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Okinawan Women’s Stories
of Migration
The phenomenon of “war brides” from Japan moving to the West has been
quite widely discussed, but this book tells the stories of women whose lives
followed a rather different path after they married foreign occupiers. During
Okinawa’s Occupation by the Allies from 1945 to 1972, many Okinawan women
met and had relationships with non-Western men who were stationed in Okinawa
as soldiers and base employees. Most of these men were from the Philippines.
Zulueta explores the journeys of these women to their husbands’ homeland,
their acculturation to their adopted land, and their return to their native Okinawa
in their late adult years. Utilizing a life-course approach, she examines how
these women crafted their own identities as frst-generation migrants or “Issei”
in both the country of migration and their natal homeland, their re-integration
to Okinawan society, and the role of religion in this regard, as well as their
thoughts on end-of-life as returnees.
This book will be of interest to scholars looking at gender and migration,
cross-cultural marriages, ageing and migration, as well as those interested in
East Asia, particularly Japan/Okinawa.
Johanna O. Zulueta is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Sociology of Toyo

University in Japan.
Routledge Contemporary Southeast Asia Series
The aim of this series is to publish original, high-quality work by both new and
established scholars on all aspects of Southeast Asia.
The Minority Muslim Experience in Southeast Asia

A Different Path
John Goodman
From Mekong Commons to Mekong Community

An Interdisciplinary Approach to Transboundary Challenges
Seiichi Igarashi
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International Norms and Local Politics in Myanmar

Yukiko Nishikawa
Pathways for Irregular Forces in Southeast Asia

Mitigating Violence with Non-State Armed Groups
Atsushi Yasutomi, Rosalie Arcala Hall and Saya Kiba
Okinawan Women’s Stories of Migration

From War Brides to Issei
Johanna O. Zulueta
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/

Routledge-Contemporary-Southeast-Asia-Series/book-series/RCSEA
Okinawan Women’s
Stories of Migration
From War Brides to Issei
Johanna O. Zulueta
First published 2022
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 Johanna O. Zulueta
The right of Johanna O. Zulueta to be identifed as authors of this work
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
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or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identifcation and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-367-56945-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-56946-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-10002-7 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003100027
Typeset in Galliard
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of photos vii

Acknowledgements viii
Notes on Japanese words and names x
1 War brides’ silent journeys 1

1.1 War brides as a category of migrants 3
1.2 Japanese war brides 5
1.3 Images of war brides in Japan 6
1.4 War brides in the Global South 8
1.5 Towards a life-course approach in analysing war
bride migration 10
1.6 Meaningful encounters: notes on methodology 12
1.7 The book 14
2 Memories of war and its aftermath: the Battle of

Okinawa and the American Occupation 20
2.1 Katsuko’s memories 20
2.2 Through a woman’s eyes: the Battle of Okinawa 21
2.3 When they came: the American Occupation of Okinawa 24
2.3.1 Marrying the enemy? International
marriages during the Occupation 27
3 Okinawan women’s journey to the Philippines 31

3.1 The Philippine Okinawan Society 31
3.2 Crossing the seas to the Philippines 35
3.3 “Haponesa”: ethnicized identity as stigma 41
3.3.1 Inheriting the stigma: children of the “Haponesa” 43
3.4 “We are Issei”: reclaiming an identity 44
3.5 Issei stories 46
3.6 Choosing to stay: Okinawan women in the Philippines 52
vi Contents
3.6.1 Yoko’s story 52
3.6.2 Taeko’s story 54
3.6.3 Fusae’s story 56
3.6.4 Those who remained 57
4 Homecomings: the return to Okinawa 61

4.1 Return in later life 62
4.2 The Issei’s “return”: fulflling a mother’s obligation 63
4.3 The Catholic Church in the lives of the Issei 68
4.4 The question of home 72
5 Migration and the end-of-life: when death

becomes her question 79
5.1 Death and migration 80
5.2 Death, religion, and tradition in Okinawa 82
5.3 Catholic rites and the Issei 84
5.4 “And to dust you shall return”: perceptions on the
end-of-life, home, and return 87
5.5 Death and the life course 91
6 War brides and the life course: a conclusion 94

6.1 Re-locating Okinawa beyond the U.S.-Japan Nexus 95
6.2 Migration and/in the life course 96
Index 100
Photos
2.1 USCAR labour card 1 25

3.1 POS 30th Anniversary 33
3.2 POS 30th Anniversary photo exhibit 34
3.3 POS and OPA dinner during the 2016 World Uchinānchu Festival 34
3.4 Certifcate of identity 1 38
4.1 Oroku Catholic Church entrance 69
4.2 St. Francis Monastery, Order of Friar Minors Capuchin
(Capuchin Francisco-kai Sei Francisco Shūdōin) 70
5.1 Okinawa turtleback tomb 84
5.2 Burial vaults brochure 86
5.3 Burial vaults description 87
Acknowledgements
I decided to embark on this project several years ago when I encountered

Okinawan elderly women married to Filipino men, which made up the Okinawan
community in Metropolitan Manila and nearby areas. This led me to do research
on migrations between Okinawa and the Philippines, a topic that I looked at
for almost two decades. My specifc research on these elderly women in Okinawa
was a small part of my PhD dissertation, which I expanded for my postdoctoral
research and subsequent related work. I decided to produce this monograph as
I believe that these women’s stories need to be heard and that their lives have
great signifcance in problematizing migrations and intermarriages that occurred
during the post-war Occupation of Okinawa.
I am indebted to the many Issei whom I met in the Philippines and in
Okinawa and for the stories they shared with me, many of which helped shape
this book. Most especially, I would like to thank Kiku Akamine, Chiyo Shima-
bukuro, Kiku Shimabukuro, Toyoko Eliseo, Yoshiko Zamami, Fujiko Tōma,
and the other Issei parishioners of Oroku Catholic Church. I also thank their
families – their children and grandchildren – for sharing with me their families’,
particularly their mothers’, stories. Much appreciation goes to Mary Pebenito,
Romeo and Mina Medoruma, Linda Añonuevo, David Itokazu, Minoru Yamak-
awa, Joy Mangalindan, Kenneth Alfaro, Ruby Bermillo, Josef Macalintal, as well
as the nisei parishioners at Oroku Catholic Church. Some of the Issei I met in
the course of my feldwork have passed on, and I hope that this book will be
a source of remembrance of the many Issei who crossed the seas to the Philip-
pines to raise their families and lead new lives. I also would like to acknowledge
the Philippine Okinawan Society for their support throughout the years.
Countless individuals helped me in the course of my research, which enabled
me to produce my earlier book on Okinawa’s military bases. They were also
instrumental in the completion of this project on the Okinawan Issei. I might
not be able to acknowledge all of them here, but I thank them with all my
heart.
Yagi Tsunekazu and University of the Ryukyus Professor Emeritus Kinjo
Hiroyuki assisted me and talked to me about Okinawan-Philippine migration
whenever I found myself in Okinawa. Thank you so much for your belief and
encouragement that I carry out this project.
Acknowledgements ix
Simon Bates, senior editor of Routledge, believed in this project and gave
me much-needed support when I was completing the book. I am so grateful
for your patience and encouragement. Shubhayan Chakrabarti and Payal Bharti,
Senior Editorial Assistant of Routledge, as well as Aruna Rajendran, Project
Manager of Apex CoVantage, also provided editorial support.
Swati Vohra, my former graduate student and research assistant, assisted in
making the index of this book. Thank you always for your support.
I thank Professor Ito Ruri, Professor Emerita of Hitotsubashi University and
currently Professor of Sociology at Tsuda University, for hosting me during my
postdoctoral fellowship as well as her comments on this research, particularly
on what now is Chapter 5 of the book. I also thank Professor Maria Rosario
Piquero Ballescas, retired Professor of Toyo University and the University of
the Philippines, for her comments on the fnal draft of the manuscript.
I am very much grateful to Efren Goya Macalintal and family for sharing
photos of his Okinawan mother’s travel documents and for agreeing that they
be published in this book. I also would like to express my gratitude to the
Okinawa Prefectural Archives for allowing me to publish the photos I took of
the labour cards issued by the United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyus
(USCAR). I am grateful for the assistance given by Nakamoto-san and Sunagawa-
san of the Okinawa Archives.
I have presented earlier versions of some of the chapters at several conferences
and workshops. The comments and insights I gained from those helped shape
the chapters in this book.
Parts of Chapter 2 are based on an article titled “Memory, Nostalgia, and
the Creation of Home: A Returnee Woman’s Journey,” published in Migration
Letters (2017), by the Transnational Press, London. Parts of Chapter 3, titled
“Haponesa: Ethnicised Identity as Stigma,” appeared in the Migration Confer-
ence Proceedings of 2017. Chapter 5 is derived in part from an article published
in Mortality: Promoting the Interdisciplinary Study of Death and Dying (2016),
copyright Taylor & Francis, available online: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/1
0.1080/13576275.2015.1056123.
I would like to acknowledge funding received from the Grants-in-Aid for
Scientifc Research (KAKENHI) for JSPS Fellows (Project number 11F01314)
received in 2011–2013. My subsequent visits to Okinawa from 2015 to 2018
were made possible with funding from the Soka University Research Promotion
Funds received during those years.
Lastly, I would like to thank my family in the Philippines – and my late dad
who I believe still looks after me – for their love and continued support with
my academic endeavours.
I hold responsibility for any errors and inaccuracies that may appear in this
book.
Notes on Japanese words and names
Japanese words and names are written using the modifed Hepburn system; that
is, prolonged or extended vowel sounds are indicated by a macron (e.g. ō).
Translations of Japanese words are given in parentheses whenever these words
appear for the frst time in the text. Japanese conversations and narratives appear
as endnotes to the English translations used in the text. Japanese words are italicized
throughout the texts, except for words that are used as a concept (i.e. Issei).
Japanese names are written following the Japanese convention, with the last
name preceding the given (or frst) name, except for sources written in English
by Japanese authors, where the author’s frst name comes before his/her surname.
Pseudonyms are used to identify my informants to protect their privacy. First
names are used in the book to refect the practice in Okinawa where people
usually call each other by their frst names (which differs from mainland Japan
where people address each other by surnames).
Place names (e.g. Tokyo, Ryukyu) are written in their common Anglicized
forms.
1 War brides’ silent journeys
It was a warm morning on one Wednesday in the autumn of 2009, and I was
hurriedly running to the front door of Oroku Catholic Church in Naha, the
Okinawan capital, to catch the 10:00 a.m. Wednesday mass before heading back
to Tokyo. I was on feldwork in this southernmost prefecture of Japan and
thought of passing by the church before going to the airport to catch my fight.
When I opened the door of the main chapel, I stopped in my tracks and realized
that instead of the regular Wednesday mass, a memorial service was being held.
The woman, I learnt later, passed away a week earlier. Torn between leaving
and staying, I decided to sit at the back of the church and pay respects to this
elderly lady, who was never acquainted with me, but whose portrait on the altar
reminded me that this person could have been my grandmother, a distant
relation, or a friend. After the service, I, along with the other attendees, went
to the crypt behind the church and offered prayers and burnt sticks of incense – a
testament to the religious syncretism of the service – in front of the vault where
ashes from her remains were stored.
The deceased – Fumiko1 – was an elderly Okinawan woman who had lived
for several years in the Philippines upon marriage to a Filipino who worked on
one of the U.S. military bases in Okinawa during the immediate post-war years,
when this southernmost island came under American Occupation upon Japan’s
defeat in the Second World War. I was told that she had returned to Okinawa
in her advanced years along with her children.2 I was left thinking how many
more women were like Fumiko who had to depart this place with nary a spoken
word or a voice heard, their lives slipping silently into the throes of history.
This story of Fumiko is not at all an isolated incident of a woman marrying
someone from a different cultural and ethnic background who later decided to
follow her husband to his own country and build a family there. Her story is
only one of the many stories of these elderly women – erstwhile “war brides” –
that reveal numerous and various migration trajectories that not only crossed
nation-state borders but also those of class, gender, culture, and tradition but,
nevertheless, remain hidden as these women silently lived their lives.
Back in 2003, as a young graduate student, I was in contact with the Philippine
Okinawan Society (POS) for my own research on second-generation Okinawans
in the Philippines. It was then where I frst met these Okinawan women who,
DOI: 10.4324/9781003100027-1
like Fumiko, chose to live their lives in the Philippines when they married a Filipino
who was stationed in Okinawa to work on U.S. military bases during the occupa-
tion of the prefecture. A jolly group of women, I noticed how they spoke in a
mixture of Japanese and Okinawan, interspersed with Tagalog3 words, especially
when talking to their children and grandchildren. I never knew I would be crossing
paths again with some of these women or their contemporaries who returned to
Okinawa. Theirs was a silent journey to a country that was very much alien to
them, and for most of these women, it was their frst time to leave their natal
homeland. This book chronicles the lives of these women, particularly those who
I encountered at Oroku Catholic Church from 2009 to 2018. I also include here
those women who chose to remain in the Philippines.
The migration of Okinawan “war brides” to the Philippines during the
immediate post-war years has only been given scant attention in the literature.
They are largely invisible in academic and non-academic work on Japanese/
Okinawan4 “war brides” or on Asian “war brides” in general. However, this
group of women can be said to constitute a signifcant group of “war brides”
who left their war-torn community in the hopes of rebuilding their lives with
their husbands and children. Much of the Japanese/Okinawan war bride literature
looks at those women who moved with their American (and for some, Australian)
husbands to the mainland United States and Hawaii (and Australia), but notice
is rarely given to those who married Third Country Nationals (TCNs) employed
on U.S. bases during the Occupation of Okinawa and mainland Japan. This
book is about these women – currently at an advanced stage in their lives – who
made the journey to build new lives in their adopted country, the Philippines,
and decided to make it their home. In this book, I also give signifcant attention
to those women who chose to return to their natal homeland that they left 30
to 40 years ago and who continue to negotiate their identities as returnees and
their place in contemporary Okinawan society.
War brides are women married to military personnel they met when the latter
were in these women’s countries due to war or military occupation. More often
than not, these women decided to migrate to their husbands’ countries out of
their own will. This defnition of “war bride” as a category of female immigrants
was only conceptualized during the First World War when United States service-
men took home foreign brides that they met during their expedition abroad
(Zeiger 2010: 4). In the Second World War, the status of war bride became a
“privileged” immigration category that not only gave these women free transport
to their husbands’ place of residence in the United States but also expedited
naturalization, among other things (Zeiger 2010: 5). It was said that the war
bride earned her “special status” by marrying an American serviceman. Zeiger
states that the defnition of a war bride has changed throughout history. While
the frst recorded use of the term can be traced back to 1914 that coincided
with the U.S. operations during the confict at the Mexican border, intercultural
marriages between American soldiers and foreign women have already taken
place in the earliest U.S. military expeditions in Cuba and the Philippines in
the late 19th century (Zeiger 2010: 3). In the Japanese context meanwhile, a
War brides’ silent journeys 3
war bride is a Japanese woman who married a member of the Occupying Forces
or a “foreign civilian who was in Japan as a result of the military occupation
after World War II” as well as the subsequent presence of these forces up to
around 1960 (Tamura 2011: xv). These women then moved to their husbands’
countries beginning in the 1950s or what is commonly known as the immediate
post-war years.
Several works have examined the migration of these Japanese war brides to
their husbands’ countries, namely the United States and Australia (Nakano
Glenn 1986; Shimada 2009; Zeiger 2010; and Tamura 2011). A large number
of these works on war brides, however, are memoirs, with some written by
children of war brides themselves (Crawford et al. 2010; Crissey 2017). Most
of these books and articles on the subject of war brides focused on their migra-
tion experiences particularly the challenges they faced upon settlement in their
husbands’ countries. Despite this, work focusing on these women’s advanced
years are scant. Most of these women are currently facing the twilight years of
their lives – from their earlier migration experiences to their life choices that
shaped their past and current lives, as well as their ageing futures. Thus, work
focusing on this aspect is necessary to have an in-depth look into the lives of
these women.
This book looks at a specifc group of elderly Okinawan war brides who are
spouses of men of the Global South – non-Western males who were involved
in the American Occupation of mainland Japan and Okinawa. The Occupation
was largely a transnational project that involved not only the United States,
Japan, and Okinawa but also other state actors such as the Philippines (Zulueta
2020). It particularly examines Okinawan women who married Filipinos who
were stationed on U.S. military bases in Okinawa as TCNs. These women met
their husbands while working in and around the military bases that were installed
during the Occupation of Okinawa in 1945 to 1972. This monograph traces
these women’s journeys from Okinawa to the Philippines as foreign wives of
Filipino men, their experiences, hardships, as well as their return to their natal
homeland. These intermarriages, however, should not be considered to have
occurred solely within a romantic context; migration and labour policies, as
well as racial, classed, and gendered realities shaped the milieu within which
these international marriages occurred during the post-war period in the
Asia-Pacifc.
War brides as a category of migrants

Women migrants are usually perceived as moving or migrating in conjunction
with a partner and/or a family member(s), thus undermining their agency and
their individual choices in the decision to move or migrate. Moreover, women
migrating on their own or those who independently migrate have been historically
looked at with apprehension, as questions tied to their sexuality and difference
(i.e. cultural and racial), were perceived to pose threats to the moral and ethnic
make-up of the receiving nation. In the late 19th century up to the early part
of the 20th century, women migrating independently were thought to be
recruited into prostitution; thus, women who are married and are migrating
with a partner and a family were viewed as less threatening. This was seen in
the various policies enacted by countries such as the United States regarding
immigration control and how women are expected to conform to the moral
and legal norms of the nation-state. For instance, with regard to the Gentlemen’s
Agreement provision for brides wanting to enter the United States, both the
U.S. and Japanese governments ensured that these brides entering were legiti-
mately married (Luibheid 2002: 58–59). Luibheid argues that this reinforced
the patriarchal gender structures in each of these countries as well as “bi-
nationally” (Luibheid 2002: 58–59). Being a legitimately married woman migrat-
ing alone was seen to be less “morally” threatening to the nation-state, and
such women were considered to be doing their part in forming or maintaining
a family by joining their husbands. Women migrating independently were
scrutinized in the public eye because of concerns that these women may be
recruited into prostitution.
War brides is a category of female migrants that may be considered an offshoot
of wars and military conficts, as well as military occupation. These women met
their husbands while working in or near military bases where their husbands
were stationed. These war bride marriages are also considered under the category
of intercultural marriages, where the husband was part of the occupying army
who settled (even for a short time) in the host nation – where the host nation
is usually the one beset by war and confict. Most of these women decided to
marry and move to their husbands’ countries on their own volition, with not
a few among them who saw the move as a way of escaping war, confict, and/
or economic diffculties, not to mention strict patriarchal norms in their own
families and society. The term “war bride” points to these women’s links to war
and their dependence on men, “conferring an identity on them as human war
booty” (Yuh 2002: 1).
The aftermath of the First World War saw a group of war brides migrating
to the United States from mostly European countries such as Great Britain,
France, and Germany (Zeiger 2010). As these women were foreigners and
exhibited cultural differences from the American way of life, many of these
women have been looked at with disdain and suspicion, as they were regarded
as “loose,” “improper,” and without good morals. Zeiger gives an example
where an army welfare worker assigned to these war brides wrote in her diary
her perceptions of these women. This welfare worker and other staff members
described these women as belonging to a “bad class” of women and abhorred
these war brides’ sense of hygiene (Zeiger 2010: 47). These European war
brides were seen to be “deviant” and not compatible with “American values”
(Zeiger 2010: 60). This sense of “distrust” towards the foreign mirrors the
attitudes of Americans towards immigrants during those years; this was not only
cultural but also gendered, as these women’s “foreignness” was also linked to
sexuality and immorality, thus seen as threatening and dangerous to the moral
fabric of the nation (Zeiger 2010: 62).
The war brides who came in the aftermath of the First World War had to be
acculturated to the American way of life and had to undergo training programs.
“Americanization” and the likelihood of assimilating these foreign brides became
the theme of debates by both liberals and conservatives in the 1920s in the United
States (Zeiger 2010: 56). While these conservative politicians were more pessimistic
about the assimilation of these women to U.S. culture and society, pointing to
cultural differences between these European women and American men, liberals
on the other hand believed assimilation was possible through education, such as
learning the English language (Zeiger 2010: 56–57). This was also the case for
those war brides who came in the aftermath of the Second World War. However,
while the process of acculturation and assimilation was similar to those of the
earlier war brides, a complex issue came in – the “problem” of race – as most of
the war brides that came to the United States during the post-war era were from
Asia, with many of them coming from Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. The project
of acculturating women from different cultures is, in many cases, a challenge;
however, this acculturation/assimilation process may be more diffcult for women
who are perceived to be the “racial Other,” that is, not “white.”
Japanese war brides

In August 1945, anti-fraternization policies were introduced by the US Occupa-
tion Forces in Japan. The Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP)
Circular Number 7, pointed to anti-miscegenation laws in the United States and
the U.S. Immigration Law then, which stated that servicemen would not be
given approval by the Armed Forces to marry Japanese women (Forgash 2009:
220). In the following year in May, SCAP ruled that Americans in Japan should
abide by the Japanese civil code to “establish the legality of marriage” (Forgash
2009: 220). Forgash moreover states that U.S. Immigration Laws at that time
prohibited people with 50% or more “Japanese blood” to enter the United States.
In Japan, the years 1947–1965 were considered to be the period when
the immigration of Japanese war brides to the United States was recorded
(Crawford et al. 2010: xix). While the frst marriage of a Japanese woman
and an American GI was believed to have occurred in April 1946 (Iwasa
2016: 6), it was in 1947 that the frst war bride entered the United States,
and from that time through 1965, it was said that there were around 48,912
Japanese nationals classifed as “Wives of Citizens” who migrated to the
United States (Iwasa 2016: 6). An Uruma Shimpo report, meanwhile, states
that the frst marriage between an Okinawan woman and an American soldier
occurred in August 1947 (Miyanishi 2012: 75). It was only until the passage
of the McCarran-Walter Act in 1952 that Japanese and other Asians were
allowed to immigrate to the United States (Forgash 2009: 220; Yasutomi
2009). Meanwhile, the frst bride to leave for Australia left Japan in June
1952 (Tamura 2011: 13).
According to an article in Scene Magazine, titled “Are War Brides Happy?”
(September 1954, pages 22–23), before any marriages could happen between the
Japanese woman and her American serviceman partner, the latter needed to obtain
permission to marry. This is under the directive of Army Circular Number 40,
wherein he and his fancée needed to review their “reasons and beliefs” with the
Division Chaplain and the Commanding Offcer. In case the decision for marriage
is unchanged, the couple have paperwork to fll out. This includes a signed state-
ment by the soldier that he is able to support his wife in the United States. These
cross-cultural couples should be married frst by a member of the U.S. Consulate,
with three documents at hand: Document of Military Permission, Evidence of
United States Citizenship, and Affdavit of Non-Impediment to Marriage, after
which they receive a notice of marriage from the consul. For the marriage to be
recognized by the Japanese government, the couple have to present the marriage
notifcation and receive a Certifcate of Acceptance from the Japanese government.
They then need to present this certifcate to the U.S. Consulate in order to be
given a “U.S. Certifcate of Witness to Marriage.” A religious ceremony may or
may not follow.
After marriage, these Japanese brides had to attend a “bride school” (Tamura
2011: 13; Crawford et al. 2010: xx) before travelling to their husbands’ countries.
“Education” in these “schools” can take around 6 to 90 days, wherein the
women could learn things such as operating U.S. household equipment, Ameri-
can clothing, make-up, baby care, shopping, among others (“Are War Brides
Happy?” page 23). These “bride schools” were said to have fourished in the
Japanese mainland, Okinawa, and the Philippines up until the end of the 1950s
(Zeiger 2010: 213). Before departing to the United States, these Japanese
women attended classes by the American Red Cross Volunteers that schooled
them on American customs, etiquette, dining, and child care (Crawford et al.
2010: xx). In the case of those women who married Australian men, a bride
school was set up in Kure in Hiroshima in 1953, with lectures given by Australian
staff who worked at the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) (Tamura
2011: 13). These women were taught how to cook specifc dishes, the ways of
Western hygiene, as well as dressing up in an Australian fashion (Tamura 2011:
13). These “bride schools” were put up to train these women to the ways of
their husbands’ countries as well as to acculturate them to a Western mode of
life. They had to be socialized to be American and Australian wives. This was
also the case for Korean “war brides” or “military brides,” who had to be
acculturated to the American way of life that includes learning not only the
language but also American food culture, among other things (Yuh 2002). For
these so-called war brides who migrated to Asia, such as the Philippines, the
existence of these kinds of “bride schools” for these women has not been
recorded and thus can be assumed to not have existed at all.
Images of war brides in Japan

A woman marrying a U.S. serviceman and migrating to her husband’s hometown,
trying to raise her family while happily assimilating into her new society, may
conjure an image worthy enough for romantic flms. This image of a woman falling
in love with an American soldier may evoke nostalgia of earlier intercultural mar-
riages that stood the test of time and place. However, the war bride story is not
at all rosy, and narratives of these women also indicate various levels of hardship
and sacrifces that became part and parcel of their experience(s) of migration.
In Japan, however, Japanese and Okinawan war brides were not seen in a
positive light at all. As a distinct category of Japanese migrants, these so-called
war brides were “associated with the relative poverty and economic deprivation
among the Japanese in the post-war years” (Befu 2002: 11). Befu moreover
states that these women, who mostly worked in and around U.S. military bases,
dreamt of having better lifestyles and economic security, only to experience
several problems – culture shock, their husbands’ low economic status, learning
a new language and culture – when they moved to their husbands’ countries.
The Japanese term sensō hanayome is used to call these women who left for
their husbands’ countries after the Second World War (Tamura 2011: xv). These
women, however, were despicably seen as “those who married the enemy and
left the country during diffcult times”5 (Yasutomi 2009: 151). They were
equated with being prostitutes (panpan), base girls (kichi no onna), and a
streetwalker (yoru no onna) (Yasutomi 2009: 160). Women who dated and
married American GIs were stereotyped as women who sold their bodies to
American soldiers during the Occupation Period (Forgash 2009: 221). Kanazawa
(2018), in her work on Japanese war brides of New Zealand men (who were
stationed in Japan between 1946 and 1948), also said that the women were
seen with “disgust” (Kanazawa 2018: 150).6 In the Japanese media, it was said
that these women were described as “so-called war brides (iwayuru sensō hanay-
ome)” to separate a woman from the “stigma” attached to the term “war bride”
(Tamura 2011: 64). This was the prevailing image during the post-war years
among the Japanese public, where Americans were seen as the former enemy
and the current occupiers of the defeated country. The Japanese also pretty
much frowned upon these intermarriages due to conservative attitudes towards
miscegenation during this time (Iwasa 2016: 2). Iwasa further argues that these
women were “Othered” in post-war Japan up until the 1970s in various kinds
of media. They were seen as “deviant” for getting into relationships with people
of other cultures and races.
These kinds of relationships were also not fully accepted by the families of
these women, with their parents and immediate family members expressing strong
objections, with some parents even disowning their daughters for entering into
a relationship with a non-Japanese (Storrs 2000: 199; Kanazawa 2018: 150).
This reality was also mirrored by the Okinawan women in this study, where
marriage to a non-Okinawan (i.e. a Filipino) has been frowned upon by several
of these women’s immediate families, prompting some of them to elope with
their partners, while others were disowned by their parents and families. Due
perhaps to this negative image that has been attached to these “war brides,”
these Okinawan brides of Filipinos never referred to themselves as war brides or
sensō hanayome but rather as issei (frst-generation migrant). This is in contrast
to Japanese/Okinawan war brides in the United States, who have maintained
for themselves an identity as “war brides” and consider themselves as a “distinct
category” of Nikkei or people of Japanese descent (Befu 2002: 12). The Okinawan
women whom I encountered in both the Philippines and Okinawa identify
themselves as issei, which they used to distinguish themselves from other Japanese/
Okinawan women who do not share the same migration stories they have.
War brides in the Global South

While much of the post-war war bride literature looked at mostly Asian women
married to U.S. and Australian servicemen, not much attention has been given
to those who chose to be married to TCNs who worked on military installations
of the occupying army (in this case, the United States). These women had
similar experiences as those war brides who moved with their husbands to the
United States and Australia, albeit not necessarily experiencing a more “orga-
nized” form of migration and acculturation in the host country. These TCNs
have worked mainly on U.S. military bases in Asia, particularly in Japan (and
Okinawa) and Korea. Most of these TCNs were males and were from the
Philippines; however, other countries’ nationals were also recruited to work on
the construction and the maintenance of these military installations (Zulueta
2020). These Filipino men, much like their American and Australian counterparts,
cohabited and married local women – Japanese, Okinawan, and Korean – whom
they met during their sojourn in these countries (see Kutsumi 2007 for the
Korean case). These women happened to be working in and/or around these
military bases. Not overlooking agency in this regard, I argue that these Asian
“war brides” voluntarily chose to marry these Filipino TCNs. However, the fact
that these kinds of marriages were also a product of the war, the socio-economic
and geopolitical conditions of this period also infuenced their decision to enter
into these international marriages. Thus, this book takes on a life-course approach
to understand the war bride phenomenon by looking at both structure and
agency in this particular migration trajectory. Furthermore, this book aims to
fll in the gaps in the war bride literature as Japanese/Okinawan war brides who
migrated and lived (and continue to live) in the Philippines have not received
much attention in the literature.
Whereas most of these Okinawan women married civilian workers who worked
on the construction as well as the staffng of these military bases, there are also
those who married Filipino soldiers (i.e. the Philippine Scouts) and professionals.
As earlier mentioned, this phenomenon of Okinawan war brides marrying Filipino
base workers during the American Occupation has not been given much attention
in the literature except for works by Ohno (1991), Maehara (2001), Hosoda
(2010), and Zulueta (2014, 2016, 2017). Ohno, writing in Japanese, refers to
these women as sensō hanayome, which is the Japanese translation of “war
brides.” This seems to be appropriate since these women married in the context
of military occupation as a result and aftermath of the Second World War. The
category of “war brides” has been used as well to classify these women who
married under these circumstances, as I pointed out earlier in this chapter.
Interestingly, Hosoda (2010) uses the term Okinawa ūman or “Okinawan
woman” to describe these women, apparently distinguishing them from the female
Japanese migrants – most of them shashin hanayome or picture brides or yobiyose
migrants (migrants who were “called” to join their families) – who originally
came from mainland Japan. When I visited the Philippine Nikkeijin-kai, an orga-
nization of Japanese descendants in the Philippines based in Davao, in the Southern
Philippines, back in 2012, the people working there also call these women
“Okinawan woman,” refecting the term Hosoda uses in her work. Likewise, the
Philippine Nikkeijin Legal Support Centre (PNLSC) calls these women “Okinawa
ūman.” This form of identifcation, though, paints a picture of these women as
anonymous and just an invisible part of a (sub)group and tends to occlude their
agency in the migration process. They were also seen as distinct from the women
coming from the Japanese mainland, indicating them as “Other” to the Japanese,
thus emphasizing their “difference.” It is no surprise that Okinawans were dis-
tinguished from the mainland Japanese in the host country or the place of
migration, as these migrants tend to have identifed themselves as either from the
mainland or from Okinawa, with some mainland Japanese discriminating against
the Okinawans due to their customs and behaviour (Kerr 2000; Adachi 2006).
Nevertheless, these Okinawan women in this study never identifed themselves
as sensō hanayome or Okinawa ūman to me. Rather, they call themselves issei.
This was also seen in the work of Maehara (2001) on these women, where she
referred to them as issei. The POS, an association of overseas Okinawans and
people with Okinawan ancestry, also uses the term issei to refer to this group
of women. I also choose to call these women as such. Calling them issei points
to their migration process(es) and their experiences of migration, as well as their
roles as active agents in the reproduction and transmission of culture. Conversely,
“war brides” paint them as victims of circumstance(s), and “Okinawa ūman”
indicates what I call “gendered anonymity,” wherein the term seemingly fails
to see beyond her person and the stories she could tell.
In this book, I describe how these women have gone from being “war brides”
to being frst-generation migrants or issei (hereunto to be written in a non-
italicized proper-noun form, Issei, and will also be used to indicate both singular
and plural forms), by looking at the role they have played and continue to play
in the creation of a particular group of female migrants as well as in the transmis-
sion and transposition of Okinawan culture and identity in their host society. I
give notice as well to the choices they made at various points in their lives – from
their marriage to a non-Okinawan, to their migration to the Philippines, to their
adaptation and assimilation into Philippine society, to raising their families, to
the decision to return to Okinawa or stay in their adopted country, to the deci-
sions they will make or have made in the twilight of their years – that include
death and burial, among others. Thus, a life-course approach in looking into the
lives of these Issei – who currently are in their late 70s to 80s – would be a
novel approach in problematizing the migration trajectories and life transitions
of this particular category of female migrants since this perspective recognizes
individual lives as embedded in structural processes as well as in historical events.
Towards a life-course approach in analysing war
bride migration
There is no denying that the life-course approach or the life-course perspective
is an effective and important tool in analysing social science research particularly
in how it emphasizes micro- and macro-level processes in linking the dynamics
of structure and agency. However, in studies of migration, the life-course
perspective has not garnered much attention as a method and as a framework,
despite the pioneering work by Thomas and Znaniecki (1918–1920), The Polish
Peasant in Europe and America, which is a classic sociological text as well as
one of the more important works on the history of immigration to the United
States. This book largely applies a life-course approach in problematizing Polish
migration to the United States by looking at relations between the individual
migrants and their host society in order to explain social change. Nevertheless,
most current work on migration does not refect a life-course perspective, and
while recently some works look at “linked lives” and the role of family and
networks in facilitating migration, the “limited” use of the life-course approach
can be surprising (Wingens et al. 2011: 2). The life-course approach to studying
migration looks at the dynamic interplay of “societal structuring and institutional
framing of migrants’ life courses” (Wingens et al. 2011: 2). Comprehending
migrant behaviour and the results of their actions, as well as migrant integration,
which are embedded in societal processes and institutional frameworks, demands
a research approach that is alluded to in the life-course perspective.
Scholars using the life-course perspective assume that (1) individual lives are
embedded in and shaped by historical events, (2) individuals have agency and
are able to “construct” their lives based on their own choices but “within the
constraints of historical and social circumstance,” (3) people’s lives are interlinked
through social relationships, and (4) the meaning of a “life transition” is dependent
on when it occurs (Carr 2011). The life-course approach in sociology focuses
on the “complex interplay between biographical actors and the institutional
arrangements by which societies structure life-course” (Wingens et al. 2011: 4).
Wingens et al. comprehensively talk about the life-course perspective thus:
Relating individuals’ life courses in their timing, pacing, and sequencing of

life events (micro-level) to the dynamics of social structures and institutions
(macro-/meso-level) is a central idea of the sociological life course approach.
Changing societal structures and conditions affect, via institutional regula-
tions, life course patterns and biographical plans and in turn changing life
courses affect the economic, political, social, and cultural situation and the
institutional regime of a society. Thus, the interplay of structure and agency
over time is at the heart of the sociological life course approach.
(Wingens et al. 2011: 6)
The life course, moreover, can be seen as a “sequence of age-linked transitions

that are embedded in social institutions and history” (Bengston et al. 2005:
493; cited by Percival 2013: 8). Bengston et al. (2005) state the following as
defning the life course: (1) “linked lives,” which point to the kinship bonds
across generations; (2) “time and place,” which refers to the historical and social
contexts that shape lives; (3) “transitions and their timing,” which looks at
adaptations according to life stages; (4) “agency,” which is the “construction
of life through planned effort”; and (5) “life-long human development,” which
is experiences of continuity and change based on earlier experiences.
The signifcance of the life-course approach in studies of migration and migrant
behaviour is that it sees the role played by historical events on an individual’s
life, as well as “time” or “timing” of events in a person’s life that shape the
choices they make. Life-course trajectories are also diverse and refect differences
according to gender, class, and ethnicity. Men’s and women’s life courses differ.
For instance, in a study on men and women in the United States and their life
course following high school graduation in the 1970s, it was found that men’s
life courses are more rigid and rooted outside the family while women’s lives
are very much entwined into the realm of the family (Hutchison 2011: 30).
This is also true for migration experiences and how men’s and women’s experi-
ences of migration vary according to both social and familial expectations, as
well as their interpersonal relationships that are infuenced by socio-historical
events and time. The life course is also signifcant in considering the motivations
of migration and return migration in later life, such as the case of several of
these Okinawan war brides who returned to their birthplace in their older years.
Old age marks several changes in a person’s life, such as changes in family
relationships, sickness, loss of memory, death of a family member, as well as
concerns regarding the migrant’s end-of-life decisions. To understand migration
in later life, it is said that “longitudinal, biographical, or life-course perspectives”
are required (Warnes and Williams 2006: 1257).
There have also been very few studies on the return migration of older
migrants. Reasons for return migration vary from economic, to historical, and
to socio-cultural factors. Return migration is defned as the “movement of
emigrants back to their homelands to resettle” (Gmelch 1980: 136). This move
back to the country of origin somehow points to an end of the migrant’s trajec-
tory. However, Cassarino (2004) states that return should not be viewed as “an
end in the migration cycle” since it “constitutes one stage in the migration
process” (Cassarino 2004: 268). This is in contrast to earlier theories on return
migration where this kind of movement was seen as fxed and that the return
was due to one’s failure in the host country (neoclassical economic theory of
migration) or the migrant’s success in achieving his/her objective for migrating
(new economics of labour migration). On the other hand, theories on transna-
tionalism and social network theories view return migration as not fxed and,
as such, is just a step in the whole project of migration (Cassarino 2004: 269).
For older migrants, many of whom migrated when they were much younger
and who had aged in place in the host country, return goes beyond economic
reasons and may be tied to other factors such as family and kinship ties, retire-
ment, end-of-life and death, among others. Those who migrated in their younger
years and have aged in the place of migration have an experience of “transnational
identity formation,” which can involve a sense of belongingness and perception
of home that is “permeable” rather than “physical and localized,” and thus
home becomes more of an ambiguity (Percival 2013: 4).
Thus, I argue that a life-course perspective will provide the tools needed to
understand these Okinawan war brides’ migration trajectories and experiences
as located in historical time, as well as how their own choices and decisions that
they made as migrants and returnees can also enable us to understand larger
structural issues and events.
Meaningful encounters: notes on methodology

The impetus for this study could be traced back to September 2009, when I became
acquainted with several older Okinawan women parishioners of Oroku Catholic
Church in Naha when I was on feldwork for my doctoral research on base workers
(see Zulueta 2020). These women have had similar life stories – they lived much
of their lives in the Philippines as wives of Filipino men whom they met in Okinawa
during the immediate post-war years. These women have returned to Okinawa for
varying reasons, most of them returned at an advanced age, and most of them are
widows. I have heard some of their stories from their children, but their children
told me that their mothers were tight-lipped about their lives and their past and they
themselves barely know much about their mothers’ lives. I, myself, experienced this
when I tried to ask these women about their lives in Okinawa before they met their
Filipino husbands. Ohno (1991), in his seminal work on the Japanese in the Philip-
pines, also spoke of this diffculty talking to these Okinawan women who settled
in the Philippines. Perhaps this was because of a past that these women chose not
to remember and chose to bury instead. Ohno mentioned that some of these
women have worked as hostesses in bars that surrounded U.S. military bases during
the immediate post-war years when they met their Filipino husbands (Ohno 1991:
228–229). This fact was also relayed to me by Mr Yagi Tsunekazu, one of the
founders of the POS, about which I will talk more in Chapter 3. This is probably
one of the reasons why these women chose to keep their past lives hidden. Mr Yagi
once told me that some Issei were hesitant about being interviewed since they
wanted to hide their past and not share it with an outsider like me. Some of these
women, though, were more open, but their stories are not quite known outside
the confnes of their family relations and their small communities.
I frst spoke to three of these “war brides” – who choose to call themselves
Issei – back in 2009 through a group interview, where they shared with me
their lives, mostly focusing on their migration to the Philippines and their
experiences there as foreign wives. I spoke to them mainly in Japanese, even
though some of them knew some Philippine languages such as Tagalog, one of
the main languages spoken in the country. They told me that they preferred
speaking in Japanese and were quite relieved that I could speak the language.
These three women are returnees, and their stories helped me to frame my
understanding of return migration from the perspective of gender and home.
When I decided to embark on a more in-depth study about these women, I
decided to utilize ethnographic methods in order for me to learn more about
this small community of Issei returnees. This was also in consideration of the
fact that not all of them would want to be interviewed. Interviews and participant
observation comprise the core of most ethnographic research (Madison 2012:
28). I utilized both in the course of my research. The interviews were mostly
semi-structured, and I initially focused on building rapport within the frst few
minutes of the interviews. I believe that it is essential for the interviewer to
properly frame the questions as well as be engaged in the interview – what may
be called “active listening” or “sympathetic listening” (Madison 2012: 40).
Participant observation was mainly in order for me to observe the group dynamics
of the Issei at church, as well as the other parishioners.
Ethnographic research is “often multilingual,” with researchers working in
two or more languages (Gibb and Danero Iglesias 2017: 134). Having the
necessary language skills is important for a researcher to “fully understand social
interaction and the meanings attached to actions by participants in a particular
setting” (Gibb and Danero Iglesias 2017: 135). For this research, I chose to
do my ethnographic study at Oroku Catholic Church, which has a signifcant
number of Issei returnee parishioners. Seven to ten Issei parishioners (based on
who regularly attended Sunday masses) may not be large a number, but of all
the Catholic parishes in Naha, this church has comparatively the greatest number
of Issei parishioners. These women’s families also belong to this small church
community, so I became acquainted with their children and grandchildren. Some
of the information I gathered and included in this book is based on my con-
versations with these women’s children, the nisei (second generation), and their
grandchildren (the third generation or the sansei).
Wanting to immerse myself into the Oroku Church community, as well as
observe how the Issei involve themselves in various church activities, I decided
to join them in visiting patients at some elderly people’s facilities. The visits are
mainly done to administer the Sacrament of the Sick to the patients. This was
back in March 2010. In my subsequent travels to and temporary sojourn in
Okinawa in 2011–2013, while engaged in participant observation, I attended
Wednesday masses and the bible-sharing sessions that followed, in addition to
regular Sunday morning masses. I occasionally attended Saturday masses as well.
I volunteered to help in some church activities so that I would be more familiar
with the lives of these Issei parishioners. This also helped me to position myself
as part of the community, albeit a temporary presence, since the parishioners
know that I am a researcher based in Tokyo. In the course of my sporadic trips
to the island between 2014 and 2018, I also made sure to visit these women
during Sunday morning masses. During those times, I was welcomed by the
small church community there, and despite not having visited much more often
than in previous years, I believe I have formed a bond with them and became
a “part” of their community, with people saying “okaeri nasai (welcome home).”
I was also included to be part of the Church’s Facebook page, which enabled
me to keep track of news about its community.
I also spoke to some Issei who chose to live their whole lives in the Philippines
in 2012, and their stories are featured in Chapter 3. As I am acquainted with
their children (many of whom I had known since 2003 when I started visiting
the POS) I was given an opportunity to interview them. These women’s children
have shared with me stories about their mothers as well as concerns that their
mothers have had, living as foreigners in the Philippines. These narratives also
frame many of the themes I explored in this book.
Conducting research on the Japanese, or in this case, on Okinawan people,
as a non-Japanese/Okinawan, brought up challenges and uncertainties with
regard to conducting interviews in a third language. Issues of fuency and
competence (Am I fuent enough? Did I correctly understand what was said?)
hounded me as I had to double-check my feld notes that were written in both
English and Japanese (Were there things lost in translation?). Translanguaging
(Gibb and Danero Iglesias 2017), or moving back and forth between languages
while I wrote my feld notes, proved to be a challenge as I navigated both the
Japanese and English languages. While my interviews were recorded and tran-
scribed in Japanese, I had to translate them into English when I wrote articles,
as well as for this book. Much of my translation was based on my knowledge
and understanding of the language, with the aid of an electronic dictionary,
which I always carried during feldwork. How one’s knowledge (or extent of
knowledge) of the language (or lack thereof ), I believe, affects the research
process.
Apart from the aforementioned methods I employed, I also referred to histori-
cal records and archival data I gathered from the Okinawa Prefectural Archives
in Naha City. These documents ranged from declassifed documents on the
American Occupation of the prefecture to those related to the United States
Civil Administration of the Ryukus (USCAR), as well as the labour cards of
Okinawan women who worked on base or were engaged in base-related work
during the Occupation Period. I also examined magazines and similar documents
to understand the war bride phenomenon in the prefecture.
The book
This book traces the journey of these so-called Okinawan war brides from the
immediate post-war years to the present. Already at an advanced stage in their
lives, their stories of migration give us a glimpse of the choices made by women
migrants who chose to enter into intercultural marriages and migrate to a
country that is socially, culturally, and linguistically different from their own.
These women’s stories enlighten readers to the realities of war and confict, as
well as to the diffculties of living in a strange land that in turn shaped their
experiences of migration and their sense of belonging. Utilizing a life-course
approach, this book examines how these women navigated their life paths and
transitions from their lives in Okinawa, and their experience of the Second World
War and the American Occupation that immediately came after Japan’s defeat.
This monograph also investigates the intercultural marriages these women
entered into, their migration and their lives in the Philippines, their return to
their natal homeland, and their end-of-life decisions. Here, I also consider how
these women crafted their own identities as frst-generation migrants or Issei
in the Philippines and as returnees in Okinawa. Looking at several paths that
these women tread throughout their lives, I offer the reader a glimpse of how
these women migrants embody the interplay of structure and agency at various
points of their life experiences, illustrating C. Wright Mills’ oft-quoted “neither
the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without
understanding both” (Mills 1959: 3).
In the next chapter, “Memories of war and its aftermath: the Battle of Okinawa
and the American Occupation,” I give a short history of the Battle of Okinawa,
interspersed with the story of an older woman “war bride” who shared to me
her memories of war and migration. This chapter provides a history of the
Second World War in Japan and Okinawa and the subsequent occupation of
the Allied Forces that lasted 20 more years in Okinawa (1945–1972). I also
discuss here the intermarriages that occurred between Okinawan women and
Filipino TCNs during the immediate post-war years.
The third chapter is titled “Okinawan women’s journey to the Philippines.”
Here, I give a history of Okinawan women’s post-war migration to the Philip-
pines, as wives of Filipino TCNs stationed in Okinawa. I also address the
often-overlooked topic of Okinawan migration to the Philippines during the
immediate post-war years and how this particular migration was mostly feminized
and situated in the context of post-war U.S. imperialism and Cold War Politics,
as well as Japan’s defeat. Here, I also examine these Okinawan women’s lives
upon their migration to the Philippines. Starting with a discussion on how these
women lived their lives as “Haponesa” (Japanese woman) in the Philippines and
with their varied experiences of discrimination, inclusion, and exclusion in
Philippine society during the immediate post-war years, I also explain the use
of the term “Issei” – the identity marker they use to refer to themselves – to
identify these women, rather than calling them “war brides” (sensō hanayome)
or Okinawan Woman (Okinawa Ūman) as used in some of the scant literature
written on this particular group of female migrants. I also argue that Issei, as
an identity marker, has indicated these women’s signifcant role as transmitters
of culture through their migrant experience(s). I then look at some of the Issei
who chose to remain in the Philippines up to this day through narrating some
of their stories, while examining their decision to stay and raise their children
in their husbands’ natal country.
Decades after living in the Philippines, many of these women returned to
Okinawa. This return migration started in the 1970s. In Chapter 4, “Homecom-
ings: the return to Okinawa,” I look at these women’s reasons for their return
to their natal homeland, as well as the adjustments they had to do to re-
incorporate themselves in Okinawan society. I include here stories of the Issei
who chose to return and settle in Okinawa in their twilight years. I also look
into the role of the Catholic Church in Okinawa, specifcally Oroku Catholic
Church, in forging the identities of Issei returnees, as well as Catholicism’s
signifcance in the lives of these women and in their sense of belonging. Here,
I also look at the concept of “home” in relation to the return migration process
and argue that home is not at all fxed but is rather tied to notions of identity
and belongingness. Perceptions of “home” are not only tied to the material but
also linked to the subjective.
For people in their advanced years, questions about the future and the end-
of-life become much more signifcant as part of their decision-making in the
life course. For migrants at this stage in their lives, these issues become more
signifcant especially as migration (and return) – which may be either permanent
or temporary – may present a disruption(s) in one’s life and reveal changing
perceptions with regard to their identities and sense of belongingness. In
Chapter 5, “Migration and the end-of-life: when death becomes her question,”
I look at the issue of death and end-of-life decision-making in the lives of these
women and how death is related to their own perceptions of where and what
home is. I examine how these Issei are both bound and unbound by tradition
and how choices regarding death and dying are infuenced not only by ethnicity
and gender but also by religion, family, and their migration experiences. Death
is part and parcel of the lived experience of migration and reveals several issues
that talk about not only the individual’s experience in the life-course but also
how socio-political factors, culture and tradition, gender, class, and ethnicity
intersect and are intertwined in end-of-life decision-making in the context of
migration.
Apart from providing the conclusion to this book, the fnal chapter, “War
brides and the life course: a conclusion,” investigates how stories by women,
most particularly from those who migrated as so-called war brides, can re-frame
the story of migration to the Global South through examining the case of
Okinawan war bride migration that occurred in the immediate post-war years.
This case also re-locates Okinawa beyond the U.S.-Japan nexus that characterizes
most studies related to Okinawa, situating it rather vis-à-vis the Japanese mainland
and Southeast Asia. I emphasize, in this chapter, the importance of utilizing a
life-course perspective in understanding migratory behaviour and how migration
at different parts of an individual’s life can provide us a greater grasp of socio-
historical events. Moreover, this particular case also links the phenomenon of
marriage migration to contemporary issues such as elderly return migration and
ageing as examined using the life-course approach that situates individual stories
in larger processes of social and historical change. This book is also a signifcant
contribution to studies about migration, women, transnational marriages, fami-
lies, life cycles, and identities.
Notes
1 All names appearing here in this book are pseudonyms.
2 I personally met Fumiko’s daughter and son-in-law, who became my church
friends whenever I visited Oroku Catholic Church on my trips to Okinawa. They
once invited me to their house for lunch, and they spoke to me about their
decision to live and work in Okinawa. Years later, I ran into Fumiko’s daughter
in one of my visits to Okinawa, and she told me that her husband succumbed to
cancer a few years back.
3 Tagalog is the language used in the National Capital Region (NCR) that includes
Metro Manila, as well as in nearby provinces that comprise the Southern Tagalog
region.
4 I write Japanese/Okinawan with a slash between the two nouns to indicate that
some people (including academics) categorize Okinawan people under Japanese,
while others choose to separate the two.
5 My translation. The Japanese text reads: “mazushī jidai ni kuni wo sutete tekikokujin
to kekkonshita mono.”
6 Around 12,000 servicemen from New Zealand were sent to Japan between March
1946 and November 1948. There were also marriages that occurred between
Japanese women and Kiwi men (see Kanazawa 2018).
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2 Memories of war and its
aftermath
The Battle of Okinawa and the
American Occupation
Katsuko’s memories
“Watashi no takaramono (my treasure)” – words that evoked nostalgia and smiles
from Katsuko1 as she spoke about the time when she saw again her old, tattered
monpe2 neatly folded inside her kimono in a drawer of her bureau in the family’s
old house in Naha when she returned there in the 1980s for a short visit. She told
me how she had sewn her own name on it so that if ever something happened to
her during the Second World War, the monpe would help identify who she was.
Smiling – although hidden beneath those smiles and chuckles were probably painful
memories that could be left hidden but chose to share instead – she told me how
seeing her old monpe brought back memories of the war and the hardship that she
encountered then. This was her “takaramono (treasure),” along with the umbilical
cords of each of her eleven children which she keeps to this day – one that binds
a mother to her children and continues to evoke nostalgic memories of her life as
a mother and as an Okinawan woman in the Philippines. It is said that objects
enable humans to experience memory (Jones 2007: 22). This is due to the “physi-
cality” of material culture, in this case, Katsuko’s monpe, that these kinds of objects
become a means of “presencing past events to the senses” (Jones 2007: 24). Seeing
her tattered monpe again after several decades reminded Katsuko of her experiences
of the War that many of her contemporaries did not desire to remember.
Katsuko’s story is one of the many stories that Okinawan women migrants
to the Philippines – both those who settled there and continue to live there,
as well as those who decided to return to Okinawa – share. While Katsuko’s
story is solely hers to own, it can also be said to “illustrate the fate of all women
in the social upheaval of emigration” (Morris 1995: 152). Migrating to the
Philippines in the immediate post-war years, these women experienced moving
to a country at a time when local sentiments against the Japanese were intense,
with Okinawans considered to be no different from the Japanese. For most of
these women, assimilation was one of the ways to hide their identities as well
as a strategy for them to be able to survive in a country that was culturally,
linguistically, and socially alien to them. Assimilation was a given choice for
them, albeit the only option for these women who were geographically dispersed
from each other in their host country.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003100027-2
Memories of war and its aftermath 21
Memory(ies) is selected and transformed in migration. What one remembers
and thus conveys to another is not only tantamount to what one’s memory
allows us to remember, but memory and the act of remembering are social acts
and thus are (carefully) chosen and transmitted. Movement does not only
produce but also shape the concept of memory (Zangl 2014: 53). Those that
are remembered are infuenced by experiences that are not only socially con-
structed but also gendered. McDowell states that “what a culture remembers
and what it chooses to forget are intricately bound up with issues of power and
hegemony, and thus with gender” (McDowell 2004: 703). Thus, it can be said
that remembering (as an act, as compared to memory as a noun) is itself a
gendered activity and is a product of “gendered social locations and of those
collectively organized fantasies and beliefs about gender that dynamically shape
what aspects of the past are likely to be preserved” (Haaken 1998: 12). It
should also be noted here that memories are also shaped by race and ethnicity,
in that particular ethnic groups’ lived experiences and their memories of these
may be specifc to their own group.
In this chapter, I talk about the Battle of Okinawa from the eyes of one of
these “war brides” who generously shared with me her experiences of the War.
Back in October 2012, I was talking to Katsuko about the Battle of Okinawa
that occurred in the latter part of the Second World War, and she spoke of
what she experienced and felt during those tumultuous times. She said that she
had “nothing to be ashamed of ” and that she hopes many people would know
what had happened during that period. Katsuko also requested for my help in
realizing her wish for many to be informed of the hardships the Okinawans
experienced during the War. Several months after that interview in 2012, she
gave me a copy of a magazine where her story appeared – it was a written
account of her experience during the Battle of Okinawa. She asked me to
translate the text into English and share them with her grandchildren. Before
the publication of this magazine, she also told me that she talked about her
experience at a town hall in Naha City. Her narrative in that article also informed
parts of what is written in this chapter. In the succeeding paragraphs, I recount
Katsuko’s story and her war experiences, while bringing to light Okinawa’s
plight as a battleground during one of the most devastating wars of the 20th
century. War memories do not only tell of traumatic events. These kinds of
memories are also chosen. In the process of re-telling these, one chooses to
paint herself as either a victim or a victor. Katsuko clearly portrayed herself as
the latter.
Through a woman’s eyes: the Battle of Okinawa

Located between the southern island of Kyushu in Japan and the northern
islands of the Philippine archipelago, the Kingdom of the Ryukyus was an
independent kingdom before it was subjugated by the Satusma fef of Kyushu
in Southern Japan in 1609. It eventually became a prefecture, now known as
Okinawa, in 1879 (Kerr 2000). Historians spoke of how Okinawan traditions
22 Memories of war and its aftermath
and cultural practices were at frst maintained by the Meiji government from
1879 to 1895, and this was known as the kyūkan onzon jidai or the period
when Ryukyuan customs were preserved (Hanazaki 1996: 121; Taira 1997:
155–156). However, the government changed its policies and strongly discour-
aged the practice of old customs, to the extent that even speaking in an Okinawan
language(s) was prohibited. One illustrative case of this were the so-called dialect
cards or the hōgen fuda that students were made to wear around their necks if
they were caught speaking in an Okinawan language. Tomiyama (1990) argues
that these policies were put in place to make the Okinawans “Japanese” (Tomi-
yama 1990). Therefore, the Okinawans had to undergo a process of “moderniza-
tion” in order to become “Japanese.” Thus, traits and customs deemed
“primitive” had to be “eradicated” and transformed into those considered to
be “modern” (Tomiyama 1990: 3–5). Despite efforts for assimilation into the
Japanese national polity, Okinawans continue to be regarded as culturally and
ethnically distinct from the Japanese, hence Okinawa’s ambivalent relationship
with the Japanese mainland. Many among them “feel consigned to an inferior
status owing to their experience of the Battle of Okinawa and the continuing
presence of the US military in their prefecture” (Zulueta 2021: 1). During the
Second World War, it was one of the places that had the most civilian casualties
that numbered up to around 150,000 to 200,000 and is the only place in Japan
that was occupied by the American military for 20 more years after the mainland
was granted independence in 1952. Called the Battle of Okinawa, this event
was one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacifc War. Okinawa was Japan’s last
line of defence before its defeat (Lie 2001: 99). It has also been largely said
that Japan had sacrifced Okinawa to spare the mainland from further destruction
during the War, for which the Okinawans felt betrayed.
The Battle of Okinawa was said to have started on 1 April 1945 and ended
over 2 months later, on 23 June 1945. The 23rd of June is annually observed
by Okinawans as Irei no Hi or Okinawa Memorial Day, which commemorates
the end of the Battle of Okinawa. While most historical accounts in both Japanese
and English mark the start of the Battle of Okinawa on 1 April 1945 when
American troops frst landed on the main island of Okinawa, the late University
of the Ryukyus Emeritus Professor, and former governor of Okinawa, Ota
Masahide argues that this is “incorrect,” since U.S. troops landed on the Kerama
Islands just off the Okinawan main island on 6 March 1945 (Ota 2014: xv).
Ota further argues in his introduction to the book, Descent into Hell, which is
a translated account of civilian war memories of the Battle of Okinawa, that
more than 700 residents of the islands were “directly or indirectly driven by
the Japanese military to take their own lives” (Ota 2014: xv). Thus, this event
was the frst military action that marked the start of the Okinawan campaign.
The Battle of Okinawa was intensely etched in many Okinawans’ minds,
especially for those who experienced the War frst-hand. Reports and memoirs
of the war spoke of how families were separated, how young girls had to sacrifce
their lives working as nurses in the frontlines (i.e. Himeyuri Corps),3 how parents
and family members had to kill each other so as not to be captured by the
Americans as the latter were considered the enemy, and to be captured by the
enemy is not “honourable.” The War left Okinawa in ruins and devastated
countless of lives. One of those lives that were greatly affected by the Battle of
Okinawa was Katsuko’s.
Katsuko was born on 15 August 1931 in Azabu Uebaru, Oroku-son, now
known as the Oroku district in Naha. The eldest of eight siblings, she was born
during the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Her father was recruited into the
Japanese Imperial Army and sent to China, where he was wounded and had to
be taken to Kumamoto Hospital in Southern Japan for treatment. She was in
the second grade of elementary school when her father returned to Okinawa.
Katsuko recalled that in 1941, there were many troops coming from the
Japanese mainland who came to Okinawa, and among these a battalion com-
posed of around 12 soldiers from Hokkaido entered their home. Like many
Japanese during that time, she believed that going to war was for the sake of
patriotism towards one’s country and that each citizen should contribute to
ensure Japan’s victory. “It’s for the sake of the country, people thought, so
everyone was saying ‘win!’ ‘win!’,”4 she said. As historical documents (such as
the 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education or Kyōiku Chokugo) and academic
writings show (see Wray 1973; Hoffman 1999), this belief was tied to govern-
ment indoctrination that started during the Meiji Period (1898–1912). This
kind of “moral education” through textbooks was used to “indoctrinate” its
citizens with “the attitudes and ethics that its government believed were essential
to cope with the world” during the wartime years from 1941 to 1945 (Wray
1973: 70).
Living through the War was obviously not an easy time for Katsuko’s family,
but it was during the Battle of Okinawa that her family was divided – her father
was recruited to the Okinawa Defence Corps, her mother and other siblings
evacuated Uebaru and sought refuge in Nago in the northern part of the island,
while she was left in Naha to take care of her great grandmother who was then
94 years old. She said that she did not want her family to be divided, but a
war was ongoing, so there was nothing she could do. Nevertheless, she feels
that she and her family were lucky to have survived the war. “I was very for-
tunate,”5 she shared.
Forced to move to different places, Katsuko witnessed the deaths of many
people – women, children, and soldiers among them. She remembers that the
soldiers were calling out the names of their wives, mothers (in the case of young
soldiers), and lovers before they breathed their last but never did she hear “long
live the emperor!”6 being called out. A young girl of thirteen during this time,
Katsuko said that she saw American war planes dropping bombs indiscriminately,
witnessed people including close family members being killed and burnt to
death, how people around her thought of committing suicide, how the family
in the cave next to where she was hiding was gassed by the Occupation forces
and that nobody inside survived – everyday indeed was a fght for survival.
Katsuko’s story and experience of the Battle of Okinawa is one of the many
stories of ordinary people that are left unheard and unspoken, with many of
these memories buried along with those who perished, and forever hidden with
those who refuse to speak. More so, her story represents the stories of ordinary
women and their experiences of war, which, more often than not, are gendered,
sexualized, racialized, and ethnicized. Being the eldest child in her family, she
also talked about the sacrifces she did for the sake of her family during the
American Occupation, especially the times when she was asked by her kin to
quit school to earn for her family’s upkeep and to take care of her mother who
caught malaria:
At that time, really, I was crying, thinking that I should have died during
the war, but there was nothing I could do.7
For many of these Okinawan women migrants and returnees, talking about their
childhood and early years in Okinawa brought back painful memories of the
Battle of Okinawa; thus, they choose not to talk about their lives then. For her
part, Katsuko said that with what she experienced during the War and during
the years that came after that “there were almost no pleasant memories.”8 This
was also the sentiment shared by her contemporaries as they remained tight-
lipped about their childhood in Okinawa during the War. On the contrary, these
women were very much open about their migration experiences and their lives
in the Philippines, with several of them talking about how they found “home”
there. It is as if their experiences in the Philippines are stories of “moving
forward,” since many of them may have had diffculty telling or re-telling their
stories, particularly if they must remember and re-articulate traumatic events
(McDowell 2004: 708). To these women, remembering traumatic experiences
such as the Battle of Okinawa does not only refect gendered experiences, as
men and women go through these kinds of conficts differently. Rather, the
re-telling of these stories itself speaks a lot about how women (choose to)
remember and (choose to) convey what they remember.
When they came: the American Occupation of Okinawa

With Japan’s defeat and the subsequent occupation of the country by the Allied
Forces, the American Occupation Army began setting up military bases in the
country, with most of them concentrated on the main island of Okinawa. The
United States Forces occupied Okinawa from 1945 up until 1972, 20 more
years longer after the Occupation of mainland Japan ended in 1952. During
this period, the United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyus (USCAR)
employed an auxiliary military unit for reconstruction and security efforts. This
auxiliary unit was made up of Philippine Scouts who replaced the 1st Amphibious
Truck Company that was composed of African-Americans who were redeployed
to Osaka due to complaints against them (Yu-Jose 2002: 117). The Philippine
Scouts were, however, no different from the previous group they replaced, as
there were also complaints against the reported abuses these Filipino soldiers
committed. It was even said that these Philippine Scouts were more “dangerous”
than the African-American soldiers that they replaced (Shimabuku 2019: 50).
Hence, they were made to return to the Philippines after serving for only 2
years and 4 months (Tobaru 1998: 31; Yu-Jose 2002: 110). The construction
and staffng of these military bases on the island of Okinawa likewise necessitated
the assistance of Third Country Nationals or TCNs as well as local nationals or
LNs (Zulueta 2020). LNs were people hired from the host country/society, in
this case, Okinawa, while TCNs were made up of a myriad group of people
that included Filipinos, Indians, and mainland Japanese. These TCNs were hired
when there was a lack of people who had the skills needed for the functioning
of these military installations (Zulueta 2020). Most of these TCNs who worked
in Okinawa during the Occupation Period were Filipino males and were single
(Ohno 1991: 243; Tobaru 1998: 31). These TCNs worked as semi-skilled,
skilled, and professional workers on base.
During the Occupation, Okinawans found work inside and around these U.S.
military installations. As mentioned earlier, locals were able to fnd work inside
the bases and were designated as LNs. These locals mostly worked as semi-skilled
or low-skilled workers and were paid lower wages than the Americans, Filipinos,
and mainland Japanese (Nagumo 1996: 39; Zulueta 2020: 46–47). The USCAR
from 1946 issued labour cards to these workers to facilitate the “management”
of Okinawans working on military bases (Shimabukuro 2019: 256). These labour
cards were transferred from USCAR jurisdiction to the Labour Bureau of the
Ryukyu Government in 1956 and then to the Okinawa Historiographical Insti-
tute, before Okinawa’s reversion to Japan in 1972 (Shimabukuro 2019: 257).
Photo 2.1 USCAR labour card 1

Source: Okinawa Prefectural Archives


Shimabukuro states that there are around 200,000 of these cards now being
housed in the Okinawa Prefectural Archives.
Okinawan women, likewise, found work inside and outside the bases. Many of
them worked as maids, cleaners, and waitresses, and others were able to fnd work
as clerks or offce workers that put them in contact with U.S. servicemen and TCNs
(Ohno 1991: 228; Zulueta 2017: 266). Katsuko herself was one of these women
who found work on base, landing a job at a laundry shop at the young age of 14.
As she knew a little English, she was asked to do offce work, which put her in a
much better situation than other women her age who had to work as domestic
helpers. Work on base may have given her a better life as compared to others who
were not as lucky, but it was also the cause of envy among other people who envied
her since she landed in a good job despite not fnishing high school. Katsuko said
she was “distressed (kurushimemashita)” over all these – her traumatic experiences
during the War as well as the treatment and envy she received while working on
base – that probably other girls her age then would have committed suicide. Post-
war conditions during the Occupation also put a strain on interpersonal relation-
ships, where differing circumstances set a divide between the haves and have-nots.
This was true not only among Okinawans themselves but also among locals and
TCNs on base where a hierarchy of base labour existed (Zulueta 2020). This
hierarchy was gendered – in that there was an apparent “hierarchy of masculinities”
(Eichler 2014) among TCNs, LNs, and U.S. servicemen – as well as racialized,
pointing to the “racial division of reproductive labour” (Nakano Glenn 1992)
among Okinawan women, Japanese women, and others.
Marrying the enemy? International marriages during

the Occupation
The presence of military bases in Okinawa during the American Occupation
accorded locals opportunities for employment amidst the desolate conditions in
the war-ravaged island. Men and women found work on military bases as sales,
service, and clerical workers. Some found off-base business opportunities that
catered to the servicemen and other base employees. Young women also found
work as bar girls and waitresses in establishments catering to American service-
men (Nakano Glenn 1986: 60). This gave many Okinawan women a chance
to meet American servicemen and other foreign base workers, many of which
became their future husbands. Working a variety of jobs inside and outside the
bases, these women lived their everyday lives interacting with these foreigners.
Other women, meanwhile, met their future husbands at serendipitous instances
such as while walking on the street, outside the bases, etc. (Zulueta 2017: 267).
Many of these women cohabited with and married U.S. servicemen and migrated
to the United States. As I stated in Chapter 1, there were around 48,912 Japanese
nationals classifed as “Wives of Citizens” who migrated to the United States
(Iwasa 2016: 6) during this period. Not a few of these women were in their
late teens to early 20s when they entered these international marriages. For
some of these women, their foreign partners were their frst love interest.
There are also a signifcant number of these Okinawan women who married
Filipino TCNs and Philippine Scouts and migrated to the Philippines in the
immediate post-war years (Ohno 1991: 228). While the number of intermarriages
between Okinawan women and Filipino men could not be clearly established, it
was estimated that up until 1954, there were around 1,004 (recorded) cases of
marriage between Filipino men and Okinawan women (Sugii 2009: 45). Although
the Filipino workers’ wages were not that high compared to the Americans’, it
was widely known in Okinawa that Filipino base workers received relatively high
wages (Ohno 1991: 233) compared to the mainland Japanese and Okinawan
workers. It was said that much like Japanese women, Okinawan women during
the post-war years “longed (akogareta)” to be with an American soldier (Ohno
1991: 233). Hence, many believed that this was the reason why these women
chose to work on or around the bases and chose to marry an American soldier
or a Filipino base worker. This economically motivated reason was also mentioned
to me several times during my conversations with Okinawans who are in their
60s and above. As life in Okinawa was desolate in the War’s aftermath, marriage
to these American servicemen and Filipino TCNs was considered a way out of
these conditions and a ticket to a much better life. Moreover, marriage with a
foreigner may have been a way for these women to escape gendered roles in a
highly patriarchal society such as Okinawa. In addition to this, migration to the
Philippines may have posed an opportunity for them to dissociate themselves
from the traumatic experience of the Second World War.
Marriage to a foreigner was against the will of many an Okinawan woman’s
family, and it was not rare for some of these women to cohabit with and marry
their partners without the consent of their families. In some extreme cases, the
parents cut ties with their daughters. This reality made it diffcult for these
women to mend ties with their estranged family members and discouraged them
from returning to Okinawa, thus making their adopted countries their home.
In the next chapter, I talk more about these women’s marriage to Filipino TCNs
based in Okinawa, their migration to the Philippines upon marriage, and their
lives there as foreign wives and mothers to children with Okinawan and Filipino
parentage.
Notes
1 Aged 81 during the interview.
2 Work trousers worn by women.
3 This event is being immortalized through the Himeyuri Monument dedicated to
these girls at Itoman, a city in the southern part of the main island of
Okinawa.
4 “Kuni no tame da to omotte, minna wa, ‘katsu!’ ‘katsu!’ to iu datta mon desu
kara.”
5 “Totemo un ga yokattan desu.”
6 “Tennō heika, banzai!”
7 “Ano toki wa mō, hontō, jibun wa sensō de shinda hō ga yokatta to omō gurai
nakimashita, demo shikata ga nai.”
8 “Tanoshī koto, hotondo nakatta.”
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3 Okinawan women’s journey to
the Philippines
The Philippine Okinawan Society

In October 2012, the Philippine Okinawan Society (POS) or the Firipin Okinawa
Kenjinkai, the largest organization of overseas Okinawans in Southeast Asia,
celebrated its 30th anniversary in Manila, the Philippines. I was invited to this
event, and I witnessed the Issei women – both those based in the Philippines
and those who returned to Okinawa – alongside their children, the nisei (second
generation), and the succeeding generations of sansei (third generation) and
yonsei (fourth generation), celebrating their experiences of migrating from Oki-
nawa to the Philippines during the immediate post-war years, when many of
them were in their early 20s. It was a celebration not only for the Okinawan
community in the Philippines, but more of a tribute to the countless Okinawan
women who crossed the seas to travel to a land that was alien to them and who
faced uncertainties of integrating in a society that was culturally and linguistically
different from their own. Most of these women are in their late 70s and early
80s, and while their lives have been celebrated within the organization and their
families, very little is known about these Okinawan women who silently entered
Philippine soil and lived among the locals. The POS’s 30th anniversary celebra-
tion featured speeches from the POS president (a sansei or a third-generation
Okinawan, whose grandmother moved to the Philippines during the post-war
period), representatives from the Okinawa Prefectural Government, a professor
from the University of the Ryukyus, among others. There were also traditional
dances and songs performed by an Okinawan dance troupe who few in to
Manila for the celebration. The festivities were capped by an awarding ceremony
honouring the Issei. More than a celebration of Okinawan heritage in the
Philippines, it was a celebration of familial bonds that united Issei, nisei, sansei,
and yonsei – four generations connected by migrations that occurred between
Okinawa and the Philippines in the post-war period.
Okinawan Prefectural Associations or Okinawa Kenjinkai are organizations
of people tracing their roots to Okinawa Prefecture, the southernmost region
of Japan. Overseas Japanese have their own hometown associations or prefectural
associations that bring together people hailing from specifc prefectures in Japan.
These associations are small “ethnic associations” comparable to Chinese
DOI: 10.4324/9781003100027-3
32 Okinawan women’s journey to the Philippines
hometown associations, or tongxianghui, that exist to connect overseas Chinese
with their hometown as well as with people who share the same hometown.
While these prefectural associations or kenjinkais are also found within the
Japanese mainland, these Okinawan Associations are also found overseas with
a total of 93 kenjinkais found globally (Okinawa Kenjinkais Around the World,
Okinawa Prefectural Government website www.pref.okinawa.jp/site/bunka-
sports/koryu/honka/documents/wud2.pdf ). These kenjinkais usually function
as social spaces for diasporic Okinawans that link them to the “homeland” as
well as provide a venue for the reproduction and transmission of Okinawan
culture and identity(ies) to the succeeding generations of overseas Okinawans
and people of Okinawan descent. Most of these kenjinkais are found in North
America, Latin American countries, and Hawaii. Southeast Asia is also home to
these prefectural associations, particularly the Philippines, where a large number
of Okinawans migrated in both the pre-war and post-war eras. The POS is the
frst and the largest Okinawan kenjinkai in post-war Southeast Asia (Evangelista
2002: 6; Zulueta 2020: 60). The kenjinkais in these places are linked to earlier
migrations (mostly pre-war) of Okinawans to these areas, while some, such as
in the case of the Philippines, are connected to Okinawan migration during the
immediate post-war years. There are those that are founded much later such as
those in Thailand and Vietnam and can be said to exist in conjunction with the
fow of Japanese capital in the region, particularly in the 1990s. These later
kenjinkais function primarily as a space for socializing among Okinawans who
are staying temporarily (or in some cases, long term) in these countries.
It should be noted here that the POS was founded primarily as a prefectural
association that serves as a community for overseas Okinawans who settled in the
Philippines, particularly for the Okinawan women who migrated from the late
1950s. The POS functions as a community for these women who crossed the seas
from their homeland to the Philippines to create new lives there with their Filipino
husbands and children. The founding of this organization in January 1982 was
also made possible with the cooperation of some Okinawan businessmen and
students who went to Manila in the early 1980s to study at Philippine universities
(Ohno 1991: 226). One of these students was Professor Kinjo Hiroyuki (currently
emeritus professor of the University of the Ryukyus), and the other was Mr Yagi
Tsunekazu, a businessman and a member of the Okinawa City Board, both of
whom I frst met back in 2007. Both of them were in the Philippines in the 1980s
and were instrumental in the founding of the POS.1 The Philippine Okinawan
Society was founded to “cultivate mutual friendships among the Okinawans in the
Philippines and further their well-being; promote international exchange especially
in the felds of culture and education; and deepen mutual understanding between
the people of two cultures” (Evangelista 2002: 6). While the POS was centred on
the Issei women themselves, membership in the organization included those up
to the fourth generation. Most of the members reside in Metropolitan Manila and
nearby areas, while others are based in provinces outside the capital.
Compared to their American and Latin American counterparts, the Okinawan
population in the Philippines, starting with the nisei, is of mixed heritage, and
Okinawan women’s journey to the Philippines 33
thus the issue of cultural heritage and its transmission as well as the kenjinkai’s
longevity become a cause of concern among the Issei. In my conversations with
the nisei and sansei, most of them self-identify as (culturally) Filipino, while
acknowledging their Okinawan roots. This is in part due to the fact that many
of the Issei brought up their children in a “Filipino” way. Nevertheless, the
POS’ function as a vehicle for the transmission of Okinawan culture to the
succeeding generations still remains. While past activities of the kenjinkai such
as language learning, Eisa dancing, and Okinawan cooking are not anymore
being held, other activities such as an undōkai (or sports fest) and visiting an
Okinawan war memorial (located south of Manila) every August are still done
sporadically. Moreover, the POS regularly sends delegates to activities that are
of a transnational nature such as the Sekai Uchinānchu Taikai or the World
Uchinānchu Festival held every 5 years from its frst event in 1990, and the
Sekai Wakamono Uchinānchu Taikai or the World Youth Uchinānchu Festival
that was started in 2012. The Issei also attend the World Uchinānchu Festival,
and for those of them based in the Philippines, it becomes a big opportunity
for them to “come home” to Okinawa. During the 2011 and 2016 World
Uchinānchu Festivals, I had the opportunity to meet the Philippine-based Issei
as well as the other members of the POS. For these Issei, these events become
a reunion with their fellow Issei who have returned to Okinawa.
Photo 3.1 POS 30th Anniversary

Source: Photo by the author
34 Okinawan women’s journey to the Philippines
Photo 3.2 POS 30th Anniversary photo exhibit

Photo 3.3 POS and OPA dinner during the 2016 World Uchinānchu Festival
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CHAPTER III
MYSTERIES
It was still dark when Gonzales entered the room with a candle and
shook the caballero until he was awake. The rider of the highway
found that his clothes had been brushed and neatly folded, that his
boots had been greased, and that a huge stone basin filled with cool
water stood ready.
He plunged his head in the water, dried his face, and went to the
adjoining room after dressing, there to find a table heaped high with
food. The caballero ate ravenously, scarcely speaking. An Indian
entered and spoke to Gonzales in whispers.
“Your horse is ready, señor,” Gonzales said. “It is a fit animal, able to
cover many miles during a day. I have no wish to bereft myself of
your companionship by sending you on your way, yet perhaps it
would suit your purpose best to be well on the road to San Juan
Capistrano by daybreak.”
“Your idea is an excellent one, señor.”
“There is nothing more I can do to serve you?”
“You have been kindness itself.”
“There is, perhaps, some message?”
“Nothing of prime importance at this time, señor. I am eager to reach
San Diego de Alcalá at the earliest possible moment.”
“If you need an Indian——”
“The highway stretches plainly before one, señor, and an Indian
would but delay me.”
“I understand that these are turbulent times——”
“So the good Fray Felipe said at San Fernando. No doubt it is a true
word.”
“You mystify me, señor, in a measure. Yet a man should not
speculate regarding that which does not concern him.”
“Very true, Señor Gonzales. I might mention that another traveller
may journey along El Camino Real at an early day, as soon as he
can procure a horse at Santa Barbara, where I left him behind. I
doubt whether he will receive cordial welcome from Fray Felipe—as
you say, the good padre is an excellent judge of men. It would not
desolate me much if this person were delayed now and then.”
“Ah! His name?”
“He travels incognito with a pass signed by his excellency, I believe.”
“Then—?” There was a puzzled expression on Gonzales’ face.
“I travel in such manner myself.”
“Still, I do not see——”
“It is not for me to criticise his excellency, yet I may say that on a
busy day he might issue a pass by mistake, or without having proper
investigation.”
“Can you not speak to me as man to man, señor?”
“I regret that I have no information that may be given you. And I must
be on my way. Here is a piece of gold——”
“Not from you, señor.”
“Perhaps you are making a mistake. Perhaps you think me a man I
am not. I have given you no reason to believe——”
“If I made a mistake, señor, then Fray Felipe of San Fernando
makes one also, and I have learned to trust his judgment.”
“Then I thank you for your hospitality and kindness,” the caballero
replied.
Gonzales led the way out of the house to where the horse was
waiting beside the adobe wall. He held a stirrup while the caballero
mounted.
“You know the way?” he asked.
“Until this journey, I never have been south of Monterey,” the rider
answered.
“Once you are away from the pueblo the highway is plainly to be
seen. I have had my own horse made ready and will accompany you
for a short distance.”
“I thank you again, señor.”
The Indian led out the second horse. Gonzales mounted, and they
started out across the plaza, to follow a tiny trail that ran from one
side of it between two rows of Indian huts. No word was spoken until
they were a mile from the pueblo. Daybreak showed the dusty
highway stretching toward the south, twisting like a great serpent
across the land.
“Here I leave you,” Gonzales said. “I wish you good fortune, señor,
and am yours to command if there are things you wish done. If the
times are indeed turbulent, as has been intimated, perhaps my old
trade of pirate will stand me in good stead. Adios, caballero! My
blessings go with you!”
“Having been blessed by both padre and pirate, I can scarcely go
wrong,” the caballero replied.
He raised his hand in salute, whirled his horse, touched the animal
with his spurs and galloped toward the south, sending up great
clouds of dust behind him. Gonzales watched him for several
minutes, then, shaking his head in perplexity, turned and started
back toward Reina de Los Angeles.
Now that he was on the highway again, the caballero became alert,
watching the trail whenever he topped a hill, hand on pistol-butt
where brush edged the road and made an ambush possible.
Sixty miles to the south was San Juan Capistrano, and the caballero
did not spare his horse. During the morning he saw few men, either
red or white. In the distance, at times, he could see the white
buildings of some rancho, and grazing herds, and frequently a small
orchard.
Then, as he neared the mission, he came upon scenes of activity,
oxen-drawn carts loaded with grain, carreta, squads of Indians
working on the highway as punishment for some trivial offence.
The miles flew beneath his horse’s hoofs, and in time he could see
the mission building glistening in the sun, throngs of neophytes at
work, scores of children playing about the walls. The children
scattered at his approach, to stand, half in fear and half in curiosity,
some distance away and regard him thoughtfully. He dismounted
stiffly, but no man gave him greeting. Leading his horse he walked to
the door of the nearest storehouse. A fray came out and faced him.
“I am journeying to San Diego de Alcalá, and have need of a fresh
mount,” the caballero said. “I will trade or purchase.”
“I have no horse for you, señor.”
“Nonsense! San Juan Capistrano is well known for its breed. At
Santa Barbara they told me you were to send them steeds within the
month, in exchange for fruit and wine.”
“We sell and give horses to whom we will, señor, and withhold them
from others.”
“What is the meaning of that?” the caballero demanded. His face had
flushed with sudden anger, for he did not like the fray’s tone or
manner. “I have a pass here signed by His Excellency the Governor.
You will scarcely refuse to accommodate me now, I take it.”
The fray read the pass and handed it back.
“It passes my understanding that you possess such a paper,” he
said. “Yet, on the other hand, it is not a matter to excite wonder. It is
understood that the Governor is not particular to whom he issues
passes.”
“I shall take it upon myself to see you punished for your insolence,
fray! A man who wears a gown should know more of courtesy.”
“There is no horse here for you, señor. I have spoken.”
“You are not the only horse owner in San Juan Capistrano!”
“No man here will sell you one, nor give it you, nor make an
exchange.”
“And why is that?”
“Need you question?”
“Most certainly I question. This is the first discourtesy I have found
along El Camino Real. Even the soldiers at the Santa Barbara
presidio aided me on my way, gave me food and wine. The good fray
at San Fernando recommended me to a friend in Reina de Los
Angeles. And here, it appears, one cannot even buy a horse with
gold. I await your explanation, fray.”
“I have no explanation to give you, señor, nor do I recognise your
right to one. If the frailes to the north have been misled, I have
nothing to say. We of the south, however, have scant courtesy for
men of a certain stamp.”
“Now by the good saints——!”
“The good saints are better off your lips, señor!” cried the fray angrily.
Neophytes had been crowding about, drawn by the quarrel. The
caballero whirled upon them, to find some grinning. His hand
dropped to his sword-hilt.
“The road stretches toward the south, señor,” the fray resumed. “And
we are crowded here in San Juan Capistrano.”
“You are ordering me away, perhaps?”
“I am leaving it to your good judgment to go.”
“I am not a man to be trifled with, fray. This discourtesy is like to cost
you dear!”
“I pay my debts, señor. If it costs me, I pay.”
“You refuse to respect the Governor’s pass?”
“I refuse to recognise your right to have it,” the fray replied. He
turned about and started inside the storehouse. The caballero took a
quick step forward and clutched the other by the shoulder and
whirled him around.
“Cloth or no cloth, no man treats me like this!” he exclaimed. “A
horse—immediately!”
The fray uttered an exclamation; the neophytes crowded closer.
Releasing his man, the caballero drew his sword and turned upon
them.
“Back, dogs!” he cried. “I do not like your stench! And you, fray, fetch
me a horse, before I run you through!”
“You——!” The fray seemed to grow taller in his sudden anger. “You
dare to threaten me, señor? A man of your stripe——”
“I have had enough of this mystery!”
“Out of my sight! Take your way to the south, or the north if it pleases
you, but quit San Juan Capistrano this minute! Else I will not be
responsible——”
“For what! For what may happen to me?” The caballero laughed
aloud, half in anger, half in jest. His sword described an arc. But the
neophytes did not fall back from before him; the fray made a sign
and they closed in.
His back against the wall of the storehouse, the caballero swept his
blade through the air again, and held his pistol in his left hand. The
Indians hesitated a moment, the caballero advanced.
“Back!” the caballero cried.
Again they closed in, rushed. A screech of pain came from the first
he touched with the blade. His pistol spoke and a man fell wounded.
In that instant, as they hesitated, he was among them, his blade
darting here and there. Purposely he avoided clashing with the fray,
always keeping neophytes between them, for to wound a fray, he
knew, would be to make bloodthirsty wretches of the red men. Foot
by foot he fought his way to where the horse was standing with
lowered head.
He drove back those nearest, then sprang to the saddle and dashed
away. The guitar had been fastened to the saddle, and now it
snapped its cord and fell to the ground. Laughing loudly, the
caballero turned his horse, galloped back among the neophytes,
scattering them right and left, swung down from his saddle and
caught up the instrument, waved it above his head in derision, and
was away again.
A pistol spoke behind him, a bullet whistled past his head, but he
rode unscathed. A mile away he stopped the horse to wipe the
bloody blade on his cloak and return it to its scabbard.
“A courteous reception indeed!” he muttered, and gave his horse the
spurs.
A journey of twenty-five miles stretched before him to the next
mission in the chain, San Luis Rey de Francia. He did not urge his
mount to its utmost, for he did not want to exhaust the beast, and he
knew better time would be made travelling a level gait.
Here the highway ran along the sea, and for a time the caballero
allowed his horse to walk knee-deep in the tumbling water. Anger still
flushed his face; his eyes still were blazing. With a fresh horse
procured at San Juan Capistrano he would have been able to reach
San Luis Rey de Francia long before nightfall; whereas, because of
his reception at the last mission, he would reach it after dark, if at all,
for the hills were near, and common report had it that even daylight
riding there was perilous enough for a gentleman unattended.
He drove his horse up the slope and to the highway proper again
and looked ahead. A dust cloud was in the distance, and in time he
made out a herd of cattle being driven along the road. He saw, as he
neared them, that there were two Indian herders, and stopped to
recharge his pistol. They might prove to be harmless neophytes;
they might be thieving gentiles running off mission cattle, and ready
to give battle to a traveller.
He stood his horse at one side of the highway as they passed, alert
for trouble. They were talking, he could see, and pointing at him, but
he could not hear their words. Long after they had gone by, the two
Indians turned frequently to look in his direction.
The caballero rode on, with some speed now, since it was growing
late in the afternoon. Overhanging crags, jumbles of rock, clumps of
scrawny trees cast shadows across the highway and furnished cover
for bandits, but he met with no adventure. Through the twilight he
galloped, stopping before each hidden curve to listen, straining his
eyes to discern the presence of a foe.
Night came, and in the distance he saw lights at San Luis Rey de
Francia.
“Let us hope there are men of brains to be found here,” the caballero
muttered. “I must have food, drink, rest. It does not matter so much
about a horse now, since my own will be refreshed by morning.”
Now there were huts beside the highway, but all in them seemed
sleeping. Dogs howled as he approached. Ahead of him, a door was
thrown open, and a streak of light pierced the darkness. He rode
toward it.
An Indian stood there holding a crude torch above his head, an aged
Indian with scraggy hair and wrinkled face.
“I want food, rest,” the caballero said. “Where sleeps a fray that will
awaken easily?”
The Indian stared at him in astonishment.
“You seek a fray?” he asked.
“Else I would not ask the whereabouts of one.”
“It is a bold thing to do, señor. It would be better, would it not, to
accept the hospitality of my poor hut, and be sure you are with
friends? Scant welcome will you get from a fray. Enter, señor, and
honour my poor dwelling. I have food and wine, and a couch. I will
see that your horse has attention, and all night I’ll watch, and before
the dawn comes I’ll awaken you and send you on your way.”
“This thing passes my understanding, yet I am weary enough to
accept the quickest relief,” the caballero said. “If you attempt
treachery——”
“Then may I die, señor.”
“That probably would come to pass in such event.”
He dismounted and began taking off the saddle. The Indian ran to
help him and got a halter for use instead of the bridle. The horse was
picketed beside the road and thrown hay and grain. Then the Indian
led the way into the hut.
It was of adobe, small, round. A table was built into one wall, a bunk
into another. While the caballero sat on the bunk to rest, his host put
out cold meat and wine and dried wheat-paste. The guest ate, and
not sparingly, and then removed his boots and threw himself down
on the couch.
“I will sit outside and watch the door, señor,” the Indian said. “You
may sleep without fear.”
“But with a pistol ready at my hand,” the caballero growled.
After the Indian had gone, he arose and extinguished the torch, and
listened for a moment at the door, until he was sure his host was
squatting there. It was troubled sleep he had, for the surroundings
were peculiar, and he did not fully trust his host.
A step beside the couch caused him to awaken and spring to his
feet, pistol held ready.
“Within an hour, señor, it will be dawn,” he heard the voice of the old
Indian say. “I have more wine and food ready, and water fresh from
the spring. It is better that you are gone before others awake, then
none will know of your passing.”
The caballero ate again, and followed his host outside, carrying
saddle and bridle. When the horse was ready, he mounted, then
tossed the native a coin.
“No, señor—not from you, if you please,” the Indian said. “It has
been a pleasure——”
“White man and red—both give me hospitality and refuse payment,”
remarked the caballero. “At times I think myself the most fortunate of
men, at other times the most unlucky. One fray aids me and another
refuses to sell me a horse. It is a peculiar world!”
“The señor will not forget me—that is all I ask,” the Indian muttered.
“Be assured I will not! Adios!”
“’Dios!”
The caballero trotted his steed for a mile, then broke into a gallop.
Forty miles more, and he would be at San Diego de Alcalá, his
journey’s end. He laughed aloud as the dawn came and showed him
the sea sparkling in the distance. His spirits had revived wonderfully.
“Poor self-styled Juan who once owned a mule!” he murmured. “He
loses a couple of pieces of gold, I take it, since it is not to be
believed that he has reached the goal before me. I wonder what
would have happened if I had gone to the inn on the plaza at Reina
de Los Angeles?”
He was in the hills again now, yet the highway was seldom masked,
and he felt secure in the knowledge that a foe could not approach
without being seen. The miles flew beneath his horse’s hoofs. A cool
breeze came in from the sea and neutralised the heat of the sun. In
the distance he could see a broad valley, and he knew that the end
of his journey was near.
Another ten miles, and then, stopping his horse on the crest of a hill,
he saw San Diego de Alcalá before him. Near the shore of the bay
was the presidio, topping a knoll. Six miles up the valley was the
mission proper, and near it an orchard surrounded by a wall, and
fields of green.
“’Tis a bit of paradise in the wilderness!” the caballero said aloud.
“And there is an angel in it, I have heard.”
He chuckled and urged the horse on. Purposely he avoided the
presidio for the time being and made his way toward the mission.
Only a few neophytes were to be seen, and even they disappeared
as he approached.
The mission buildings formed three sides of a square; the fourth side
was an adobe wall nearly ten feet high. Through a space between
two of the buildings the caballero rode his horse. Not a human being
was to be seen in the plaza.
“This is mighty peculiar,” the caballero muttered.
He dismounted and let the horse stand in the shade of the wall.
Every door was closed, even those of the padres’ quarters, the
hospital, the guest house.
“Awake, good people!” he cried. “Is it the fashion here to take a
siesta in the cool of the day?”
The door of the padres’ quarters did not open; no big-eyed Indian
child ran out to stare at him, finger in mouth, half curious and half
afraid; no man or woman appeared from a hut.
He slapped the dust from his clothes and started across the plaza
toward the padres’ quarters, determined to pound on the big door
until it was opened and the lethargy of the place explained.
Around the end of the wall there came a neophyte stooping beneath
a bag of grain.
“Good day, señor!” said the caballero. “I am glad to find someone
alive.”
The Indian stared at him, hesitated a moment, then walked on
without speaking.
The door of the storehouse opened, and another man walked into
the plaza, one who carried a quarter of beef on his shoulder. He
followed a narrow path that ran toward one of the huts, so that he
had to pass within a dozen feet of the caballero.
“Perhaps here is a man with brains,” the new-comer thought. Aloud,
he said: “Señor, it is a brilliant day!”
The man who carried the beef did not slacken his pace, but he
glanced at the caballero from beneath shaggy brows, and passed
without making a reply. Behind him in the narrow path stood one
astonished and angry.
“It is a settlement of imbeciles and deaf mutes, this San Diego de
Alcalá!” he growled.
Now there was a burst of laughter from the end of the wall, and into
view came an Indian girl of perhaps fourteen, her black hair
streaming down her back, her feet and legs bare, her arms filled with
wild blossoms. Behind her was a youth a few years her senior. When
they saw the caballero they stopped quickly, and the youth said
something to the girl, then they ceased their laughter and hurried
along the path.
“Señor! Señorita!” said the caballero, removing his sombrero and
bowing to the ground.
The youth growled something beneath his breath and hurried on
without responding to the greeting; the girl tilted her nose and she
would not meet the caballero’s eyes. And so they passed him and
continued across the plaza toward the padres’ quarters, not once
looking back.
“Mute fools!” the caballero growled, his face flushed because of his
embarrassment.
CHAPTER IV
A COYOTE HOWLS
Adjoining the quarters of the padres was a long adobe building used
as a storehouse, and sounds indicated that a man was at work
inside. It was towards the storehouse that the caballero now hurried,
something of anger in his manner, his face still flushed, his dark eyes
snapping and his chin thrust out in aggressive fashion.
Seeing a face peering at him from one of the windows, he gave it
scant attention, but lifted the latch, and the door of the storehouse
flew open at his touch.
For an instant he stood in the doorway trying to see, for the sun
outside was bright, and inside there was a semi-gloom. Then he
made out a rough counter, piles of skins from cattle and sheep,
sacks of grain, casks of tallow, bolts of imported goods, and a man
who paced back and forth before a rough desk, his hands clasped
behind his back, his head bowed on his breast.
“Good day, señor!” said the caballero.
The other stopped and raised his head, looked the caballero straight
in the eyes, then, without a word, stepped behind the counter and
busied himself arranging some bolts of cloth on a shelf.
“I greeted you good day, señor!”
Still there was no reply, nor did the man behind the counter turn to
face the one who spoke.
“Is there man, woman or child in the mission who can speak
Spanish, native or the sign language?” demanded the caballero now,
angrily, stepping up to the counter and placing both his hands upon
it. “Is this the hospitality of which San Diego de Alcalá has been so
proud? Those persons I met in the plaza refused to answer my polite
salutations. And you—I take it you are a sort of manager here, or
superintendent, or clerk to the padres, or something of the sort—
seem to have no word for me, not even the one common courtesy
demands you should use in response to a greeting!”
He waited; but an answer did not come. The man behind the counter
had finished with the bolts of cloth, and now was taking from the
shelf jars of honey and olives and oil, and putting them back exactly
as they had been before, showing plainly that he was busying
himself merely to avoid making a reply.
“Has life in the bright sun dulled your wits?” demanded the caballero,
now thoroughly angry. “Have you all taken a vow not to speak until
such and such a time? Could I get your kind attention, perhaps, if I
made a purchase? One would think an Indian attack had left you all
without tongues in your heads!”
Still there came no reply from the man behind the counter.
The door opened, and a giant of a neophyte entered. He gave the
caballero a glance, seemed to throw back his shoulders, and hurried
up to the counter.
“A quarter of mutton, Señor Lopez,” he said. “The padre said I was to
have it until the grain is harvested.”
“Certainly, Pedro,” came the reply.
Señor Lopez turned and smiled at the man he had called Pedro, and
went to the rear of the room, from where he carried the meat. Pedro
took the mutton upon his shoulder, and Señor Lopez followed him to
the door, opening it and holding it wide so that the other could pass
out. For a moment they talked in low tones, then Pedro hurried away,
and Lopez closed the door and went back behind the counter.
“So you can use your voice when it pleases you to do so, it seems,”
said the caballero. “Suppose you use a portion of it now, in answer to
some questioning of mine. If it is necessary, I’ll pay for it. Give me
this much voice, Señor Lopez!”
He threw a gold coin down upon the counter so that it rang. Lopez
turned slowly and faced him, looked him straight in the eyes a
moment, then went back to the shelf and began arranging the jars
again.
If the eyes of the caballero had snapped before, they blazed now. He
placed both hands upon the counter as if to spring over it and throttle
the man who refused to speak, but he seemed to decide against
that, and the smile came upon his face again, only the quality of the
smile was not the same.
On one end of the counter was a heap of small stone jars, filled,
evidently with fruit and oil. The caballero picked up a bar of metal
from the counter, walked deliberately to the heap of jars, and
crashed the heavy bar down among them.
Señor Lopez jumped as if he had been shot, and turned to see the
caballero standing before the ruin, the inscrutable smile still upon his
lips. He raised the bar again, and again he crashed it among the
jars, sending fruit and oil to the floor.
“Señor!” Lopez cried.
“I thought that would make you find your voice. As for the damage,
I’ll pay it. Now suppose you open your lips and explain this strange
conduct, before I get genuinely angry and carry on the work of
destruction.”
Their eyes clashed for a moment, and then Lopez spoke:
“I open my lips this once, and after that, señor, perhaps you will go
back up El Camino Real and admit yourself a beaten man. San
Diego de Alcalá has a name for hospitality, it is true, but there is
none even here for Captain Fly-by-Night.”
“It seems to me,” said the caballero, “that I have heard that name
before.”
“It is known from San Francisco de Asis to San Diego de Alcalá,
señor, without credit to the man who bears it.”
“Indeed?”
“We play at words, señor, and that is not necessary. News of your
coming was received several days ago. When the news went up El
Camino Real that the good Señor Fernandez had gone the way of all
flesh and left to his fair daughter, Anita, and her very distant relative,
Rojerio Rocha, the fortune and broad acres he had acquired by a
lifetime of hard work and danger, you boasted, before the body of the
señor was scarcely cold in the ground, that here was a fair maid and
a fortune to be won, and that you could and would win them.”
“I boasted that, eh?”
“’Tis well known, Captain Fly-by-Night. You boasted loudly. Even
when it became known that Rojerio Rocha was to come down El
Camino Real from distant San Francisco de Asis and wed his distant
relative, and be the head of the great rancho, you boasted that,
betrothal or no, you’d win Señorita Anita and the rancho would be
yours.”
“Indeed, señor?”
“Many a mission and presidio, and many a rancho, you have visited
during your career, Captain Fly-by-Night, always to leave behind you
broken hearts and empty purses. Your skill with the cards and dice, it
is said, is such as to be almost supernatural. There is another
explanation for it, of course. Your way with women, too, has been
made notorious. But never did you come near San Diego de Alcalá
while Señor Fernandez was alive, knowing well what to expect if you
did. Now that he is dead, you dare to come, after making your
boasts.”
“I am learning things regarding myself,” said the caballero.
“When we heard of your boast, we considered what to do,” Lopez
went on. “Did the padres let the men of the mission whip you and
send you back up El Camino Real, as they should, you could say
that you had no chance, one man against so many score, and,
moreover, the well-known hospitality of San Diego de Alcalá would
be outraged. So we decided upon another course, Captain Fly-by-
Night.
“The country is both long and broad, and we do not say you cannot
live in it. But so far as San Diego de Alcalá and its people are
concerned—ranch owner, fray, neophyte or soldier—you do not
exist, señor. No man, woman or child will speak to you. You can
purchase neither food nor wine here. The sweet señorita whose
name you have insulted with your boasts will pass within half a
dozen feet of you and see you not. You will be a nothing, not given
as much consideration as a coyote. Do you understand me, señor?”
“You speak plainly enough,” the caballero replied.
“If you wish to remain under those conditions, we will make no effort
to prevent you. When Rojerio Rocha arrives—and he is expected
within a few days—and weds our fair Anita, being then in the position
of a husband, he may see fit to chastise you for your ill-timed boasts.
If you care to admit that you boasted once too often, and wish to
return to the north, there is grain and hay for your horse at the end of
the wall, and we will not call it theft if you feed your animal. Your
absence would be well worth the price of a few measures of grain.”
“That is all you have to say, Señor Lopez?”
“I have opened my lips to tell you how things stand, Captain Fly-by-
Night. Hereafter they shall remain closed in your presence.”
“If there should be some mistake about that boast——”
Lopez looked at the caballero, then turned toward the shelf and
began arranging the jars again. The anger was dying out of the face
of the caballero now, and the smile that came upon his lips was more
inscrutable than before.
“At least, I leave the coin in payment for the damage I have caused,”
he said; and started toward the door.
He heard the quick step of Lopez behind him, but did not turn. He
threw the door open wide, and stepped out. Something whizzed past
his head and struck the ground before him. He looked at it—the coin
he had left on the counter.
As he walked back across the plaza to where he had left his horse,
the caballero chuckled like a man well pleased. There was no anger
in his face or bearing now, no resentment, rather lively satisfaction.
He passed the giant Pedro talking with another neophyte, and when
they turned their backs to him and continued their conversation as if
he had not been near he laughed outright.
He led his horse from the plaza and down the slope, and there he
removed saddle and bridle and picketed the animal where green
grass grew along a trickling brook. Walking some distance from the
mission he shot a rabbit, and, carrying the game back to where he
had left the horse, he cleaned it with his knife, washed it in the creek,
and hung it up on a forked stick.
Then he arranged dry moss and grass for a fire, being particular to
build it where it could be seen easily from the guest house of the
mission and from the padres’ quarters; and he knew that every
action was being watched, that men and women might keep silent,
but could not curb their curiosity.
He had no flint and steel, neither did he know how to make fire by
the Indian method, and he found himself now facing a predicament.
But there were glass buttons on his cloak, and from one of them he
made a burning glass, and crouching over the dry grass focused the
sun’s beams and in time had a blaze.
He cooked the rabbit, ate it without salt, put more fuel on the fire,
then spread his cloak on the ground, picked up the guitar, and began
playing softly. Presently he sang, his voice ringing out across the
plaza and reaching the ears of those in the mission.
Now and then an Indian child came to the end of the adobe wall and
watched and listened. Men and women passed from hut to hut, but
none paid the slightest attention to him. Smoke poured from
chimneys, and there were odours of meals being prepared. His
singing and playing over for a time, the caballero sat with his back
against a rock, his sombrero tilted over his eyes, and rested.
Presently he saw the door of the guest house open, and out of it
came a vision of female loveliness that caused the caballero to catch
his breath. Behind her walked an elderly duenna of proud carriage.
“This will be the fair Anita, with some señora in attendance,” the
caballero chuckled. “I wonder if they intend paying me a visit?”
It looked it, for the girl led the way down the slope and toward the
creek, walking with head proudly lifted, the elderly señora tripping at
her heels. They passed within twenty feet of the caballero, but the
girl did not look his way. The other woman, however, glanced at him
from the corners of her eyes, and he smiled at her curiosity.
They stopped beside the creek, and the girl filled a small jar with
water, and began arranging wild flowers in it, while the señora stood
beside her, looking down the valley toward the presidio.
“To think,” voiced Anita Fernandez, “that a husband is to come to me
up El Camino Real all the way from San Francisco de Asis—a
husband and distant relative at one and the same time! To marry a
man I never have seen before—is that not a hardship, Señora
Vallejo?”
“Rojerio Rocha,” Señora Vallejo replied, “undoubtedly will be a
gentleman, a pattern of a man and an excellent husband. There will
be ample time for courtship after he arrives; there is no need for
rushing the marriage ceremony. You do not have to wed him if he is
not a proper man.”
“But my father wished it,” Anita said.
“Your father knew that Rojerio Rocha had been left without much of
the world’s goods. He is of a very distant branch of the family; yet
your father desired to see him better equipped with wealth. He
desired your marriage to Rojerio Rocha, knowing the man’s good
blood, but above all things he would desire, were he still on earth,
your happiness. You can make up your mind, my dear Anita, after
Rojerio Rocha arrives.”
“I wonder what he will be like, how he will appear, whether he can
smile and sing, and speak kindly.”
“All of that, whether it be Rocha or Fernandez blood in his veins,”
said Señora Vallejo.
“I shall, indeed, be glad to see him. How long it has been since a
stranger of quality came to us out of the north!”
The man beside the fire chuckled at that, and got up to walk slowly
down the slope toward them. Six feet away he swept his sombrero
from his head and bowed his best, and he smiled when he spoke.
“I believe I have the pleasure of addressing Señorita Anita
Fernandez?” he said.
“Señora Vallejo, did you speak?” asked the girl, without looking at
the man beside her.
“’Twas a coyote barked,” Señora Vallejo replied.
“Indeed, my poor voice may seem like the barking of a coyote to one
with a true musical ear,” the caballero said, “though some have said
it is near perfect in tone.”
“Are you mumbling, Señora Vallejo?” Anita demanded.
“I am not, Anita, dear. It is the wind whistling through the olive trees.”
“Ah! We grow with acquaintance!” said the caballero, lightly. “At first
my voice sounded like the barking of a coyote, and now it sounds
like the whistling of the wind through the trees. We grow more
musical, indeed.”
Señora Vallejo bit her lip, and resolutely kept her face from that of
the man standing beside her.
“Do you suppose, Señora Vallejo,” asked Anita, “that the odious
Captain Fly-by-Night will have the audacity to come to San Diego de
Alcalá, as he boasted he would do? Has the man no brains at all, no
sense of the fitness of things? San Diego de Alcalá is no place for
gamblers such as he. He pollutes the plaza if he walks across it!”
“No doubt the creature is senseless enough to come,” said Señora
Vallejo. She dabbed at her face with a lace handkerchief, and, in
dabbing, dropped it. In an instant the caballero was down upon one
knee, had picked up the handkerchief, and, remaining on one knee,
tendered it.
“Permit me, señora,” he said.

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Okinawan Women S Stories of Migration From War Brides To Issei 1St Edition Johanna O Zulueta Online Ebook Texxtbook Full Chapter PDF

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Okinawan Women s Stories of

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List of photos vii

1 War brides’ silent journeys 1

2 Memories of war and its aftermath: the Battle of

3 Okinawan women’s journey to the Philippines 31

4 Homecomings: the return to Okinawa 61

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