Volume 11 | Issue 41 | Number 1 | Article ID 4008 | Oct 13, 2013 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus The Okinawan Diaspora in Japan at War 戦時中日本に於ける沖縄 県民の離散 Steve Rabson brought temporary improvement, and the market expanded all of a sudden in wartime for When the Japanese government abolished the locally woven Panama hats, the prefecture’s Ryukyu Kingdom, absorbing it into Japan as one “manufactured” export. But the United Okinawa Prefecture in 1879, most Okinawans States and European countries imposed a ban on the mainland were merchants of locally on their importation in 1919 that sent the grown and handcrafted goods. Large-scale market tumbling. Two years later, the collapse migration began around 1900 with theof world sugar prices in 1921 devastated the development of Japan’s modern textile industry, poorest prefecture’s economy, compelling more centered in Greater Osaka. Thousands came Okinawans to leave for South America, Hawaii, from the nation’s poorest prefecture, mostly and the Philippines, but with the largest young women and teenage girls from farming number, a recorded 10,300, going to mainland villages, to work under contract in factories. Japan, 7,419 of them to Greater Osaka, By Most stayed temporarily, typically for three 1925, approximately 20,000 lived there, about years, often working and living in oppressive half in Greater Osaka. Responding to conditions, and sending a portion of their discrimination and the need for networks of wages back to help support their families. mutual support, they had begun forming residential communities in the industrial Okinawan migration to the mainland increased sections of Osaka and other manufacturing rapidly with the outbreak of World War I which cities. boosted demand for Japanese products, enormously benefiting the economy. What was The largest migration in history of Okinawans known as the “World War I boom” shook the to the mainland occurred during another labor nation’s industries out of their recession shortage after Japan’s military incursions in doldrums. With Japan on their side in that war, China escalated to full-scale war in 1937. The the Allies deluged Japanese manufacturers with war brought thousands to the mainland for orders for munitions and supplies.military-related jobs. In its final years, however, Furthermore, with industries in America and it wrought death and devastation on their Europe on wartime production regimens, communities that were mostly located in urban Japanese manufacturers were able to displace industrial areas. By 1940, a recorded 88,319 them in large sectors of the consumer market Okinawans—about 15 percent of the total in Japan and in other Asian countries. population of Okinawa Prefecture itself—lived on the mainland. The number of Okinawans Yet, while industrial areas of the mainland residing in greater Osaka more than tripled boomed during World War I, few benefits between 1935 and 1940, from 18,774 to resonated in mostly rural Okinawa from where 56,828, after having declined by 4,565 over the outward migration accelerated rapidly.previous five years.1 During the second half of Wartime demand for Okinawan sugar, the most Japan’s turbulent 1930s, more Okinawans than important product in the local economy, ever left home for work on the mainland, where 1 11 | 41 | 1 APJ | JF war-related production, planned and subsidized residential communities were located, leaving by the Japanese government, was fueling rapid them in ashes and rubble.2 Meanwhile, the industrial expansion. Meanwhile, theinvasion of Okinawa, launched in late March, construction of new factories in Osaka’s 1945, bogged down into a devastating war of environs accelerated a “secondary migration” attrition that dragged on for three months, to other cities in Osaka, Hyōgo, and Shiga taking a recorded total of 237,318 lives, more Prefectures. than half of them Okinawan civilians.3 In the aftermath of massive human, material, and As for the war, by mid-1942, after a decade of environmental destruction, entire families were invasions and offensives, Japan controlled not missing, and whole villages destroyed. Many only much of northeastern China, including the Okinawans in mainland cities who hoped to capital of Nanking (now Nanjing), but also the escape the burnt-out ruins and return to their Philippines, Guam, Hong Kong, Singapore, homeland after the war had nothing left to go French Indochina (now Vietnam), and the back to. Furthermore, the U.S. military that Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). But, in June, now occupied and governed Okinawa not only 1942, six months after the attack on Pearl made travel to and from the Japanese mainland Harbor, the Japanese navy suffered a major difficult, requiring documents that were often defeat near Midway Island in the Central unobtainable, but also seized local farmlands, Pacific. Seizing the strategic advantage, the including some owned by mainland residents or Allies pressed a broad counteroffensive,their families, for a major expansion of military capturing territory in battles that often inflicted bases. heavy casualties on both sides and local civilian populations. With the capture of Saipan in July, Wartime labor shortage opens more jobs at 1944, U.S. forces were closing in on Japan higher pay itself, now within range of American B-29 bombers. This tumultuous period began in 1937, after Japan had invaded and occupied Manchuria As the prospect of air attacks loomed,some six years earlier. The skirmish between evacuations began of civilians deemedJapanese and Chinese forces near Peking (now unessential to the war effort. Individuals, Beijing) on July 7, 1937, known as the “Marco families, and organized evacuee groups left Polo Bridge Incident,” quickly escalated into industrial centers for suburban and rural areas, full-scale war. Responding to the “emergency where large numbers, especially children, situation” (Japan never officially declared its suffered from dislocation and severe food war against China.), the Japanese government shortages. By this time, many Okinawans who implemented laws regulating capital had earlier moved to the mainland for jobs and investment along with imports and exports, and hadn’t been drafted into the military were mobilized industry with large government conscripted for labor in local factoriessubsidies for military production. Two years producing munitions and other war supplies. later, in 1939, with indications that the war would be prolonged, the government passed They were among the recorded 10,388 killed the National Mobilization Act that tightened and 29,807 injured in massive fire bombings controls on labor, imposing strict requirements that devastated greater Osaka in the spring and on workers to register that would later summer of 1945. From March to mid-August expedite mandatory job assignments. Civilian more than 2,200 Allied bombers flew eight industries predictably declined, while those major air raids, especially targeting the kind of serving military needs expanded rapidly. In factory districts where most OkinawanOsaka, once called “the Manchester of the 2 11 | 41 | 1 APJ | JF East” for its many cloth factories, the textile industry shrunk by half after 1937, along with chemical and heavy industries not related to the war effort. That meant layoffs for some Okinawans, especially those working in textiles and lumber.4 However, many more found jobs in factories switching to war-related production, which received lucrative government contracts. Official policy to convert small and medium enterprises for military production stimulated their growth in greater Osaka, where they have long formed a key sector in the local economy, Factories in Taishō Ward, Osaka especially as subcontractors for larger firms. In 1939, Nakayama Steelworks added a new blast The government’s wartime designation of an furnace with a 430-ton capacity at its main “Osaka-Kobe Industrial Zone” for building and factory in Taishō Ward. Kubota Steelworks enlarging factories beyond Osaka City into its expanded its product line to include metals for surrounding municipalities had profound and making firearms and containers for storing lasting effects on the location and size of gunpowder and explosives. SumitomoOkinawan communities. The newly created jobs Metalworks enlarged its plant in neighboring attracted Okinawan workers mostly from Osaka Konohana Ward during the same year, then City, but also from Okinawa itself. In 1937, a purchased the Japan General Motors Plant in Tōyō Ball-Bearing plant opened in Takarazuka, Taishō Ward in 1940 to build a subsidiary Hyōgo Prefecture, where an Okinawa factory there.5 Nakayama, Kubota, and other Prefectural Association is still active today, companies that enlarged their existing factories holding regular gatherings and publishing a newsletter. In 1939, Kubota Steelworks built a or built new ones during the war are still major 468,000-square-foot factory in Sakai City, employers in Osaka’s Okinawan community Osaka Prefecture, where another Okinawa today. association remains active today.7 Sumitomo Metalworks enlarged its metal tube factory in Eighteen-year-old Uezu Seishō left Okinawa in Amagasaki City, Hyōgo Prefecture, to 1940 at age 18 for Osaka where he stayed with manufacture airplane parts. Other new and his uncle. “I remember my excitement at seeing enlarged plants in Amagasaki made propellers, an industrial area on the mainland for the first electrical equipment for military time. In May, I started a job at Kubota communications, rubber-covered wire, and Steelworks