UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Islands Too Beautiful for their Names: Local Memories and Japanese Colonial Rule (1914-1944) in the Northern Mariana Islands A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History by Jessica Jordan Committee in charge: Professor Stefan Tanaka, Chair Professor Takashi Fujitani, Co-Chair Professor Joseph Hankins Professor Jeremy Prestholdt Professor Christena Turner 2015 © Jessica Jordan 2015 All rights reserved This Dissertation of Jessica Jordan is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Co-Chair Chair University of California, San Diego 2015 iii DEDICATION In recognition of the kindness, intellect, and good humor of the man’amko, the elders, from the Mariana Islands, and in gratitude for the mentorship they and other local history professionals displayed towards me as I asked questions about intimate memories of the days of Japanese rule and war, this dissertation is dedicated to peoples of the Mariana archipelago irrespective of internal political partitions created by various past and present colonial regimes. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page……………………………………………………………………………iii Dedication……………………………...…………………………………………………iv Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………….........v List of Abbreviations……………………………………………………………………viii List of Figures……………………………………………………………….……………ix Acknowledgements…………………...…………………………………………………...x Vita………………..…………………………………………………………..…………xiv Abstract of the Dissertation…………………………………………………..…….........xv Chapter 1) Islands Too Beautiful for their Names: Writing Northern Mariana Islands Histories…………….………………………………………………………..……………1 1.1 Background……………………………………………………………………6 1.2 Research Questions………………………………………………………..…12 1.3 Interviews in the Mariana Islands……………………………………………16 1.4 Interpreting Memories……………………………………………………….26 1.4.1 Ambivalence and Nostalgia……………………….……………….28 1.4.2 Indigenous Families with Japanese Ancestry……………………...31 1.5 Chapter Summaries…………………………………………………………..37 Chapter 2) Rethinking Dominant Paradigms of Histories about Japan in the Pacific...…44 2.1 The Pacific Area and History………………………………………………...45 2.2 Neocolonial Micronesia……………………………………………………...50 2.3 Micronesia in Japanese History……………………………………………...53 2.4 Mariana Islands Liberation Narrative Paradigm……………………………..57 Chapter 3) Dominated by Settlers: Populations in the Northern Mariana Islands during the Japanese Colonial Period………………………………………………………….....64 3.1 Background: Japanese Commerce and Colonial ………………………….....65 3.1.1 Navy Rule of the Nan’yô Guntô [South Sea Islands] 1914-1918….67 3.1.2 Civil Administration (1918-1922), the League Mandate (1920), and Nan’yôcho Government (1922-1942)……………………………….68 3.2 Sugar and Settlement in the NMI……...……………………………………..75 3.3 Populations Living in the NMI During the Japanese Colonial Era………….86 3.3.1 “Kanaka” and Chamorro…………………………………………...87 3.3.2 Settler Colonialism as a Form of Domination……………………..92 3.4 A Landed Elite……………………………………………………………….94 v 3.4.1 Islander Civil Servants……………………………………………100 3.5 Social Interactions Between Groups………………………………………..103 3.5.1 Multiracial Families………………………………………………111 3.6 Conclusion………………………………………………………………….116 Chapter 4) Santô kokumin to iwareta kedo… [We were called third-class nationals, but…]: Northern Mariana Islanders in Japanese Colonial Education Programs……….120 4.1 Primary School Education for Islanders……………………………………123 4.1.1 Naval Period (1914-1918) shôgakkô (primary schools) for Islanders………………………………………………………...125 4.1.2 Civil Administration Period (1918-1922) tômin gakkô (islander schools) ………………………………………………………...128 4.1.3 Nan’yôchô period (1922-1942) kôgakkô (public schools) and shôgakkô (elementary schools) ………………………………...130 4.1.4 The South Sea Islands Kokugo tokuhon (National Language Reader) …………………………………………………………133 4.2 Other Education Programs for Islanders……………………………………137 4.2.1 Social Education………………………………………………….137 4.2.2 Seinendan (Youth Associations) …………………………………140 4.2.3 Naichi Kankôdan (Group Tours of the Mainland) ……………….142 4.2.4 Ryûgakusei (Students Studying Abroad) ………………………...147 4.3 Remembering the kôgakkô (public schools)………………………………..152 4.3.1 “Santô Kokumin” (Third-Class Nationals)……………………….161 4.3.2 Islanders in Schools for Hôjin…………………………………….167 4.3.3 Religious Schools………………………………………………...172 4.4 Conclusion………………………………………………………………….175 Chapter 5) Colonial Civilians and Military Men: Common and Elite Indigenous Northern Mariana Islander Experiences of Japan’s Total War (1937-1945) …………………….182 5.1 Imperialization and Military Rule…………………………………………..184 5.2 Chamorros in the Japanese Naval Invasion and Occupation of Guam……..191 5.2.1 Marginalized Stories……………………………………………...200 5.3 Japanese Military Troops’ Arrival in the Northern Mariana Islands……….202 5.4 Combat in the Northern Mariana Islands, 1944…………………………….212 5.4.1 Noncombatant Islanders Caught in the Battle……………………218 5.5 Conclusion………………………………………………………………….221 Chapter 6) Broken Homes, Torn Families: U.S. National Security and Postwar Repatriation Campaigns in the Northern Mariana Islands……………………………...227 6.1 Establishing Protocols for Managing Refugees…………………………….228 6.2 “Undesirable from a Military Point of View” ……………………………...233 6.3 Managing Populations Differently………………………………………….238 6.4 Broken Homes……………………………………………………………...248 6.4.1 “I used to be Korean-Chamorro” ………………………………...251 6.5 Repatriation as the Final Act of War……………………………………….255 vi 6.6 Americanized History Constrains Multiracial Japanese Legacies…………257 Conclusion: History According to Indigenous Agents………………………..……......262 CNMI History and Liberation Narratives…….…………..…………………….264 Complicity of Colonial Regimes……………………………………………….272 Economic Subjectivity, Political Subjectivity………………….………………275 Dismembering and Remembering the Japanese Empire……………..………...280 Postwar Memory Activities and Former Settlers…..…………...………285 Regional Connectivity………………………………………………………….291 The NMI and the Mariana Islands……………………………………...292 The NMI and Micronesia……………………………………………….295 The NMI and East Asia…………………………………………………297 The Man’amko as Indigenous Agents of History………………………………302 Appendix: List of Interviewees…………………………………………………………309 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………311 vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CINCAFPAC Commander in Chief United States Air Forces Pacific CINCPAC Commander in Chief Pacific Command CINCPACFLT Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet CINCPOA Commander in Chief, Central Pacific Ocean Area CNMI Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands DMP Demobilized Personnel NBK Nan’yô Bôeki Kaisha (South Seas Trading Company) NKK Nan’yô Kôhatsu Kabushiki-gaisha (South Seas Development Corporation) NMD Northern Marianas Descent NMI Northern Mariana Islands NTTU Naval Technical Training Unit POW Prisoner of War SCAP Supreme Commander of Allied Powers SWNCC State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee TTPI (U.S.) Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: Sister Antonieta Ada (Left) and Escolastica Tudela Cabrera (Right)………….……...4 Figure 1.2: Colonial Powers in the Northern Mariana Islands, Micronesia……………….………8 Figure 3.1: Map of the Six Districts of Nan’yôchô Showing Shipping Lanes and Distances……………………………………………………………………………………...…..71 Figure 3.2: Population Map of Japan’s Six Administrative Districts in Micronesia………….….76 Figure 3.3: Maps of Saipan, Tinian, and Rota Islands Showing Railroads and Villages as of 1938…………………………………………………………………………...............79 Figure 3.4: “Saipan-shichô” (Saipan District)/Northern Mariana Island Populations 1922-42, with 1942 Entire Territory Population…………………………………………87 Figure 3.5: Saipan Carolinian and Chamorro Families Standing Before their Homes…………...90 Figure 4.1: Excerpts from the Kokugo tokuhon (National Language Reader), Volume 1 (1917) …………………………………………………………………..………………134 Figure 4.2: Photographs of the 1921 and the 1936 Kankôdan (Group Tours) ………................143 Figure 4.3: Escolastica Tudela Cabrera’s First Grade Class Photo, Garapan kôgakkô circa 1939…………...…………………………………………………………………..154 Figure 5.1: Timeline of Deployments of Chamorros in the Invasion of Guam………………....194 Figure 5.2: Approximate Number of Casualties, Deaths and Refugees in the Japan-U.S. Battles in the Northern Mariana Islands………………………………………………..217 Figure 6.1: Populations in the Japanese Mandated Islands, 1945……………………………….237 Figure 6.2: Elias Borja with a Friend in San Jose, Tinian, November 28, 2012………………..251 ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My professors at UC San Diego have been great mentors. Takashi Fujitani worked with me to conceptualize modernity as colonial, gendered and racialized, whereas Stefan Tanaka helped me to ask central philosophical questions about history and memory. As co-advisers, together they profoundly influenced how I think. And both coached me to remain aware of unresolved questions about area studies, historiography, and careers in academia. Christena Turner taught me social science fieldwork methods, and she has been supportive and willing to answer questions related to my own subject position and interview-based research. Joseph Hankins helped me to tackle anthropology theory and methods, and as the committee member to have most recently earned his Ph.D., he has been a good example of how to excel as a junior faculty member. Jeremy Prestholdt guided my efforts to theorize transnational histories of empires by helping me work through a sizeable reading list of works on world