memories 11.t Bibliography PrimarySources Asahi Shinbun Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS). · ' < • ' ..... ' ' .. � . Lakeland Ledgers Okinawa Peace Network of Los Angeles Okinawa Times RyukyuShim po Th e Japan Times Aniya Masaaki, "Compulsory Mass Suicide and the Battle of Okinawa," (translation by Kyoko Selden) Gunshuku mondai shityo (Disarmament Review), Dec. 2007. Chalmers Johnson, Email, "Governor Ota Masa.hide of Okinawa," 9 November 1995. Cook, Haruko T., and Cook, Theodore F. Japan at War: An Oral iH story. New York: New, 1992. Clinton, Bill. "Remarks at National Peace Memorial Park in Okinawa, Japan." July 21, 2000. .:) ·. Higa, Tomiko. 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