Abstract
Civilian employees on military bases are hardly given attention in literature on military basing, particularly in the context of the U.S. presence in Japan. Most of these employees are Japanese nationals, but a large number of them are returnees, who have returned to Okinawa—their birthplace—in the 1970s to the early 1980s. While these workers have become part of the U.S. presence in the prefecture, these individuals occupy a rather contentious position in Okinawan society—they are Japanese nationals, but of part-Okinawan and part-Filipino parentage. Their presence in these military bases points to the migrations that occurred starting in the post-war period between Okinawa and the Philippines. This phenomenon also calls to mind the significance of ethnicity as cultural capital in return migration.
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Notes
- 1.
All names appearing here are pseudonyms.
- 2.
The Government of the Ryukyu Islands (GRI) or Ryūkyū Seifu, was created by the United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyus (USCAR) in April 1952 and was abolished when Okinawa was reverted to the Japanese mainland in 1972.
- 3.
Throughout the book, I capitalize the first letter of Nisei, to indicate it as an identity marker used by these individuals. I discuss more about the Nisei identity in Chap. 4.
- 4.
The Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement or EDCA was a successor to the Visiting Forces Agreement or VFA, and was signed in 2014, to address the need for heightened defence measures within the context of the South China Sea disputes. There were debates as to the ratification of the EDCA, but the Supreme Court of the Philippines ruled in favour of ratifying the agreement. (See Vitug 2018: 110–112)
- 5.
Needless to say, there are Nisei who were born in the Philippines and are now working and residing in Okinawa.
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Zulueta, J.O. (2020). Behind the Barbed Wire Fence. In: Transnational Identities on Okinawa’s Military Bases. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9787-6_1
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