Archaeological Examination of Japanese Photographs and Archival Data from the Pre-WWII Okinawan Diaspora: Tinian, Common
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Archaeological Examination of Japanese Photographs and Archival Data from the Pre-WWII Okinawan Diaspora: Tinian, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Boyd Dixon 1 & Alexandra Garrigue 2 & Robert Jones 3 Accepted: 21 September 2020/ # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract This study looks at archival records and photographs from the pre-WWII Japanese occupation of the Micronesian island of Tinian to discuss the archaeological remnants of the Okinawan diaspora from the 1920s to 1940s in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) today. Keywords Pre-WWII . Okinawa . Diaspora . Tinian
Introduction Examination of early twentieth-century archival photographs, textual documents, maps, oral histories, and archaeological remains in this study converge to create a picture of a well-managed, corporate plantation with government subsidies on Tinian, on the Northern Mariana Islands. This perspective brings the Northern Mariana Islands into the forefront of pre-WWII industrial and urban development during a depression devastating the Japanese homeland and global economy, much as we are experiencing in the twenty first or “Covid” century today. Emigration from Okinawa, rural Japan,
* Boyd Dixon [email protected] Alexandra Garrigue [email protected] Robert Jones [email protected]
1
Cardno GS, 425 Chalan San Antonio Rd., PMB 1004, Tamuning, Guam 96913, USA
2
ARCGEO, 901-2215 Okinawa-ken, Maehara 3-17-2, Yuai Bld 1F, Ginowan-shi, Japan
3
Cardno GS, 250 Bobwhite Court, Suite 200, Boise, ID 83706, USA
International Journal of Historical Archaeology
and Korea enabled tens of thousands of individuals and families to improve their standard of living and expectations for their next generations born on Tinian. Personal sacrifices were endured, loyalty to their Ryūkyū homelands and family was stretched, and efforts were made to make Tinian seem more familiar, indeed a “transported landscape” in many ways. WWII brought an end to this dream and replaced it with a nightmare through which their families still in Okinawa suffered in subsequent months. The quantity and quality of documentary materials today found in academic and public libraries in Okinawa demonstrates that this story is not forgotten but is being told and retold within individual families. Repeat visits from Okinawa to Tinian every year also demonstrate that the Northern Mariana Islands were for a 30-year period of time, a very real part of Japan and the Ryūkyūs in the minds and hearts of a generation.
The Okinawan Diaspora to the Northern Mariana Islands Although conducted in close parallel to the general Japanese diaspora, Okinawan emigration in the first half of the twentieth century bears several peculiar characteristics engendered by the political and social compartments, of which the prefecture was the object in the colonial Japanese Empire. The Ryūkyū Kingdom officially came under Japanese government rule in 1879 with the creation of Okinawa Prefecture, but kept a special status within the
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