Alone among Japan's prefectures, Okinawa experienced a 27-year-long military occupation that fundamentally altered its history, and created a distinctive local politics, culture and economy that continue to speak to larger national and global issues. This chapter explores the contingencies that led to Okinawa's wartime and postwar militarization, and the ways Okinawans have actively challenged American and Japanese efforts to control their postwar narrative. Despite persistent grievances regarding a fragile local economy and continued heavy US military base burden, Okinawans have promoted new visions emphasizing the themes of peace and transnational cooperation that meaningfully connect their past to their future.

Introduction

Discussing Okinawa as part of Japan's “postwar” is a necessary yet awkward endeavor; while the history of Japan's southernmost prefecture has profound connections to the broader national story, it fits uneasily within its narrative conventions. The end of World War II for Okinawa represented a profound break greater and longer than that experienced by most mainland populations, but also a continuation of deep patterns that had shaped Okinawa's modern development and identity. Part of the Ryukyu archipelago stretching from southern Kyushu to the eastern coast of Taiwan, Okinawa prefecture's 48 inhabited islands had since the premodern eras served to connect Japan to its East Asian neighbors and vice versa; as Japan transformed itself into a modern empire these relations were reconfigured and Okinawa's role as intermediary changed also. During the early Meiji period it became Japan's foothold at its southern frontier, establishing Japanese sovereignty over the islands against Western incursions and Chinese claims. As Japan's power grew and its empire expanded to include larger and more economically significant territories like Taiwan, Okinawa's perceived importance to Japan decreased for a time, only to again become a critical defensive bulwark in the final desperate phase of the Asia-Pacific War. While Japan's defeat led to a radical reconfiguration of security strategy under American leadership, Okinawa's role as military “Keystone of the Pacific” continued to find new justifications despite the gradually diminishing US military base presence elsewhere in Japan.