Abstract
The inscription above is from a bronze plaque in the corner of what looks like a tiny park on the edge of San Ramon Hill, located just inland from Guam’s western coastline. Unless one knew of the historical site, it would be easy to pass by the small patch of grass without noticing the holes in the cream-colored stone of the hill, half hidden by tropical foliage. But our stop was intentional. My guide was Debbie Quinata, a leader and anti-US military base activist in the Chamorro community. It was our second day driving around the island, with Quinata offering a richly contextualized tour of US military presence in Guam. I had met her a month earlier in Okinawa, where she had been invited by anti-base activists to speak at an unofficial gathering to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Battle of Okinawa.
Japanese San Ramon Caves
The six caves in this cliff are part of an extensive island-wide cave system used by the Japanese. The caves are an example of the tunnelling created by the Japanese military throughout the Pacifi c islands in the 1940s. They were built by Chamorro, Okinawan and Korean forced labour using primitive tools working under extreme conditions.
San Ramon Hill, Hagatna, Guam
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Notes
Kelly Dietz, “Demilitarizing Sovereignty: Self-Determination and AntiBase Activism in Okinawa, Japan,” in Contesting Development: Critical Struggles for Social Change (New York: Routledge, 2010), p. 189.
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See Takazato Suzuyo, Okinawa no onna tachi: Josei no jinken to kichi guntai (Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 1996).
See Gavan McCormack, “Okinawa’s ‘Darkest Year,’” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 11, Issue 33, No. 4, (August 18, 2014).
see Hideaki Yoshikawa, “Futenma Marine Base Relocation and its Environmental Impact: U.S. Responsibility,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 12, Issue 39, No. 4, (September 29, 2014).
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See Sheila A. Smith, “U.S. Senators Weigh in on Futenma,” Council on Foreign Relations (May 12, 2011) <http://blogs.cfr.org/asia/2011/05/12/u-s-senators-weigh-in-on-futenma/> [accessed March 10, 2015].
Quoted in Ishikawa Mao, Okinawa kaijō heri kichi: Hitei to ni oswowareru machi (Tokyo: Kōbunken, 1998).
Ota Masahide, “Re-examining the History of the Battle of Okinawa,” republished in Chalmers Johnson, ed., Okinawa: Cold War Island (Cardiff, CA: Japan Policy Research Institute, 1999);
Ishihara Masaiei, Shin Ryūkyū shi, kindai gendai hen (Naha: Ryūkyū Shinhousha, 1992).
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See Gavan McCormack and Satoko Oka Norimatsu, Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States (Rowman and Littlefield, 2012), pp. 33–4.
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Kōji Taira, “Troubled National Identity: The Ryukyuans/Okinawans,” in Japan’s Minorities, ed. Michael Weiner (Routledge, 1997), p. 140.
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Okinawa Jichi Kenkyu Kai, Okinawa ni jichi wa dou suru? (Ginowan: Ryukyu Daigaku Gakushu Kyoiku Kenkyu Sentaa, 2004).
Okinawa Jichi Kenkyu Kai, Okinawa jichi shu: Anata wa dou kangaeru? (Naha: Deigo Insatsu, 2005).
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See Chapter 11 in Gavan McCormack and Satoko Oka Norimatsu, Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012);
Gavan McCormack, “The End of the Postwar? The Abe Government, Okinawa, and Yonaguni Island,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 12, Issue 49, No. 3, December 8, 2014;
Key-young Son and Ra Mason, “Risks in Japan’s Militarization of Okinawa against China,” in Risk State: Japan’s Foreign Policy in an Age of Uncertainty, eds. Sebastian Maslow, Ra Mason, Paul O’Shea (Ashgate Publishing, 2015), p. 69.
Arakaki Tsuyoshi, “Ryukyu’s International Treaties return to Okinawa after 141 years,” Ryukyu Shimpo (February 4, 2015) <http://english.ryukyushimpo.jp/2015/02/15/17075/> [accessed March 10, 2015].
See Matthew Allen, Identity and Resistance in Okinawa (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002);
Ayako Nakachi, “The Influence of Cultural Perceptions on Political Awareness: A Case Study in Okinawa, Japan,” in Sociology (University of Singapore, 2004);
and Miyume Tanji, Myth, Protest and Struggle in Okinawa (Routledge, 2006).
Inoue, Masamichi S., Christoph Brumann, Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, and Ellen Schattschneider, Inoue Masamichi, Okinawa and the U.S. Military: Identity Making in the Age of Globalization (Columbia University Press, 2007);
and Richard Siddle, “Return to Uchinaa: The Politics of Identity in Contemporary Okinawa,” in Japan and Okinawa: Structure and subjectivity, eds. Glenn D. Hook and Richard Siddle (London: Routlege, 2003).
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Dietz, K. (2016). Transnationalism and Transition in the Ryūkyūs. In: Iacobelli, P., Leary, D., Takahashi, S. (eds) Transnational Japan as History. Palgrave Macmillan Transnational History Series. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-56879-3_10
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