Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T00:36:59.352Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Amerikamun: Consuming America and Ambivalence toward the U.S. Presence in Postwar Okinawa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2016

Get access

Abstract

After the U.S. victory in the Battle of Okinawa in 1945, devastated Okinawans lived off of U.S. military rations, including unfamiliar foods such as pork luncheon meat and corned beef hash. Okinawans incorporated these and other U.S.-made goods into daily life as “Amerikamun,” literally meaning “American products,” but loaded with postwar Okinawan perceptions of America, its military, and the social contexts of the goods themselves. Connotations have shifted over the postwar period, at times suggesting Okinawan appropriation of American power through consumption of “luxurious” (jōtō) U.S. goods, but throughout the postwar period reminding Okinawans of American domination during the occupation and the unwelcome aspects of continuous U.S. military basing. “American Village,” which is a hybrid, American-style shopping mall and resort, is a concretization of this ambivalence, as multiple generations of Okinawans now have the opportunity to inscribe and reinscribe the meaning of Amerikamun on their landscape.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Ames, Christopher. 2009. “‘Gunjin’ kara ‘gaijin’ he: Okinawa ni okeru Okinawa kenmin to beigun no sōgo kankei ni tsuite no mizokushiteki kosatu” [From gunjin to gaijin: The practices and politics of everyday interaction between Okinawans and the U.S. military community in Okinawa]. Contact Zone 1(3):7283.Google Scholar
Ames, Christopher. 2010. “Crossfire Couples: Marginality and Agency among Okinawan Women in Relationships with U.S. Military Men.” In Over There: Living with the U.S. Military Empire from World War Two to the Present, eds. Höhn, Maria and Moon, Seungsook, 176202. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Field, Norma. 1991. In the Realm of a Dying Emperor: Japan at Century's End. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Figal, Gerald. 2003. “Waging Peace on Okinawa.” In Islands of Discontent: Okinawan Responses to Japanese and American Power, eds. Hein, Laura and Selden, Mark, 6598. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Fisch, Arnold G. 1988. Military Government in the Ryukyu Islands: 1945–1950. Washington, D.C.: Center for Military History, United States Army.Google Scholar
Gibson, James. 1994. Warrior Dreams: Violence and Manhood in Post-Vietnam America. New York: Hill & Wang.Google Scholar
Hein, Laura, and Selden, Mark, eds. 2003. Islands of Discontent: Okinawan Responses to Japanese and American Power. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Hendry, Joy. 2000. The Orient Strikes Back: A Global View of Cultural Display. New York: Berg.Google Scholar
Hokama, Taro. 2005. “Sengo no shokutaku: Gaikoku no aji ni shōgeki” [The postwar table: Shock at the flavor of foreign foods]. Ryukyu shimpo, September 24, morning edition, 23.Google Scholar
Inoue, Masamichi S. 2004. “‘We Are Okinawans But of a Different Kind’: New/Old Social Movements and the U.S. Military in Okinawa.” Current Anthropology 45(1):85104.Google Scholar
Johnson, Chalmers, ed. 1999. Okinawa: Cold War Island. Albuquerque, N.M.: Japan Policy Research Institute.Google Scholar
Kano, Masanao. 1987. Sengo Okinawa no shisōzō [A portrait of postwar Okinawan thought]. Tokyo: Asahi shimbun-sha.Google Scholar
Kelsky, Karen. 2001. Women on the Verge: Japanese Women, Western Dreams. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Kinjō, Shuzo. 1995. “Okinawa no Shokuseikatsu ni miru Amerika tōchi no eikyō” [The influence of American rule on the Okinawan diet]. In Sengo Okinawa to Amerika: Ibunka sesshoku no 50-nen [Postwar Japan and the United States: Fifty years of cross-cultural contact], eds. Teruya, Yoshihiko and Yamazato, Katsumi. Naha City, Japan: Okinawa taimusu-sha.Google Scholar
Kobayashi, Yoshinori. 2005. Okinawa-ron [Treatise on Okinawa]. Tokyo: Shogakkan.Google Scholar
Lutz, Catherine, ed. 2009. The Bases of Empire: The Global Struggle against U.S. Military Posts. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
McCormack, Gavan, and Norimatsu, Satoko Oka. 2012. Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Moon, Katharine. 1997. Sex Among Allies: Military Prostitution in U.S.-Korea Relations. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Moon, Seungsook. 2010. “Regulating Desire, Managing the Empire: U.S. Military Prostitution in South Korea, 1945–1970.” In Over There: Living with the U.S. Military Empire from World War Two to the Present, eds. Höhn, Maria and Moon, Seungsook, 3977. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Nakazato, Yoshihiko. 2000. Machizukuri no kiseki to aratanaru chosen: Shuho to jissen soshite yume no jitsugen e [The trajectory of urban planning and new challenges: Technique and practice and the realization of dreams]. Urasoe City, Japan: Shunkashuto-sha.Google Scholar
Nishime, Junji. 1998. Nishime Junji: Nikki sengo seiji o ikite [Nishime Junji: A life in postwar politics]. Naha City, Japan: Ryukyu shimpo-sha.Google Scholar
Ōhama, Sō. 1998. Okinawa Kokusai Dōri Monogatari: Kiseki to yobareta mairu [The story of Okinawa's Kokusai Street: A mile called a miracle]. Gushikawa City, Japan: Yui Shuppan.Google Scholar
Pratt, Mary Louise. 1992. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sturdevant, Saundra Pollock, and Stoltzfus, Brenda 1992. Let the Good Times Roll: Prostitution and the U.S. Military in Asia. New York: New Press.Google Scholar
Tamamori, Terunobu, and James, John C.. 1996. A Minute Guide to Okinawa: Society and Economy. Naha-shi, Japan: Bank of the Ryukyus International Foundation.Google Scholar
Toby, Jackson. 1957. “Social Disorganization and Stake in Conformity: Complementary Factors in the Predatory Behavior of Hoodlums.” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 48(1):1217.Google Scholar
Tomlinson, John. 1991. Cultural Imperialism: A Critical Introduction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Yamazato, Masato. 2001. An'yatasa: Okinawa, Sengo no Eiga [An'yatasa: Okinawa and postwar film]. Naha City, Japan: Nirai-sha.Google Scholar
Yoshimoto, Mitsuhiro. 1994. “Images of Empire: Tokyo Disneyland and Japanese Cultural Imperialism.” In Disney Discourse: Producing the Magic Kingdom, ed. Smoodin, Eric, 181202. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar

Public Records

Chatan-chō Gikai Kaigi Roku Heisei 6 Nen. [1994].Google Scholar
Chatan-chō-shi. 1988. Vol. 6.Google Scholar
Okinawa Prefectural Police. 1999. “All Criminal Offenses Committed in Okinawa in 1998.”Google Scholar